46 || Mission Impossible Two: The Sabotage

The next day at lunch Carter told everyone the news.

"So I'm moving," he said as soon as we'd all been seated.

The entire table went quiet.

"You're moving?" Trevor was the first to speak. "What the fuck does that mean?"

"Language," Ivy chided him.

"It means I'm moving back to England."

Everyone turned to stare at me. I looked down at my cupcake like it was the most amazing thing in the world. At any other time it would be.

Carter went on to explain why he couldn't stay even though he was of legal age.

"So basically your dad is holding you hostage," Ryan says.

"But you can't move!" Chanel exclaims. "We'd miss you too much!"

"And your life is here now," Nikole adds. "Can't you talk to him?"

"Believe me I've tried," Carter replies wryly. "But it's like talking to a wall."

Ivy has on her thinking face. She opens her mouth to speak but Trevor beats her to the punch.

"Maybe we could talk to him," he suggests.

Ryan waves his fork around. "Yeah like over the phone or something. Convince him to let you stay."

Carter shakes his head. "That's nice of you guys but I don't think it would work."

Chanel turns to me. "What do you think Aubrey?"

I've been silent this whole time and I continue to remain silent. Instead of replying I just shrug and continue to poke holes in the icing of my cupcake.

The girls all give me sympathetic looks but I remain blank faced.

Carter's phone rings and he excused himself to take the call. When he's gone Ryan turns to me.

"You okay Aub?"

Nikole punches him in the arm and he rubs it glaring at her. "Ow! What the hell was that for?"

"For asking such a stupid question. Of course she's not okay! She just found out her boyfriend is moving across the Atlantic!"

"Well sorry! I was just trying to be a good friend."

"You can be a good friend by not asking stupid questions!"

Carter comes back to the table with a pensive look on his face.

"What's wrong now?" Nikole asks.

He blows out a breath. "That was my mom. Apparently my dad is here."

"What?" I blurt out, speaking for the first time.

"How the hell is he here?" Trevor exclaims. "Did he fucking teleport?"

Ivy rubs her temples and shoots him an incredulous look. "Trevor are you serious? He obviously took a plane."

"Or a boat," Chanel adds unhelpfully.

"Who cares how he's here," Ryan stands. "Now we can talk to him face to face."

"Guys-" Carter tries but Nikole interrupts him.

"We're gonna stop you from moving if it's the last thing we do!" She holds her hand up. "Who's with me?"

"We are!" Everyone exclaims except me. I just stare despondently ahead.

"Aubrey," Chanel nudges me. "Earth to Aub."

This is so stupid. They'll never get Carter's dad to change his mind. It's hopeless. I'm not normally this doom and gloom but I've sunk into a hole and I don't have the energy to pull myself out.

I stand up and start packing my stuff. "I have to go print out a copy of my transcript. I'll see you guys later."

I walk away before they can say anything. I'm out the cafeteria doors and in the hallway when someone falls into step beside me. I don't have to look to know it's Carter.

He steps in front of me. "Aubrey."

I sigh and cross my arms. "Yes?"

He gives me a look. "I'd have thought you of all people would be happy about their plan."

"Well I'm not because it's stupid and pointless. We're only setting ourselves up for disappointment. Tell me, do you think they'll be able to convince your dad?"

He rolls the ball of his tongue piercing and sighs.

"Probably not."

"Exactly."

"Hey," he pulls me closer. At first I don't budge and stand firm but eventually I relax into his arms.

"I don't know how but it's gonna be okay," he says.

"No it's not."

"I thought I was supposed to be the pessimistic one."

"We pulled a freaky Friday and switched bodies."

He smiles and I can't help but smile back, even though my heart hurts.

"There it is," he tilts my chin up before kissing me. In that moment I've never wished for anything as badly as I wish for him to stay with me forever.

💘💘💘

I can not believe this.

I can not believe I'm about to break into my own boyfriends house.

Several hours earlier

"Aubrey come on! It's not like anybody is getting hurt."

"Me!" I exclaim. "I get hurt!"

Ivy is the last person I'd expect to lie to me. But she did. She called me over to her house to spend some time with the girls with the promise of copious amounts of comfort food and a chick flick movie marathon.

Instead I'd been tricked into a secret meeting to get Carter's dad to let him stay. Nikole called it Mission Impossible Two: The Sabotage

Ivy was at her whiteboard standing on one side, Nikole on the other, Trevor and Ryan sprawled across the floor, and Chanel and I on the couch.

