Page 95 of Hot Shot

“Perfect.” She smiles. “Not a problem since the day you fixed it. Thank you again.”

“Hey, it was simple.”

The front door opens and Mr. Garner strides in. “I’m home! What’s going on? Carrie! Marco, good to see you.” He looks around eagerly.

“Relax, Aaron,” Mrs. Garner says with a sigh. “It wasn’t what I thought.”

Carrie’s dad frowns. He turns to Carrie. “You’re still going to Spain?”

Carrie’s bottom lip quivers. “Yes.”

“Oh.”

I sense Carrie’s emotions, almost feeling them myself—love and sadness, affection and distress. I want to wrap my arms around her and hold her and comfort her, and also keep her from leaving. And I sense her parents want to do the same.

We tell Mr. Garner about the project and he surprisingly volunteers to help also, saying that his retired buddies all have lots of money he’s sure they’ll be willing to donate.

“And this will be a good way for us to stay in touch with Marco while Carrie’s gone,” Mrs. Garner says with a wistful smile.

My insides twist and I sense Carrie’s discomfort.

Why do I want that so much? Is it because it’ll help me feel connected to Carrie while she’s gone? Is it because I want a family? But they’re not my family and Carrie and I aren’t really together and this fucking sucks.

“So your project is under way,” I say to Carrie as we leave.

She nods.

I open the door of my Jeep and help her in. “You don’t seem very happy.”

She still says nothing, and I round the hood and climb into the driver’s seat. I start the vehicle and set my hand on the back of Carrie’s seat to reverse out of the driveway.

“I’m confused,” she blurts.

I nod. “Talk to me.”

“I never thought my parents would miss me if I went away.”

“Of course they’ll miss you. They’re your parents.”

“But I always feel so useless around them. Around my whole family.”

“You’re not useless, Carrie. You clearly have an important role in your family.”

“I do?” She gazes back at me, eyes full of shadows.

“Sure.”

Her bottom lip quivers, and this time she seriously looks like she’s going to cry. She turns away from me to stare out the window. Eventually she says, “I feel bad that they think there’s something between us, when there isn’t really.”

That feels like a rusty knife twisting in my heart.

And the reason? Not just because she’s leaving, but because it’s not true. Thereissomething between us.

20

CARRIE

I enter my condo and drop my purse onto the kitchen counter, Marco following me. Late-afternoon sunshine streams in the windows to the patio, illuminating the leaves of a big potted plant there, my bright red wall glowing.

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