You owe me nothing, Carson.”
His brows furrow together. “We may be messing around, but you’re still my best friend and I would like to talk about this with you.”
Fuck, I forgot about the whole being best friends thing. I guess I have to hear all the gory details now. I nod him on.
“Gillian popped up today, totally unexpected.”
I snort. “Sounds just like her.”
He laughs. “Yeah, I never could get a handle on what she would do next. I thought she’d zig and she’d zag. We were never on the same page.” He takes a sip of his spiked hot chocolate. “Anyway, she says that she left me prematurely. That she thought that there was no point in being with me if I didn’t want marriage and kids with her.”
“So, now she’s changed her mind?”
“No, she still wants those things, but now she says she’s willing to wait as long as I can promise that we will get there eventually.”
“And…what did you say to that?”
“I didn’t say much of anything, actually. She said that she still loved me and would wait as long as I needed. Then she kissed me but you saw that.”
I nod as I press my lips together. “And what do you think? Do you still love her? Do you see yourself having kids with her one day?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says quietly, shaking his head. “If you would have asked me this question yesterday, I would have said hell no. But now…”
“What’s changed now?”
“She came back,” he answers. “I thought I’d never see her again so I didn’t waste any time thinking about it. I spent nearly five years of my life with her, so it seems unfair to just throw all that away.”
I swear, I feel my heart crack and I can’t figure out why. I wanted Carson and I’ve now had him. That’s all I wanted, isn’t it? I should be happy that the woman he’s spent so much time with is asking for him back. I should be happy that my friend is being offered his happily ever after, but I’m not. Why?
I look up and his icy-blue eyes meet mine. I see years of friendship, troubles, good times, and love. But not the way I loved him when we were kids. This is a different type of love. How did that happen? Am I in love with Carson?
“Anyway, I told her that now isn’t the time to try making important decisions. The holidays are crazy enough without adding important life events into the mix. So I told her I’d talk to her when I got back home after New Year’s.”
“So…right now, you’re still single?” I ask, looking up at him from beneath my lashes.
He cracks a smile and nods. “Yeah, I’m still single.”
My smile breaks free. Even if I can’t have him forever, I can have him for now. That’s better than nothing…I think. When I smile, he smiles, and then the next thing I know, he’s pulling me in for a kiss. He sets his cup down and his hands move up to cup my cheeks, holding me to him. His tongue presses against my lips and I open for him. He enters and our tongues dance together in a perfect rhythm. I reach up, fisting his shirt in my hand, pulling him closer and never wanting him to leave.
He pulls back and whispers against my lips, “Want to get out of here and make that car fantasy a dream come true?”
I giggle and nod. “Yes, yes, I do.”
He stands up and pulls me to his side. I wrap my arm around his, and he leads me back to the car. Inside, he pulls out into traffic quickly. I have no idea where he’s going, but he turns down a secluded backroad that’s pitch-black in the middle of the country. He turns onto a dirt road that seems more like a farming road than anything else, and he puts the car in park but doesn’t kill the engine.
“We’re going to need some heat out there,” he says, swinging open his door.
I climb out and meet him around the front in the darkness. I look up at him and he looks down at me. In the same instant, we grab one another and start kissing. This kiss isn’t like the one we just shared by the ice rink though. This kiss is like all our other kisses, brought together out of need and desperation. He pulls me against him and his