Heart and Soul - Chapter 30: Chapter 30

Carter adjusted all too easily to this new normal.
Every night he fell asleep with his phone, texting Johnny. And every morning he woke up with a smile on his face and a 'Good morning' text to send that earned him an immediate reply. Being with Johnny in the library had quickly become his favorite part of the day, and he didn't bother hiding it.
Which is probably why, on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, he couldn't quite conceal his disappointment to see Lydia sitting with her brother. Johnny didn't have his laptop out, or anything for that matter. He was just sitting with his sister, both of them sporting matching teasing grins. Johnny's softened when he saw Carter, and that did something to his insides.
"Hey," Carter said quietly.
"Hi," Lydia responded, looking up at him. "Jessica is sick today. Her mom is usually my ride so I need Johnny to drive me home," she explained, deciphering Carter's expression. She shot her brother a sly smile. "He insisted we waited for you though."
"Oh."
Johnny looked up at him. "Do you mind?" He asked lightly.
"No, it's cool," Carter said. In truth, he wanted to stay. He wanted to spend time with Johnny. He didn't say it though. Instead, Carter smiled. "Let's go."
The three of them made their way to the parking lot, giving Mrs Lewis their goodbyes on the way out. When they got to Johnny's car, Lydia made an automatic move for the passenger's door. Johnny gave her a pointed look Carter would have missed if he blinked. Lydia looked between her brother and Carter before rolling her eyes and moving to the backseats.
While Carter fastened his seat belt on the passenger's side, he could have sworn he saw Lydia shoot him a knowing smile through the mirror, but he chose not to make anything of that.
"Do you want to come over?" Johnny asked, evenly, as they pulled out of the school's parking lot.
Carter turned his head to look at him. "To your place?"
"If you want." Johnny shrugged.
Carter smiled. "Sure."
At first, he was just happy to know he would still get to spend time with Johnny after school. But then he remembered who Johnny was. Where he lived. And he couldn't quite explain the strange anxiety he felt thinking about going to Coach Mason's house.
His trepidation was somewhat smoothed over, when he walked through the front door behind Johnny and Lydia, and a female voice called out, "David, is that you?"
"It's us, mom," Johnny called back.
A middle-aged woman came into view through an open doorway Carter imagined would lead to a kitchen. She had thick near-black hair, probably dyed, and wore a green apron over her clothes. Her honey-brown eyes warmed with a smile and it became blatantly obvious where Johnny had gotten that particular feature.
"Hey, you two," she said with a fond smile, before her eyes fell on Carter. Her eyebrows—brown, like the hair on both her children—shot up slightly in surprise.
Carter smiled self-consciously. He wasn't the biggest fan of introducing himself to parents. He rarely ever had to.
"Hi, ma'am," Carter said, as graciously as he could. "I'm Carter," he introduced himself.
Johnny's mother laughed a little. "Oh, sweetie, I know. We're big fans of yours in this house."
Johnny showed Carter a sardonic little smile. "Big fans," he echoed.
His mother dismissed his teasing with a playful wave. "I'm Diane. It's a pleasure to finally meet you in person, Carter," she said.
Johnny grabbed Carter's arm then, pulling him along, farther into the house. "We're going to my room," he announced, as they reached the bottom of the stairs.
"School assignment?" Diane Mason asked after her son, curiously.
Johnny spun around with a flat look on his face, while Lydia laughed shamelessly behind her mother.
"Or maybe I just have a friend, mom," Johnny muttered.
Mrs Mason gave him an innocent forget-I-said-anything kind of look. "Of course you do. I'm sorry."
Carter smiled a little as Johnny huffed, starting back up the stairs. Carter followed him and they went through the second and last door to the right, which Johnny closed behind them before dropping his school bag next to a built-in wardrobe.
Carter looked around his bedroom, for the first time. It was perhaps a little bigger than the one he had at the Santoros. It had one large window and a desk pushed up against the wall beneath it. The desktop was cleared in the middle, but books and papers piled up to the sides in a precarious equilibrium. Johnny's bed was bigger than the single Carter slept in. Shelves climbed the walls to the sides of the bed, with books scattered across the surface.
"Cool room."
Johnny smiled at him from near the bed, before taking a seat. He shrugged. "Kevin's is bigger," he said. "My parents keep it for when he comes home."
Carter nodded. "Is he coming home for Thanksgiving?" He asked.
"Yeah, should be here tomorrow."
Carter nodded again and Johnny's smile widened into a fully blown grin. He leaned back spreading his hands on the navy-blue duvet beneath.