"The plan is simple," Ivy taps the board with her pointer finger. "Trevor and Ryan will offer to take Carter's dad on a tour of our beautiful city. Of course Carter will tag along. On this tour they'll talk about how great it is here, how well Carter is doing, and how college is a great experience. Basically they'll be buttering him up. While they're doing that me, Nikole, Chanel, and you Aubrey will sneak into Carter's house, find his ticket back to England and rip it up."

I cross my arm. "What good does that do? Carter's dad will just buy another ticket."

Nikole smiles. "On the contrary. He can't. Ivy and I checked, all flights back to England are booked on all airlines for the next couple months. Apparently it's become a popular vacation spot." 

"We're just prolonging the inevitable," I argue.

"This plan will work," Ivy insists. "Once Carter's dad sees how great it is here and how great Carter is doing here, he won't hesitate to fund his entire college tuition and let him stay while he returns back to England with his one way ticket."

"Wow," I lean back against the couch. "You guys are really betting a lot on this measly plan."

"Do you have a better idea?" Nikole raises a brow at me.

"Yeah Aubrey," Trevor turns to me. "Please. We're all listening."

I look at each of them. They're all staring at me expectantly. I roll my eyes.

"Fine. I'll go along with this stupid plan."

Everyone cheers and Ivy comes up to me.

"Cheer up babe. You'll thank us later."

Present

"Ow!" Chanel says loudly. "I think I just got stung by a bee!"

"Shhhh!" Nikole shoots her a dirty look.

I mentally roll my eyes. This is ridiculous. We're seriously hiding in the bushes near Carter's house in some sort of stake out. Chanel thought it would be a good idea for us to wear our camo outfits, the ones we wore when the girls and I snuck into that fancy restaurant for Ivy's blind date. Ivy's camouflage outfit is army green.

"Are you sure they're going out?" Ivy turns to me. I nod.

"Trust me. Every Saturday Carter's mom and the twins have a mother daughter outing."

Just as I finish my sentence the front door opens and the twins run out to the car.

"Hurry mom! We have to get to the store before all the toys are gone!" Sophia says. Olivia is bouncing on her toes.

"I'm coming, I'm coming," she quickens her pace and unlocks the door for them. They scramble inside and she quickly buckles them up before shutting the door and climbing inside herself.  The engine starts and she slowly backs out. Once she's on the road she puts the car in drive and we all watch as it disappears down the street.

"Move, move, move!" Nikole whisper shouts and we all hurry out of the bushes toward Carter's house. We reach the front door and I pull out their spare key from under their welcome mat.

"Wow. Seriously?" Ivy says. I chuckle.

"That's what I said," I stick the key in the lock and turn it.

Chanel shuts the door behind us and we all stand in the living room to collaborate.

"Obviously its upstairs," Nikole says. "Lets split up. Chanel and I will check his room while Aubrey and Ivy check the study."

We all nod at each other and separate.

Carter's dad study is a mess, and considering he's only been here for a couple days that's something. Ivy takes to searching the drawers and desk while I check the file cabinets. There's so many folders and papers to shift through, I hope Nikole and Chanel are having better luck than we are.

I'm crossing the room over to Ivy when my foot gets caught in something and I trip, crashing into the desk and sending papers flying everywhere.

"Are you okay?" Ivy rushes over.

"Fine," I rub my arm. "Just got a little banged up. This is hopeless. We're never gonna find anything in this mess."

"Don't say that," she chastens me. "We've barely begun to look."

"Yeah and-"

"GIRLS!" Chanel screeches. "I think we found the tickets!"

Ivy and I scramble up and rush out of the office into his room.

Nikole and Chanel are crouched before an open closet in front of a shoebox. There are papers strewn about from their digging but Chanel holds up the tickets grinning.

"Which one is Carter's?" Ivy snatches the tickets away, examines them, and hands Chanel back one. "Here. This is his dad's. This," she holds up the other ticket,"is Carter's."

"Oh oh can I rip it? Pretty please?" Nikole pleads. Ivy nods and hands her the ticket.

Suddenly I'm not so sure this is a good idea. "Wait guys maybe we shouldn't-"

It's too late. Nikole has already torn the ticket in half and just for good measure she rips it into tiny pieces.

"Wooh!" She throws the pieces up. "Let's see him get back to England now!"

The girls all cheer. Just then there's the sound of a door slamming. We all freeze.

"Shít!" Nikole curses. "Someone's home. Quick put everything back!"

