Page 24 of So Wrong It Must Be Right

He blinked and his expression shuttered a little bit. Enough so that she wished she hadn’t said it. She wished she could get her head on straight around him, but she was naked. She needed to fix that. She started pulling on her clothes and tried to ignore the fact that Carter still hadn’t answered her.

“What are you doing tonight?”

She whipped her head up to stare at him, all deer-caught-in-headlights like. She knew she should say no. She should say she was busy and they couldn’t do this and there had to be a boundary.

Not this whole day-and-night boundary nonsense, but like a real all-the-time boundary, because this was like playing with fire. Somehow. . . somehow everyone was going to get burned in the process, and she didn’t want any part of that.

“D’s got no plans,” she said despite all the rational thoughts in her head. Because Carter was right, it was amazing what sex could make people do. “Maybe she could go for a walk outside of Gallagher’s, say, around eight?”

Carter seemed to consider this very, very seriously. He was putting far too much thought into an answer. Or maybe it was exactly the right amount of thought. The thought she wasn’t giving this situation, clearly. Maybe he would be sensible enough to stop this insanity.

“Maybe I’ll take a walk around there myself.”

“You mean C will.”

Again there was that odd expression on his face, something unreadable. Something she was glad she couldn’t read.

He shrugged. “Yeah, C.”

“Well then I will say goodbye as D. Because these are two separate lives that we’re leading. Dinah and Carter don’t exist here.”

Surprisingly, he smiled. “Look, it doesn’t make any sense.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“I mean, how long does this reasonably last? Eventually it’ll get confusing, or too complicated or something, but for now why not just keep enjoying it until it’s impossible to enjoy? I’m not sure there are a lot of things in my life I’ve ever just sort of let go and enjoyed.”

Enjoy? Letgo? Haha. Yeah, no. “Me neither.”

“Then why not be hopelessly stupid motherfuckers who will live to regret this very decision?”

She laughed outright, and he smiled and laughed too and . . . damn it. Why not? Well, actually she wouldn’t ask herself that question because she knew the many, many why-nots. “All right, C. I think, in this arena, we have a deal. Would you like to seal it with a handshake?”

He glanced at the watch on his wrist and then grinned at her. A full-on grin, and she knew what he was going say, and she knew she should avoid it and not at all be turned on by it.

“Shaking hands isnotwhat I want to do on it.”

“Responsible, business-minded Dinah Gallagher would flat-out refuse that horrible attempt at innuendo.”

“And D?”

She glanced through the crack between the curtains and the window and noticed the world outside was still dusky. She grinned back at him.

“D rules the dark hours, and it appears it’s still dark.” She dropped her clothes, and in seconds they were tangled on the bed, kissing and laughing, and the Dinah voice of reason in her head was incredibly silent on the matter.

* * *

Carter made it through the day feeling surprisingly upbeat. There were some moments of grief definitely, things that snuck up on him—like the death of a basil plant, or thinking he smelled his grandmother’s perfume.

But there was a lightness to him today that hadn’t been there yesterday. He didn’t feel quite so weighed down. Sad, yes, but not broken by it.

He knew exactly why that was, and he knew exactly why that made him a fucking idiot. And possibly certifiable.

“Hey, Carter.”

Carter stood up from behind his bean plants to find Jordan standing at his fence. “Hey, Jordan. What’s up, man?”

Jordan opened the gate and entered Carter’s yard. He made his way to Carter through the rows of produce. It wasn’t unusual for Jordan to stop by unannounced since his grandmother was Carter’s neighbor; they’d become friends and had worked together on their summer urban-farming-for-kids program. But the next words out of his friend’s mouth were not what Carter expected.

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