Carters Pov
.....
I cant help but smile as I watch Mila command all the girls like puppets. Blair waves when she sees me leaning against the door but scowls upon realizing why i'm here and who i'm looking at.
It's not that she doesn't like our situation, she's just worried for us. If we're caught together again—Mila and I that is—then we can say goodbye to the marriage. Maybe she'd be happy with that, but I can't let this go to shit now.
She also doesn't trust me to be out of the hospital so quickly, but I'm fine. Obviously. I wouldn't be out if I wasn't...
Blair flips off the top and Mila claps, telling them all the details for later. The hockey team is having practice and they all planned to go. It's their crappy excuse of wanting to see us all sweaty and hot.
The rest of the girls give me a wave as well before they walk off their stage and into the locker rooms, Blair included.
When Mila turns around and sees me, she frowns. Lovely to know that she enjoys my presence, not.
"I have a surprise for you.." I say while smiling, pushing away from the main door and walking down the aisles of chairs. "Is this surprise in public?"
I nod and her frown deepens. "I don't think so, we need to keep our distance. Right?" I don't blame her for doing this.
The whole 'push me away' thing. Since I know she's the one who found me, I know she worried in the ambulance and I know she cried in the waiting room. I know she cares for me more than she'll ever let on.
And I also know that fact scares her, a helluva lot more than she cares to admit.
She's been through hell and back, I get it. I just need to prove that we can be 'friends' without being shown on the media. That we can go out in public together as 'friends'
So my plan? Rent out a strawberry field from a farmer, couple thousand down the drain but she's worth it.
I hold out my hand to help her down and for the first time ever, she takes it without reluctance. We both realize but neither of us comment on it.
"What if I told you I had a surprise, that's specialized to you and you only. You don't even have to pay attention to what you wear or anything. No tabloids or headlines. Free from the media."
Instead of a scowl, her eyebrows raise in interest. Bingo, I've got her attention.
Until she slides her phone out from the cheerleading skirt and types for a couple seconds. "8718. That's only a quarter of the results for my name. A. Quarter. Do you realize how many headlines that is?"
I shake my head, letting her pace up and down, slowly, but I can still see how stressed she is. I know this bugs her, and I wish every single day that people would leave her the fuck alone.
"Here's an example, okay?" She holds the phone towards my face and it reads...
Emilia Violet left little to the imagination last weekend, wearing a tiny skirt and a tight corset for shopping with friends.
She scrolls again to reveal more, they're all along the lines of how much skin she's showing and who she's dating and others that are just plain rude, attacking her for her stomach or waist or legs or arms. They all have something to say behind their stupid ass screens.
Each one makes me a little bit more angry, a little bit more, and then just a little bit more.
"Do you get my point?" I nod again, wrapping a hand around her wrist to get the anxiety pacing to stop. "I mean seriously, they can never just stop. Why? Why do they have to comment on thi-"
I pull her in to me before she can cry, it's a failed attempt when she sobs quietly into my chest. Whether it's a muffled cry or not, it hurts just the same to hear her like that.
"I'm not crying in front of you, again." She mumbles and I kiss the top of her head. "Cant see your face, don't worry about it."
I might not be able to see it, which may give her some reassurance, but I can still see it. I can picture it, the tears welling her eyes and the mascara that she wears from the pink bottle that Blair gave her would be slightly smudged.
"Why do they have to comment on my body? Cant they just leave me alone?"
Ouch ouch ouch. Each word hurts a little more, not only because this affects her, but it's that it happens daily. Every single day she gets this.
"I know.." After a couple minutes of my arms around her and her face in my chest, she pulls away and turns around.
But I cant let her wipe her own tears, I'm here now. I'm here for her to do that, whether she likes it or not. She has me now. I'm hers.
I tap on her shoulder and she turns back to me, letting me remove the hands from her face so I can wipe those pretty tears away from her pretty eyes.
"You're perfect." I admit, silencing whatever protest she's about to give me before continuing. "In my eyes, you're perfect. Okay?"
Thankfully, she nods and picks up her heels off the floor, slipping her feet into them. "I'm gonna get changed. Then you're gonna take me to this surprise."
"Wait... I thought you were worried about someone spotting us." I relax at the change of tone and the light shrug of her body.
"You say I can trust you and I do. So this is me, putting my trust in you. Can I?"
Yes yes yes yes yes.
"Yes." Im grinning now and there's no point in hiding it. Mila wears a teeny tiny smile as she walks back up the stairs and across the stage.