"Wanna sit?" He asked invitingly. "Unless you'd actually rather do school work?"
Carter smiled sheepishly. School work really wasn't what he had in mind, at the moment. He moved to take a seat at the foot of Johnny's bed beside him.
"I can't believe you have a duvet," Carter muttered pensively.
"And two layers of sheets underneath," Johnny told him matter-of-factly. Carter shot him an incredulous look. Johnny snorted. "It's November, okay?"
"Yeah. In Florida," Carter pointed out.
"I get cold during the night," Johnny tried defending himself.
Carter laughed in disbelief. "And yet you told me you want to go to Michigan," he mused.
Johnny looked at him like he was surprised he remembered. Carter blushed, recalling the night they had talked about colleges. Homecoming.
"And, hopefully, MIT after that," Johnny told him quietly.
Carter raised his eyebrows. "If you go to Massachusetts, you'll come home as a popsicle," he said.
"I will not," Johnny exclaimed.
Carter laughed. It seemed to trigger Johnny's own laughter. They grinned at each other for a second, in silence, before Carter spoke.
"So... that's your plan. Michigan. MIT. NASA."
Johnny shrugged. "That would be the dream come true."
"I bet it will," Carter said surely. "Come true," he added in clarification.
Johnny smiled softly. "I might take you up on that bet."
"Good. I'll just have to ask for something nice when I win."
Johnny laughed quietly, shaking his head a little bit. Carter knew these little bits of silence were meant to be comfortable, but he still felt the need to fill them.
"The Santoros are all going to be home for Thanksgiving too," he said. Johnny met his gaze attentively. He seemed to be searching for something in Carter's eyes that he didn't even know he was showing. Carter twidled with his fingers. "Not sure how they're going to manage it. Maybe Richie and Jack will both stay in Mike's room. Or maybe I'll have to share with one of them."
Johnny stayed quiet for a while. "Does that bother you?" He asked mildly, without specifying which part.
Carter shrugged. "There's already a lot of them," he said looking down at his lap. "But Bella gets nicer when Jack's around, so that should be good."
Johnny smiled again. "I swear your little feud with your stepsister is ridiculous," he told him. "Bella Santoro is one of the nicest people I've met."
Carter opened his mouth to say something, but the words didn't come out so he closed it again. That gave him time to read the look on Johnny's face. A few weeks back he might not have caught it. But in that moment, Carter thought he understood what Johnny meant.
Bella Santoro was one of the nicest people Johnny had met. As in, Bella was one of the few people who didn't give him a hard time.
Something broke inside Carter then, as he remembered everything Johnny had confessed about the way he was treated in their school. Or maybe something inside him seared, as he decided what he was going to do next.
Without letting his brain take too much control, Carter put his hands on Johnny's face gently, and kissed him. Soft and tender. Johnny was surprised for a mere fraction of a second before he put one hand over Carter's wrist, the other still supporting him on the bed, and he sighed. He sighed into the kiss. A contented, sort of pleased sound that vibrated against Carter's lips.
Deciding he liked the results of ignoring his brain, Carter continued on instinct and pushed Johnny down with his back on the duvet, smoothly. He adjusted to position himself over the other boy, supporting his weight on one arm. His other hand stayed on Johnny's cheek, brushing a thumb over warm skin.
There was a knock on the door then that had him jolting away.
"Mom made cookies," Lydia's voice sounded from the other side of the door, which remained closed.
Carter laughed a little, falling back onto the mattress. He turned his head to see Johnny laying by his side, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"We're good," Johnny called back.
"Are you legally renouncing your rights to your portion of the cookies?" Lydia shot back. "Because I will claim them for myself."
Johnny huffed, frustrated, and Carter stifled his snickers into his hand.
"Just have at it," Johnny said.
"Fine," Lydia declared. "Sucker."
They heard footsteps moving away from the door and then down the stairs. Carter was still grinning in amusement when they stopped being able to hear her.
Gingerly, with the same anticipating caution one would have with a dog they didn't know but wanted to pet, Johnny moved onto his knees and got on top of Carter, straddling him much like a few days before at the beach.
Carter propped up onto his elbows to meet him half-way for another kiss. This time, he let Johnny take over entirely. His lips yielded, pliant to Johnny's will. Johnny traced the line of Carter's collarbone with one finger, before flattening his palm across his chest and pushing down gently. Carter's arms relented underneath him, sliding to his sides so his back was laid out on the mattress.
