Loving Carter

16

Elijah's POV

Eli ran his fingers through his hair, staring up at the ceiling with his head propped up on the shitty motel pillow against the headboard.

He tried to ignore the butterflies in his stomach at the fact that Carter was literally laying on top of him.

They almost got to second base before he stopped them; their friend groups were weirdly mixed together and jeopardizing that with sex would make it awkward. 

He didn't really know where they stood now but he didn't want to think about it.

He couldn't remember the last time he kissed someone and didn't fuck them right after.

Carter currently had her head propped on her hands on his chest and her lips were swollen as she looked up at his face.

"So... that just happened," she said.

"Yeah."

She moved her hands up, trailing them across his collarbones through his shirt before she gently pulled the chain of his necklace out, examining the pendant at the bottom as she did earlier that night.

"What does it mean?"

He looked at her, watching her randomly colored fingernails and her slender fingers tracing the numbers on the pendant.

"It's my birthday," he said.

"December 17th? That's coming up soon," she said.

He nodded.

"It was my mom's necklace," he said. He hadn't told anyone that before.

"Was?" Her eyebrows turned down.

"Yeah, I don't really know where she is. She left a while ago," he avoided eye contact with her. 

She said nothing and he felt inclined to give her more information, "She's the main character in all my nightmares." 

Her fingers froze on the necklace, waiting for him to say more.

When he didn't, Carter lifted her hand up from the pendant, bringing it to his face and gently grazing his cheekbone in a comforting way. 

His eyes darted down to the pretty bracelet that was partly the reason they met. 

She noticed him staring at it and raised her eyebrow, "do you like it?"

"Yeah. It's cute."

"Do you have any bracelets?"

He shook his head. 

She said nothing, placing her head on the side back on her hands on his chest. He relished in her body heat. 

He was used to being cold all of the time; Carter made him warm.

"Your mom is missing out," she whispered after a while. "And I'll be there for you every time you have a nightmare."

Looking back at this moment, Eli knew now that his heart skipped a beat then.

He gently put his hand on her head, running his fingers through her hair gently as he pondered her words. "I know."

He pulled her hair up to the top of her head, exposing the back of her neck and skimming his fingers down it, enjoying how she shivered slightly at his touch.

"I like when you have your hair up like this," he changed the subject, feeling uncomfortable at the sudden tightness in his chest at the topic of his mother.

"You do?"

"I do."

He pondered over her choppy uneven ends for a second.

"Why do you cut your own hair?"

"I like doing things for myself and I like that it's imperfect."

"It look's perfect to me," he tugged on her hair gently, liking the softness and the way it felt tangled up in his fingers.

She sighed contently.

"We should go to sleep," she mumbled softly.

"We should," he agreed.

"Don't worry Goldilocks, I'll protect you tonight from whatever's in your mind. I promise."

His lips turned up at the nickname.

"We should probably stop cuddling," she said. "I feel like we'll end up doing something we'll regret."

"We are not cuddling," Eli denied.

"You're playing with my hair, buttercup."

"Be quiet, shortstuff."

"I'm not even short, you're just tall."

"Whatever you say."

Carter got off of him after a while and they built a little pillow fort between them on the bed so they wouldn't end up cuddling again.

****

Eli woke up the next morning with the pillow fort fully destroyed and Carter curled up against him with his arms wrapped around her.

a/n they didn't have sex they just ended up cuddling again in their sleep