Page 20 of Practice Makes Perfect

Just as his fingers skate under my dress, the oven timer sounds and interrupts a kitchen make-out session that I will forever remember as one of my favorites of all time. Carter isn’t the most technically skillful kisser I have ever been with, but he is the best in more ways than one. His earnestness and desire to make you feel good above all else is what earns top marks. As we break apart, he smiles hesitantly before getting half our dinner from the oven. Shy Carter is back, but I have a feeling that the Viking isn’t as buried as he once was.

“You hungry?” he calls over his shoulder as he plates the chicken piccata and garlic bread.

“Famished,” I breathe out. Watching his perky ass move as he carries our plates is impossible not to do, and I give myself a mental pat on the back when I manage not to stumble on my way to the table. Placing his water glass in front of him, I take a seat on the side and dig into the meal, moaning my pleasure as the different flavors hit my tongue. “This is so good.”

Carter watches me eat for a full minute before he addresses my comment. “I’m glad you like it,” he finally says, taking a bite of his own food. “I love cooking for other people, especially when they seem to appreciate it as much as you do.” He winks at me and starts back into his food. After a few moments of comfortable silence and eating, he washes his food down with some water and stares intently at me. “Have you given any more thought to the party planning business?”

“Ugh,” I whine, dropping my fork on my already nearly empty plate. Everything tasted amazing and apparently I was hungrier for food than I originally thought. “Jake keeps asking me the same thing and I keep putting him off because I don’t know what to tell him. He’s my best friend and I don’t want to disappoint him.”

Carter reaches over and gives my hand a reassuring squeeze. “Let’s forget about Jake for the moment and focus on you. That’s what you being here is all about anyway, right?”

Nodding, I take a sip of wine. “It is, but he’s always had a plan for everything and it feels like he’ll be upset with me if I tell him I still don’t know what I want to do.”

“Plan for everything, huh?” Carter asks, giving me a wry look. “And how did that work out for him a few years ago?”

“Touché,” I admit. Jake’s strict adherence to his life plan is what caused him to lose so much time with Maya and his son, and he vowed to be better. I guess that coaxing me into getting a life plan figured out doesn’t count. “But even if plans aren’t always what they’re cracked up to be, it still feels like I should have one by now.”

Carter leans back in his chair and shakes his head at me, but there’s no censure in his look, only amusement. “Billie, you’ve been here for what, a month? I think you can cut yourself a little slack. Not everyone has a life plan at the age of seventeen like he did.”

“You did,” I argue. Carter has told me that he always knew what he wanted to do from the moment his dad showed him how to work with wood. Between him, Jake, and Maya, it seems like I’m the only one who has no idea what they’re doing with their life.

Carter shakes his head and scoots closer to me, taking my hand in his once more. “My dad showed me what he loved, and I was lucky enough to love it too. Same with Maya and my mom, but even then, she wants to be an artisan herself more than she wants to discover them for the shop now.” Maya has been turning a lot more of the day to day duties at the store over to me so she can focus on her crocheting and all the orders that have been pouring in from her online store. “And you told me Jake basically had a day planner in his hand from birth onward, so you can’t really compare yourself to him. You shouldn’t compare yourself to anyone else really. You’re your own person, no one else matters.”

Blinking over at the man next to me, I hide my shaky smile behind my wine glass. “How did you get so wise?” I ask. Swallowing down the last of my drink, I wash down the bitterness I was feeling toward myself as well.

Carter shrugs a shoulder and smiles at me. “I guess all work and no play makes Carter smarter than he looks, but don’t change the subject.” Damn. For a moment I thought he was going to let me get away with not talking about myself, but no such luck. His gaze turns thoughtful for a moment as he peers over at me. “You haven’t told me much about how you grew up. Maybe that has something to do with how you’re feeling now.”