He allowed Johnny's tongue into his mouth, after his teeth pulled at Carter's bottom lip. He didn't make a single move to take control.
Johnny's hands explored Carter's shoulders and Carter bit back a moan as Johnny's lips trailed down his neck until they reached the t-shirt collar. Johnny lifted his head to look at him with darkened, wanton eyes. That look shot straight to Carter's groin, down his spine and coiled around his stomach.
He gulped.
Johnny licked his lips, moving his hands down Carter's shoulders and back up again. "I really like your shoulders," he admitted.
Carter laughed lightly. A kind of quiet, bubbly sound of contentment. "Yeah?"
Johnny hummed, curling a finger around the collar of Carter's shirt to pull it down and drop a kiss on Carter's collarbone. Carter's eyes closed happily and, when they opened again, he found Johnny staring down at him.
His eyes, usually warm and pleasant and enticing, were now darker with a kind of unvoiced desire that hung between them. Carter found it was every bit as alluring. He couldn't look away. He wished he never had to.
"I really like your eyes," he whispered, to match Johnny's previous confession.
Something in Johnny's face changed then, softened. Slowly, he lowered himself to join their lips again. But it was gentler now. Supple and mellow. Like they had all the time in the world to do just this, forever. With half-touches and lingering brushes.
Carter found he liked it just as much like this and his hand moved to rest on the small of Johnny's back.
Someone knocked again and they heard the knob squeak with the pressure of a hand. They jumped away from each other once more, just as the door started to swing open. Carter sat up, wide-eyed and breathless, to see Coach Mason standing with his hand on the doorknob.
"Hey—" Coach's eyes fell on Carter. "Parrish?"
"Hey, dad," Johnny said.
Coach Mason looked back at his son. "Hadn't realized you two were friends," he mused.
Johnny rolled his eyes. It still felt weird to see someone do that in front of Coach. "Why is it so hard to believe I'm friends with him?" He huffed.
"It's not. I just didn't know," Coach said. Pale blue yes danced between Carter and Johnny, sitting on opposite corners of the bottom of Johnny's bed. His eyebrows knitted in the middle. "Was this door closed since you got here?" He asked.
Carter saw Johnny's eyes widen in pleading warning. Coach cleared his throat.
"Never mind," the man said gruffly. He pushed the door open all the way. "You boys wanna come down? Dinner's almost ready," he beckoned.
Carter got up to follow Johnny, taking his phone out to check the time. "It's not even seven," he muttered.
Johnny smiled over his shoulder. "What time do the Santoros eat?"
Carter rolled his eyes through a grin. "On a good day? Around nine. On a realistic average, bordering on ten o'clock."
When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Carter followed Coach Mason and Johnny to the kitchen, a pristine canvas of black, white and grey with the occasional colored adornment. Mrs Mason stood near the stove with her apron, while Lydia sat at a black-marble kitchen island, munching on a chocolate chip cookie.
"You're not gonna have any appetite for dinner," Coach Mason grumbled.
Lydia smiled sweetly at her dad. "Mom said I could," she said innocently.
Coach Mason exchanged a look with his wife and Johnny snorted next to Carter.
"Only because you used emotional manipulation," he accused.
Mrs Mason swatted her son with a kitchen glove from afar. "Lay off your sister."
"Yeah, Johnny. Lay off."
Johnny narrowed his eyes into slits, but there was no menace in the look he gave his sister. Carter smiled softly, assuming her parents weren't the only people Lydia had wrapped around her coy finger.
"Are you staying for dinner, Carter?" Mrs Mason asked kindly with a smile.
"Oh, no," Carter said, straightening himself into the same posture he had before Coach every practice but aiming for a gentler tone. "Thank you for the offer, but I should go."
"I can drive you," Johnny volunteered.
Carter smiled. "It's fine, it's a short walk," he assured him. He turned to the Mason family—Johnny's family, Coach's family. "Have a nice evening. And thank you for having me."
Mrs Mason smiled delightedly. "Of course, sweetie. With those manners, come around any time."
Carter smiled, bidding the family one last goodbye before Johnny walked him to the door. He hadn't even reached the end of Johnny's street, when he felt his phone buzz in his pocket.
Carter smiled involuntarily, just at the mere sight of Johnny's contact ID.
That made Carter's chest fizz with anticipation. He hadn't been able to truly conceive the idea of not seeing Johnny for the whole duration of their Thanksgiving break. Spending time with him was now one of his favorite pastimes.
He grinned down at his phone.