I fire a text message off to him before I take a shower, man to man.
And then I shoot my load over my bathroom tiles while thinking about Carrie’s pretty little blue knickers.
Michael
I should be long asleep when the text message sounds.
It’s Jack, of course, not Carrie.
My heart thumps at the possibility that she’s already decimated his patience. Maybe she’s already descended into hissing monster Carrie and he’s thought better of his offer. Maybe it wouldn’t entirely be such a bad thing, having to bring her back here.
Maybe I could hide her from Pam long enough to figure something out. Maybe having her around could work, even if I won’t allow myself to cross the line with her. Maybe I’d even be able to help her through her shit without having to check all the right boxes at work.
I open the message, expecting the worst – but it’s nothing like that.
Man to fucking man, Michael, are you gonna fuck the girl or what?
My reply is instant, even though my gut aches with it.
Of course I’m fucking not.
It takes a while for him to reply. I’m just about drifting off to sleep when the phone bleeps at me.
But you want her? I’m talking for real here.
I don’t let myself go there because I daren’t. I daren’t allow myself to admit how I really feel about Carrie Wells, because once I do that there’ll be no going back. I can’t allow myself to contemplate the serious potential of crossing the line with a girl less than half my age, a girl who depends on me to help her through this shitty time in her life. A girl who’s had nobody constant who’ll stand strong in the face of all her whims and tricks and silly games.
A girl who needs to know she can rely on me to be her friend above all other things, even if I’m in love with her.
I’m in love with her.
Fucking in love with her.
I’ve never felt so alive as I feel when I’m around her, and if I let myself entertain the possibility that this could be, even for a second, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to live my normal life again.
So I don’t.
I say the right thing.
The sensible thing.
No, I don’t want her and you shouldn’t either. She’s barely even eighteen, Jack. She’s a girl who needs care, not fucking cock.
I don’t get a response to that one.
And I don’t get any fucking sleep either.
Chapter Twelve
Jack
Carrie Wells is a one-girl whirlwind of backchat in my once peaceful home. She’s noisy and obnoxious, messy and disorganised with no respect whatsoever for timekeeping.
Every evening I head home from work nervous of what the fuck I’ll find there, and yet I’m still excited when I turn the key in my front door.
Michael’s right, of course. There’s no way he should contemplate fucking Carrie Wells, and neither should I.
But I am contemplating it. I’m contemplating it every fucking minute.
Still, I do try to talk myself down from pursuing that tight little pussy of hers, simply because I have no idea where that kind of crap would lead any of us. The girl is a loose cannon, and I’ve never been one for commitment. I’m rarely still interested in a woman after she’s spent the night in my bed, and where would that leave our living arrangement if it comes to a thanks, but no thanks next morning?
You know what they say: Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned – and Carrie Wells is both crazy and furious enough to make Hell’s own demons shit a ton of bricks. I really don’t need that kind of insanity on my plate, not while she’s holed up in my house.
But that’s really not what concerns me at the heart of it, not if I’m being totally honest with myself.
What concerns me most of all, is that this excitement I feel around Carrie Wells would survive a night in my bed, and escalate all the more because of it.
There’s no doubt she’s craving some kind of stability, and as grotesquely adult and responsible as it is, I feel a strange compulsion to help the girl find her own straight and narrow and keep her on it.
I know that helping Carrie has been Michael’s job for the past five months, and I know he’s been giving it his all, but whereas Michael usually has the experience to excel in this kind of one-on-one coaching, I can’t help but feel he’s slightly off the mark with this one.
Scrap that, I think he’s well off the mark with this one.
Call me arrogant for forming an opinion after just a few days in her company, but I really think I’m onto something.
Where Michael is trying the calm, stable and supportive routine, I think he should be giving her an earful of shit. Where Michael seems like he wants to wrap her broken bits in cotton wool, I think he should be putting a heavy foot down on her bad behaviour,