CARTER'S FOUND A way around Mrs. Reyes's rules.

He knocks on the guest room door three times just to be obnoxious, because he knows I'm skittish about making noise that could wake them.

"Come in, already." I whisper towards the door with panic. I feel like I'm committing a crime or something.

He laughs and slides into bed with me. "They're not going to chase us around with a machete if they catch us together, you know."

"No I don't know, and neither do you."

I'm being dramatic, but I don't want Mrs. Reyes to feel like I'm disrespecting her in her home. We've been abiding by her request, technically.

Carter pulls himself on top of me and connects his lips with mines, drowning out any worry I previously had five seconds ago. He smells like his eucalyptus soap, and still tastes like the apple pie we had for dessert.

He kisses my jaw and down my neck until he gets to my sweet spot. He lingers there teasing me with the pressure of his soft lips.

"Now the question is can you be quiet?" He asks as his kisses trail down my chest.

"I was quiet last time." I suck in a breath when he cups my breast.

"Barely."

Without moving or pausing his lips, he grabs the pillow by his foot and swings it in my direction. It hits me straight in the face with so much force that my head falls back an inch.

"Fucking hell, Carter. Are you trying to knock my head off?"I clutch the pillow with force.

"Crap, I'm sorry," he says, and reaches his himself up to plant a kiss on my forehead.

When he pulls back, I raise my pillow and get him back with two straight blows to his head.

"You always mess with me, Summer." He carefully grabs the pillow by my head. "And I don't know why because you know I always win."

He hits me with consecutive soft blows. It's enough pressure to mess my hair up, but not enough to actually hurt.

When he slows down, I reach for his pillow and while he focuses on keeping it in his grip, I wrap my legs around his waist and manage to shift him over so I'm on top.

I secure my pillow again and smile at him. "I don't care if you win as long as I get the chance to play." I swing my pillow against him carefully.

"So lets play," he says, throwing his pillow on the floor and slamming his lips onto mine.

He shifts me so he's back on top, and we yank each others' clothes off piece by piece with our mouths still moving in feral unison.

He enters me and moves at a slow, tantalizing pace. I bite down on his shoulder to suppress any noise, realizing I could probably use the pillow he threw at me after all.

I know he's being careful so the whole house doesn't hear the headboard violently slamming against the wall, but I'm enjoying this nonetheless.

Our kissing is deep and sloppy, and his strokes are careful, yet deliberate in a mind blowing way. There's nothing I can do but wrap my legs around his waist tighter, drink in the heat of his smooth body, and surrender to this euphoria.

He drowns my incessant moans with his lips and I do the same with his. He maintains his form through my climax, and as I come down blurry eyed, watching him finish, it dawns on me we're not just having sex, we're-

"I love you." His head sinks into my shoulder as he shudders through his release.

I've been so in tone this entire time, but in an instant, my mind goes blank.

I'm shaking now, and it has nothing to do with his body this time.

He pulls out and begins to discard the condom, while all I can do is lay still in the same frozen position.

Carter doesn't notice when he pulls me into a cuddle, it isn't until I'm unable to kiss him back that he asks softly, "Are you okay?"

"Did you-" I swallow, "What did you say towards the end back there?"

He runs his hands up and down my back. "I love you, Summer."

"Um..."

Shit, shit, shit. What do I say? What do I do?

You're supposed to say it back, dumbass.

How do I say it back, how do I talk? "Uh, Yeah, so...cool."

"Cool..." He repeats with confusion.

"I- um." I know how I feel, yet at the same time I don't. I'm afraid I don't truly know what real love is. I haven't had great experiences, and I definitely haven't had good examples with my parents. I'm scared of the word if I must be honest. It's a word used too lightly in today's age.

Carter gets out of bed and begins dressing himself while I still stumble with my words.

When his shirt is on, he leans down, "I'll let you sleep on it." He leaves the room, abandoning me to overthink myself into a restless sleep.

***

The next morning is awkward. Carter kisses me when I come down for breakfast, and still rests his hand on my knee under the table, but a sense of awkwardness lingers on my part.

Mr. Reyes has joined us for breakfast for the first time, it only took him three days to get around to it.

He's dressed for work and eats his bowl of fruit by puncturing each cube with his fork like its disappointed him, and chewing like he's handing out a punishment for it.

Him and Carter haven't gotten around to that talk yet, though considering we're only here for another two days, I figure it's coming any moment now.

"How did you and my son meet, Summer?" Mr. Reyes asks and peaks his brow at me with interest.

It causes me to lightly choke on my orange juice. I don't know why, but something about that look has me thinking he might already know. Like he can read on my face that I met his son by getting drunk and breaking into his room in my underwear.

"We bumped into each other when she was meeting a friend in my building and just hit it off," Carter speaks up with a convincing story, thankfully.

"Yes, it was totally out of the blue, but I'm happy it happened," I say to Carter more than to his family. I rest my hand over his under the table and squeeze, as I smile into his eyes in an attempt to communicate to him that I'm still all in.

Mr. and Mrs. Reyes watch with smiles.

"That's usually how the best relationships start," Mrs. Reyes says. "You know that's how me and Daniel met. He bumped into me outside a coffee shop and blew all the contents out of my purse. After he helped me gather it up, I swear, we just looked at each other and fell in love. It was straight out of a movie."

Carter looks down at his plate and clears his throat, which causes Mrs. Reyes to stop her story.

