Heart and Soul [bxb]

Chapter Thirteen

*This chapter contains multimedia relevant to the plot*

Carter laid in bed on Sunday.

He slept like a rock through the entire morning and the earliest hours of the afternoon. When he finally made his way downstairs, the house appeared to be empty.

The TV on the living room was on, muted. Carter rubbed his face groggily, shuffling his way to the kitchen, where a post-it was stuck to the fridge. 'We left you the lunch leftovers', it said in his mother's tidy handwriting.

Carter opened the fridge to find a blue-lidded Tupperware stacked on top of piles of yogurt and filled with a sort of pasta mixed in a thick red tomato-based sauce. Carter winced as his insides twisted and churned. Normally, the idea of Tony's cooking left his mouth watering. But he was still recovering from Jenna's and Chaz's homemade mixes. His head was fine, save for the slight heaviness, but his stomach wasn't doing so well.

He closed the fridge, leaving the leftovers inside and taking the milk instead to make himself a bowl of cereal – the only food he could stomach with a hangover. While he sat at the kitchen table, alone, eating his off-hours breakfast, the door to the back yard opened. 

Jack stepped inside, leaving the door open for Bella to follow. They wore similar grins, with similar flushes on their tanned cheeks. Bella's oversized University of Florida t-shirt was stained with damp blotches beneath the arms. The hairs escaping her ponytail that didn't stuck out in the air were glued to her face in wet clumps. Carter's eyes quickly moved on to assess Jack's figure. His short dark hair was slightly mussed up, his damp white t-shirt clung to his torso and back allowing Carter to see through the thin fabric. Somebody had been working out while he slept in.

"You're up," Jack stated airily, with an easy smile.

Carter nodded wordlessly, though the statement hardly required an answer.

"Where's my mom?" He asked, as Jack reached into the cupboard for a glass.

"She's out with our old man. Shopping with Charlie," Jack replied, pouring milk into the glass. Next to him, Bella pulled out a stool from under the table and took out her phone.

"And your brothers?"

"Frankie left in the morning for Reggie's. Luca stayed at a friend's. Mike's bed was empty and made when I woke up," Jack told him, before gulping down the whole glass. He set it down on the table eyeing Carter with a knowing glint in his eye.

"You look rough. Was the dance that good?"

Carter's body reacted before his mind even had time to go there. He felt the heat on his cheeks and his own throat resisted the most recent mouthful of cereal on the way down. 

"No, it was–" he cleared his throat "–the usual."

It had most definitely not been the usual.

The weird drinks, dancing with his friends, tipsy jealousy-driven quarrels – all that was normal. But there had been one thing which fell out of the norm. One kiss Carter hadn't even thought about, until suddenly it was all he could think about.

Jack and Bella left him to go to the living room, turning the TV volume on. Carter grabbed the rest of his cereal and moved along to his room, where he stayed until dinner time. 

He tried busying himself with some Calc problems, after he was done eating, but his mind just kept going where he didn't want it to go. It was like a migraine. The more he told himself to stop thinking about it, the more it kept coming back stronger. At some point, Carter gave up the fight. He let images of empty football fields, honey-colored eyes and pink ready lips flash through his head. The scene played in his head mechanically, like the images of somebody else's life.