"Wear something comfortable!" I call out when she turns the corner.
.....
"Carter. This kinda, maybe, sorta sounds like a date. That perhaps a possible boyfriend and a possible girlfriend would go to." I shush Mila, increasing my grip on her hand so she doesn't bolt.
"Cant you just shut up for like two minutes, then I can actually focus without your incessant, irritating, annoying voice, how does that sound?" She huffs to herself as I smile.
"Y'know, that would have hurt my feelings if you actually meant something to me."
"Oh wow, Mila. I got out of the hospital one, singular week ago and you are already unleashing your bitchy side on me." My hand goes to my chest to portray how deeply offended I am... not.
"Bullying slash teasing you is what i'm best at, sorry baby." She ruffles my hair as if i'm the ripe age of twelve before handing me my basket.
"Carter...You're avoiding the problem by doing this." She says 'the problem' as if it's two forbidden words.
And by 'the problem' she means the whole relapse thing, which is whatever. So I relapsed? What's the big deal? So I had a drink this morning, it's all in moderation.
"Cant you just let us have a nice day picking strawberries." Her face makes me think she'll say no, but thankfully she smiles eventually and begins to walk ahead of me.
"I have an idea. We make a competition of who can pick the most strawberries in one minute."
There's rows and rows of strawberry bushes throughout the field that stare back at us.
It takes me three seconds before I agree and she grins. "Prepare to lose, love."
I receive a delightful roll of those dark eyes of hers before she turns away from me and starts to collect as much strawberries as she can.
I do the same, resisting the urge to laugh as Mila struggles to walk in her heels. But to my defense, when I told her that I planned a surprise for after her cheer practice, I said wear something comfortable.
Which in Mila's book is five inch heels, flashy jewelry—including the necklace and ring i got her—a small white dress and of course, some sunglasses on the top of her head.
Her fresh set of nails are also no help to her attempts at plucking each strawberry. "This feels unfair." I hear her shout at me as my basket fills up faster than hers.
"Sorry, cant hear you over all the winning i'm currently doing!" I walk past her and lean down to kiss her shoulder.
She glares up at me while giving me the middle finger, truly a delight to hang out with. Truly. Just blissful.
"Okay, times up!" I pluck one final strawberry off the small stalk and stroll back over to Mila who's wearing a deep scowl.
"You're such an ass."
"If that was true, you would have left by now." Her eyes light up and she turns away, whipping her hair across my face in the process.
"I'm only with you because of pity anyway." She calls out as I watch her hobble back through the field in those tall heels she insists on wearing.
"Oh yeah?" I run up behind her, slinging an arm over her shoulder. "What about the night before the competition, that for pity too?"
"That was...it was a momentary glitch in my system, which has been repaired, by the way." Listening to her denial is highly entertaining when I now know that it's just lies.
"Blah blah blah." I lean down and whisper in her ear, imitating that voice Mila used the other night. "Remember who owns you, darling."
God that voice. It makes me want to get on my knees for her—oh wait! Already did that. Damn.
"I have no recollection of saying that, ever, ever, ever, ever, ev..." Her words trail off when I trace a finger up and down her neck.
Her attempts to keep walking fall flat as she turns to face me. "I have the hockey game a-and I would like to eat my strawberries, alone."
"Mhm..." The excuses also don't have much of a pull over her movements. She stays glued to the ground with her eyes locked on mine.
I wasn't even doing much, just running my thumb across her bottom lip. It's heavily satisfying to know that she gets flustered by me for a change.
"I'm leaving." She mutters under her breath.
"Convincing." I tease as Mila crossed her arms over her chest, which heaves up and down.
"You're such a- I don't know you're like this...I got it, you're a whore." This time there's no holding back the laugh that bursts out of me, her cute angry face only fuels how damn funny the insult is.
I have to contain myself when she begins to pelt me with strawberries, yes, seriously, chucking them at my stomach and head. "Mila!"
"Oh god sto-" A strawberry lands directly in the middle of my face. "Not so funny now, hm?" The strawberries don't stop hitting me in the face, one after the other.
My laughter doesn't stop either, she's impossibly annoying when she's mad, but also unfortunately, hilarious.
I chuck strawberries at her as well, because it's fair game. Although she dodged most of them, I still aim a couple.
"You're the biggest whore around." She shouts out after walking away from me on the floor, picking up some fresh strawberries for her basket in the process.