"I'm sorry," she says.

"You didn't do anything wrong." Carter mumbles.

"What?" She asks softly.

"You have nothing to be sorry about. I just had some cantaloupe go down the wrong pipe. I want to hear the story, though." He encourages her to go on. "I'd like to hear it."

Mrs. Reyes glances at Mr. Reyes, who glances at his son then over to me, and that causes me to glance at Carter then back to them. After we all finish our glancing marathon, Mrs. Reyes settles with a smile and proceeds to spend the rest of breakfast telling us their relationship history.

Carter takes it in with polite interest the whole way through. Even when she'd occasionally glance at him to search for when to stop, he'd nod at her and encourage her to keep going. I'm proud of him for it, he's actually putting in effort.

After breakfast, Mr. Reyes pats Carter on the shoulder. "Meet me in my office after dinner," he says before he leaves for work.

Carter sinks at the thought for a while. He doesn't reach for me, doesn't even really acknowledge me until Mila drags us to her room for another play date.

We've done this a few times now so the routine comes easily. Mila and I both wear our dresses. Her sleeping beauty dress fits her perfectly, while my princess and the frog one is a tad bit big. We put plastic tiaras on our heads and feathery scarves around our necks. She hands me a green wand and saves the pink one for herself.

Carter stands outside the door and waits for the cue of our loud humming of the beauty and the beast song. He jingles the door, then pulls it back open and walks in dramatically in a zip up lion costume.

"Who dares to wake up the magnificent beast!" He roars with his best venomous look.

When I first saw Carter walk in with this I almost died laughing. After many threats, he managed to shame me into deleting every piece of footage I captured. I'll have the image forever in my mind, at least.

Mila raises her hands, and I join her in an over the top screech.

"We're princesses, you can't destroy us," I say, trying my best to strain my voice so I sound like one of them. I don't know which one, but I'm sure I'm doing them all shame.

Carter gets on all fours and shouts a roar. "I'm gonna huff and puff and blow your whole house down."

He chases Mila around the room on his hands and knees as her little feet wobble around the space. She's having the time of her life, filling the room with her giggles and pointing her wand towards Carter every once in a while to zap him. Every time she points it, he falls back and groans like he's just been internally wounded.

"Princess Tiana, help." Mila screams, breathing heavily with fatigue.

I cut in front of her and allow Carter to chase after me next. He stands up and actually puts in effort to run. When he grabs ahold of me, we end up in an impromptu wrestling match. He grabs my ankles to drag me down, then we go back and forth rolling around the floor trying to overtake each other.

This is one of my favorite parts of our relationship, the way we play around with each other so much.

"Princess Mila, we must get rid of this beast once and for all." I stretch myself to find her sitting comfortable at her plastic tea party table, sipping on a capri sun.

"No!" Carter groans, dreading the next part of the act.

"Yeah!" She rises up and places her hand on her hips like a superhero.

She grabs her wand and stand beside me. I get myself up and together, we wave our wands in circular motion, chanting a spell I pulled out of my ass.

"With this magic wand we summon the power, to change the world so we don't cower. To do so, and do it well, we must first turn this beast into Belle."

"Ahhh!" Carter crouches into a ball and fake screams. He drags himself into Mila's closet and comes back out in a yellow dress and a tiara.

"He's a princess!" Mila announces.

She applauds him with cheers for his transformation, while I applaud him for how much effort he puts into making his sister happy.

We settle down after and fake drink tea until she grows tired and Mrs. Reyes put her down for her nap.

Carter wastes no time rushing to his room to change back into his regular clothes.

With Mrs. Reyes at the grocery store and Mila unable to keep us distracted, there's nothing getting in the way our inevitable conversation about last night.

I sit on the edge of the guest room bed, trying to convince myself to go to his room and get it over with.

I'm scared, I won't lie. I'm scared to know what he thinks of my inability to say I love him back, I'm scared of the possibility of me building the courage to say it back right now. I don't want him to think I don't care about him, and I don't want him to rethink our relationship either.

When a knock comes on the door and Carter asks to talk, I realize there's no hiding.

"Hey," I say, forcing a smile.

"Hey." He doesn't sound half as cheerful.

"So about last night," I say.

He cuts me off before I can continue. "Listen, I know I sprung that on you out of nowhere. I just don't know when the proper time is for these sorts of things, so I stopped overthinking it and burst it out. It took a lot for me to get to this point, I never thought I would, to be honest."

"I know how much it took for you to say it." Crap, I'm voice is getting shaky. "You have no idea how lucky I feel, and how much I appreciate it. It's just, every time I think about saying that word I just freeze. This has nothing to do with how I feel about you. I don't know, when I think about love, I think about my parents and then I'm instantly bombarded with scene after scene of them fighting and screaming in misery. I can't let go of that image with that word."

When I get everything out, I can't even look in his direction. I toy with my nails and wait for him to say something in response, if he even does at all.

"I understand," he says. "This is new to both of us, I think it's okay that we're not completely at the same place. It's just a few words, after all. What matters is I can feel how much you care about me and I can see it. When you get to the point where you can say those words with me, we'll sing it together, until then, I'll continue to love you no matter what."

I can't hold it back anymore. Tears stream down my face and I engulf him in an embrace that he readily accepts.

He rubs my back and kisses my forehead. The whole time, I flash back to our entire relationship starting from the night we first met.

He's been a gem the entire time. He's my gem, and I'd do anything for him.