“Maybe.” I consider my childhood for a moment and wonder if what Carter is saying has some truth to it. “Well, I grew up in a nice neighborhood and my parents were always very loving, but they also kind of let me do whatever I wanted. It was basically a free-for-all until dinnertime and as long as I got most of my homework done, they didn’t care about much else as long as I was happy, at least until high school when I started getting a little too unfettered with the freedom they allowed me. Then it seemed like I was doing stupid things like throwing parties or trashing the rival school’s gym just because I could and everyone kind of expected me to.”

Carter nods, processing my words. “Maybe it was too much freedom. We all figure out who we are eventually, but when we’re little, it’s our parents and the adults around us who guide us towards that.”

“My parents love me,” I tell him adamantly. They do, and maybe they weren’t always perfect, but Lord knows neither was I. There were plenty of ways I caused them worry. Even now my dad seems regretful at the fact that I was so lost and worries that I won’t find my way back to myself. Whatever that means.

Carter holds up his hands in surrender. “I know they do. How could they not?” Before I can decipher what that last question meant he barrels ahead. “All I am saying is that maybe in an effort to let you be your own person, they forgot that they needed to help you figure it out along the way.”

I hit the back of the chair as I take in his words. “Oh.” Carter might be right. I kind of always just floated along, doing whatever anyone else wanted me to do with no one showing me the type of person I could be.

Cater hums thoughtfully at my reply, but doesn’t utter a word. Instead, he stands up and clears our plates, depositing them into the sink. When he comes back to the table he stops by my chair and holds a hand out for me, pulling me to my feet after I place my hand in his. “Come with me,” he commands as he pulls me into the bathroom again.

“If we’re coming in here to make out some more, I can tell you right now I am one hundred percent on board with that plan.” It will be a little jarring going from talking about my childhood to kissing Carter, but I’m willing to deal with a little cognitive dissonance if it means I get to feel his lips on mine.

Carter chuckles and shakes his head as he positions me in front of the mirror. “What do you see when you look in the mirror?”

Giving myself a long hard look, I see what I normally do whenever I get ready in the morning, with the possible exception that I look a lot more rested than I used to. Shrugging, I turn my eyes to the man beside me. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to see.”

“Would it help you if I told you what I saw?” When I nod, he gently turns me back to face the mirror, his hands resting lightly on my shoulders. “What I see is a smart, thoughtful, caring, captivating woman who works hard and does whatever she can to make other people happy.” He leans over until his head is nearly resting against mine. “I see someone who doesn’t have to think too hard about who she is or what she wants to do because right now, the person you are, the person staring back at me, is enough. You are enough, Billie.”

Moisture gathers in my eyes at what are perhaps the kindest and most impactful words anyone has ever said to me. Thinking that I am enough just as I am, that I don’t need to have a life plan or have everything figured out at the moment has my chest feeling tight, even as all the pressure I had put on myself to have it all together starts to dissipate. Uncomfortable with all this emotion, and the fact that I can tell I’ve just fallen a little bit in love with Carter, I try to make a joke to lighten the mood. “So what you’re saying is I can be whatever I want to be. Even an astronaut?”

Carter rolls his eyes indulgently at me and huffs a laugh. “While I have no doubt that a charismatic person such as you could easily talk their way aboard a spacecraft, that’s not what I meant and you know it,” he chastises, spearing me with a look in the mirror.

“I know.” Reaching up and grasping the hands that rest on my shoulders, I give them a gentle squeeze. “And thank you. I appreciate what you just said. It means a lot.”

“You’re welcome.” His mirror gaze finds mine, and even from here I can tell that his mind has taken a wicked turn. “Now, I think I remember someone saying something about dessert.”

Spinning, I pin him to the wall and push my body up against his. “Come on, Viking. Time for something sweet.” When I reach up to kiss him, it feels so right that I nearly stumble, but Carter catches me, gripping my arms and holding onto me so tightly I’m not sure he’ll ever let me go. More than that, I’m not sure I want him to.

Chapter Fifteen

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