It's Me, Again

Ch. 21 (Kate)

I thought for a minute about how to respond.

Me: Happy Friday! It's been an interesting week, but not bad. I hope you've had a good week too. Have a great weekend!

"Something important?" Carter asks, bringing me out of my thoughts.

"Hm? Oh, no not important. Just a friend," I hold up my phone and then put it away.

"Okay, you just had that serious thinking face going on."

"I don't have a serious thinking face." I deny, even though I'm pretty sure I do.

"Yeah, you do. You start to zone out cause you're so focused on your thoughts and your brows start to knit together."

Instinctively, I touch the space between my eyebrows. My mom always tells me that I scrunch up my face when I'm thinking too hard and that they'll give me wrinkles.

"Well, it was nothing serious. Just my friend saying hi."

I should tell him it's Dylan, but I don't want to cause tension. Things have been going so well today and I'm sure the last thing he wants me to bring up is my ex.

"Okay. Want to grab lunch at the food court?"

He believed me. No questions asked. No suspicions. That made me feel even worse. Carter is so trusting and kind and I'm over here harboring complicated feelings for my ex. I know I'm not really lying to him, but every time I omit something I feel like I'm betraying him.

"Yes, I'm starving. Let's go."

****

After shopping, Carter dropped me back off at the apartment and he went to take care of a few things at his apartment. We're supposed to double date with Sarah and her boyfriend for dinner tonight. I'm excited to finally "meet" Sarah's boyfriend tonight. Carter knows him and says he's awesome and really funny, which makes sense cause Sarah is hilarious. I wonder if her boyfriend, Marcus, knows about our trick on Sarah with the british words.

I text Carter.

Me: I think you should double down on the british words tonight at dinner. It would be so funny. Maybe we'll see Sarah's eye start twitching haha

Carter: I better brush up on my vocab!

Me: You'll be fine! I'll see you later.

****

Carter arrives at the apartment at 6 for some pre-dinner drinks with Sarah and Marcus. He's wearing dark grey jeans, black boots, and an untucked lavender colored button down.

"We match!" I say as I let Carter in. I'm wearing a black ruffled dress with tiny cute lavender flowers printed all over.

"So we're literally a 'match' made in heaven?" he replies with his cheesy, but adorable joke.

"Sorry, that was horrible," he says embarrassed.

I giggle, "No, it was funny."

I've finally re-met Marcus and he is really friendly. He put me at ease immediately and he seems perfect for Sarah.

As I'm not much of a drinker, Sarah poured just a little bit of wine in my glass for us to all toast to our night.

"I'm so glad we were able to do this tonight," I say cheerily as I put the wine glasses in the sink.

"Yeah, it's always a fun time with you guys and I'm so happy to see you up and moving, Kate," Marcus replied. He hadn't seen me since before my accident.