Page 90 of Carter

“No. Have you?”

“Yeah,” he says with a thoughtful smile. “Ryan and I talked about it all the time, actually. We wanted to get settled first, but yeah… I want kids.”

“It’s not that I don’t want kids,” I amend. “I just never thought about it.”

“Because of where your life was at,” he adds.

“Yes. Exactly.” I nod. “I think my brother will have kids soon.”

“Really?”

“He’s always wanted them. His husband was a dick, and that never would have worked. But he’s with someone new now, and I think they’re good together. I think they’ll have kids.”

It hasn’t been long and I don’t know much, but I know my brother. I see the way he’s changed since meeting Miles. This feels like a serious thing, and Jericho is an all-in kind of guy.

“You said your brother dealt with a lot with his husband?”

I nod. “Yeah, they got married young. Well, Jericho was young. Franklin was old enough to know that marrying an eighteen-year-old who dealt with serious trauma wasn’t ready to make that kind of commitment, but he didn’t care becausehe’s a selfish prick. They just got divorced. Actually, I don’t even know if it’s official yet, but they were together fourteen years. Didn’t live together for half of them though. Jericho has been in Chicago while Franklin lives in California.”

“Wow, that’s something,” he says sympathetically. “You all have dealt with a lot your whole lives, huh?”

I shrug. “I guess we have.”

Silence falls over us for a few moments as we eat a bit and drink our beers. It’s a comfortable silence, with the typical city background noise.

“I think kids are great,” he says. “Especially adoption. I mean, you get to give these kids a life they may not have had otherwise. You’re giving them a chance, and that’s important. Never mind all the cute stuff kids do. Like learning to talk, walk. The baths and adorable outfits. I can’t wait to have kids.”

“You’ll make a good father,” I tell him.

He looks at me with hope in his eyes. “You think?”

“Absolutely. You care. You have empathy, and that’s important.”

“Thank you,” he says softly, ducking his head.

We finish eating, and I wash the dishes while he puts the food away. All except for a slice he puts into a Tupperware container. The same one I gave him this morning.

“This is yours for tomorrow. Don’t forget it.” He holds it up to show me before putting that in the fridge too.

“Thank you,” I say.

“Just returning the favor.” He takes my hand. “Come on.”

Carter leads me back to the couch and we get comfortable like we were before, with him leaning against me and my arm around him. It feels just as right as it felt before. If not better because now we’re full and relaxed.

The movie holds my attention the entire way through, and I find myself interested in what’s going on, trying to put the pieces together with my cop brain.

His soft fingers brush across my side in a soothing rhythm. Back and forth, back and forth against my skin. I find myself paying more attention to that than the movie, and I have to keep refocusing my eyes. I want to know how this ends, but a touch from someone else has never felt like this. And then his finger slips under my shirt, and he’s touching my skin directly. It tingles and prickles and burns in a way I didn’t know.

“This okay?” he whispers.

“Yes.”

He keeps brushing his fingers back and forth until eventually his whole hand is under my shirt, the warmth of his skin against mine a feeling I could really get used to. My whole body grows hot, my dick grows hard. He has to know what he’s doing. He has to have a thought in his head of where he wants this to go, but he needs to make that jump.

“Are you thinking about kissing me?” he asks, his head still resting against my chest and his attention on the TV, but I think he’s paying attention about as much as I am.

“Yes,” I answer again, my voice raspy.