He’s waiting for me.

When he sees me, he stands up straight and waits for me to reach him.

“You okay?” he says, his eyes immediately falling to my neck. There are bruises there from what Jon did to me last night, but it’ll probably look even worse by the end of today, thanks to what Asa did this morning.

God, what kind of fucking life am I living right now that I’m choked by two different men in the span of twelve hours?

“I’m fine,” I say, unconvincingly.

Carter lifts his hand and touches a finger to my throat. “It’s bruised,” he says. “Did Asa notice?”

He runs the back of one of his fingers across my neck. I know it’s out of concern, but whenever he makes any sort of contact with me at all-no matter the reasonI seem to forget just how capable I am of actually feeling things. I’ve learned to numb myself over the past couple of years with Asa and Carter negates all that effort.

“He noticed, but he wasn’t suspicious. He thought he did it himself.”

My words cause Carter to flinch. His eyes flick back to mine. “Sloan,” he whispers, shaking his head. He pulls his hand away from my neck and runs it through his hair. I can see the roll of his throat as he swallows back what looks like pure hatred at the thought of Asa’s hands on me. He’s obviously worried about me, which I completely understand. But he also knows why I stay and he doesn’t seem to judge me for it. He actually understands my situation and sympathizes with it. I like that about him-his empathy.

Something Asa has probably never felt for anyone his whole life.

Carter lays a gentle hand on my elbow. “Come on. Let’s get our seats.” He makes an attempt to direct me toward the door, but I pull back.

“Carter, wait.”

He turns around to face me again, stepping aside to let two students enter. I glance down the hallway to the left and then to the right. “I have to tell you something.”

Concern overtakes whatever residual anger he felt. He nods and leads me down the hallway, away from the door, looking for somewhere more private. We pass another door and he checks the window, then the doorknob. It turns, so he pulls open the door and leads me inside.

It’s an empty music room, flanked with various instruments against one wall and several desks arranged in a circle in the middle of the room. When the door closes behind us and we finally have privacy, I expect Carter to ask me what I need to tell him. Instead, as soon as I turn around, he pulls me to him, wrapping his arms tightly around me, cradling my head against his shoulder.

He hugs me.

That’s all he does. He hugs me tightly without a word, yet I can feel everything he’s saying. And I realize that since last night-since everything that happened with Jon-he’s probably been worried sick about me. He probably wanted to hug me and reassure me last night. As soon as he saw me this morning. But simple hugs aren’t so simple in my life.

I wrap my arms around him and bury my face in his shirt, inhaling the subtle hint of his cologne. He smells like the beach. I close my eyes and wish we were there. Away from all this bullshit.

We stand in silence for several minutes, neither of us moving. After a while, I can’t tell who is hugging whom-who is holding whom. It’s like we’re both barely suspended, clinging to each other, afraid we might fall down if either of us lets go.

“I said your name in my sleep,” I whisper, slicing through the silence.

Carter immediately pulls back and looks at me. “Did he hear you?”

I nod. “Yes. But I think I covered it pretty well. I told him he misheard me-that I said something else. But he was really angry right after it happened, Carter. Angrier than I’ve ever seen him. And I just…I thought you should know. I think we need to be more careful. I mean, I know there’s nothing really going on between us, but-”

Carter interrupts and says, “Isn’t there, though? I know we technically haven’t acted on it, but this isn’t innocent, Sloan. If Asa even knew I had class with you…”

“Exactly,” I say.

Carter nods, knowing what this means. He can’t talk to me at the house. Hell, he shouldn’t even look my direction anymore. After what happened early this morning, Asa will be suspicious, even though he believed me. The last thing I want to do is cause trouble for Carter, but it seems I’ve already done that.

“I’m sorry,” I say to him.

“Why are you apologizing? Because you had a dream about me?”

I nod.

Carter lifts a hand to my cheek and the corner of his mouth lifts into a grin. “If we’re apologizing for that, then I owe you about a dozen apologies already.”