"Happy first date, Mila!" I call out just because I know it'll piss her off.
"This wasn't a date! Loser." Aw, poor girl is in denial. I'll fix that very soon.
I run up behind her again and we walk in silence back to the car. I don't even know where to drive until she speaks. "Is your house empty?"
"Mila, if you want to get in my pants, you could have just asked." She takes a deep breath of anger before continuing. "Can we just shower there? I don't want to use the school bathrooms if i'm covered in strawberry goo."
Goo. Funny word.
"Right. Yeah..." By the time we reach my parents house, she's knocked out in the seat beside me. Her eyes are closed and she's leaned her head against the window.
I almost, almost don't wake her up because of how pretty she looks with the sun beaming through the window and down on to her face.
But when I open my door, she murmurs something and stretches her arms above her head to the roof of the car.
"How long was I out for?" I open her door for her and hold out my hand to help her out, again, she takes it with zero hesitation. And damnit if that doesn't make my heart race.
Her hand feels so...safe? Like I'll be okay as long as we're holding hands. Weird.
Although as soon as her heels hit the floor, she releases my hand and brushes down the white dress. "Hey, Carter?"
She's only calling me by my first name because she knows what it does to me. It's the first name flutters.
"Mhm."
"You remember we made a handshake, it was in the sea before the whole...argument behind the rocks." Christ, if I even think of that day I'll shrivel up inside myself.
Every word I said to her, I couldn't contain myself when she was in the bikini, I wanted to tell her how much I wanted her. Instead, I told her about my sex dream..
'You were moaning my name, aching for my dick you speak so low of to be inside of you, because it's just that big and you're just that needy and desperate.'
Christ.
"Yes, I do remember that day...why?" She shrugs as the guard at the front door opens it for us.
"Just forgot we made one, I don't remember any of the moves to it." She strolls in first and I follow after her. The sounds of her heels on the marble floor of the entrance are incredibly loud.
My parents and Valentina were dealing with some business in Italy, thank god.
"So should we...I mean, should I shower?" She looks around awkwardly, avoiding my eyes.
"Who says you get to shower first?" We have multiple showers, but arguing with her is a lot more fun than the latter.
"First one there wins?" Her eyes take on a challenging gleam and her precious heels are kicked on to the floor.
We don't waste any time, running past each other up the stairs, she yanks me back by the arm and I trip her up on the fifth step. Both of us collapse over one another to get there.
At least she's happy now, her laugh is so damn gorgeous.
We both fall over from laughter, but I also wanna win. So I quickly grab her by the hand and spin her around a couple times.
Although she's even quicker, her knee digs into the back of mine, causing my legs to buckle. When we finally make it through my walk-in wardrobe and into the bathroom, there's not a chance I'll let her get in first.
She collapses with laughter before I slam the bathroom door behind us. Except the bang of the door doesn't fix the tension, if anything, it only heightens it.
The room goes quiet, she stands against the back of the door and I stand opposite, leaning on the counter.
She tries to walk past me and into the shower but I catch on to the material of the white dress, stained in a light red from the strawberries. Her eyes gazed up at me, trailing over my face.
Our heavy breathing didn't help the tension either, it felt like at any minute we would faint from the heat, the electrically charged lust.
Mila's closeness and the warmth of her body under my hand sent a small shiver throughout my body. Her lips parted as my grip tightened on the dress.
I took two steps forward and she took a step back until she had her back to the door. My arms came up on either side of her face, caging her body in.
Mila's gaze flicked down to my mouth. My gaze flickered to hers. She slid her hand up my chest, slowly, lightly, until she reached the collar on my shirt.
Her fingers worked on the first button and then the next as she licked her lips in anticipation.
"Y'know Carter, you're all boner, no balls." She says as her eyes linger on the rapidly growing erection in my pants.
"Is that what you think?" I taunt as I grab ahold of her wrist, stopping the slow removal of each button. All it took was her eyes to raise from my pants to meet my own, and whatever was holding me back, just...snapped.
I thrust my hands into her long hair, my tongue exploring her mouth. She let out a small moan and it made me smile internally.
Using my hands, I angled her face to take the kiss even deeper, letting her hot tongue tease with mine as I pulled back for a breath. "Up."
.....
Authors Note
Next chapter will be fun ;)
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Lots of Love Babies, mommy el <3
Words - 2950
Date - 16/06/22
Reads - 398k (+120k omg)