Ivy and Nikole rush to shove the papers back into the the shoebox and stuff it back in the closet while Chanel and I pick up the scraps of Carter's ticket.

"The backdoor," I hiss gesturing for them to follow me. I stick my head out of the room and peer down the hall, Ivy, Nikole, and Chanel craning their heads to look out as well. When I'm sure the coast is clear we all tiptoe as quickly as we can downstairs. There's humming from the kitchen and I can hear Olivia and Sophia laughing. Luckily there's a half wall that blocks your view of the staircase from the kitchen. To the right is a tiny hall that leads to a backdoor that leads outside. We dash out and hop fence, then circle back around to the front where I stuff the spare key back under the mat. Then we all race to Ivy's car and climb inside.

"We did it!" Chanel cheers. "Now floor it Ivy!"

Ivy starts the car and we take off, giggling like mad.

💘💘💘

We all reconvene back at Ivy's house.

"So how did it go?" She asks the boys. "Were you successful in convincing his dad?"

"The man is harder to crack open than a clamshell," Ryan says. "And he's intimidating as hell too. The way he carries himself, he's like a scary CEO or something."

"We tried our best," Trevor adds. "But I don't think we even made a dent. He's set on Carter moving back to England."

"Good thing we were successful," Chanel chirps. "Carter won't be going anywhere."

"Yeah about that," Trevor starts. "Don't even ask me how but he has friends in Southwest Airlines. I'm pretty sure all he has to do is ask and he'll be able to get a new ticket for Carter."

"Or he could just wave his money," Ryan pipes in.

"So we all failed?" I ask. Why am I even surprised, I knew this plan was a bust from the beginning. I should've never gotten my hopes up.

"Aubrey-" Ivy starts but I hold up my hand.

"No. I told you guys this was a dumb idea from the beginning. I should've never listened to any of you. I'm going home and I'm going to walk. Don't follow me."

Before they can reply I storm out of Ivy's house. I'm not even mad at them, I'm mad at the unfairness of the situation. Carter can't leave.

He can't leave me.

I don't even realize where I am until I look up. My feet just carried me and my mind was blank.

Carter's house.

His motorcycle is absent meaning he's not home. Just his moms car as well as a really fancy looking car.

I knock on the door then at the last second realize I'm still wearing my camo outfit. Oh well. Carter's mom answers.

"Aubrey hi!" She exclaims. "Carter's not home but you're welcome to come in and wait."

"Thanks," I step inside.

"Aubrey!" The twins shriek and run to tackle me in a hug. My eyes tear up realizing that this may be my last tackle hug from them.

"Hey guys," I give them a watery smile.

"Oh no!" Sophia exclaims. "Did we hurt you?"

"Nooooooo!" Olivia wails. "We're sorry!"

"You didn't hurt me," I stroke each of their heads. "It's just girl hormones."

"What are hormones?" Olivia asks curiously.

"You'll find out when your older."

"I hate it when adults say that," Sophia grumbles crossing her arms. I chuckle.

I stand up and dust myself off. The girls excitedly tell me about their days adventure and I listen attentively. Then they ask me to put on Barbie and the Island Princess for them. Soon their attention is off me and on the movie. I make my way upstairs to Carter's room to wait for him.

My eyes widen at the man sitting at his computer desk, clicking away on his computer. I immediately see the resemblance to Carter. This must be his dad.

Trevor and Ryan weren't lying. This man looks super intimidating. He's tall, and I can tell this even though he's sitting, with broad shoulders. His face is basically an older version of Carter's but somehow harder. He has a no nonsense look about him. Plus I can see some tattoos peeking out from under his suit jacket and creeping up along his neck.

He turns to face me. "You must be the girl in these photos."

My eyes widen. "What?" I blurt. Then I mentally smack myself.

Great first impression Aubrey. He'll definitely remember you as the pink haired ditzy girl.

He stands to his full height. "I'm Rocco, Carter's father."

Somehow his name suited.

I cleared my throat. "I'm Aubrey and I'm....um-"

"Carter's girlfriend," he finishes for me. "You know when I first found out he was seriously dating someone I didn't believe it."

He sits down on Carter's bed and pats the spot next to him. Rocco isn't the type of man you say no to so I comply and sit down next to him.

"I'm sure you know all about my sons interesting past."

I nod, not sure where he's going with this.

"The divorce between his mother and I was a mutual agreement. There was no bad blood, we just fell out of love. And Carter was taking it surprisingly well," he pauses and chuckles to himself, as if he's laughing about some inside joke. "Too well. He started to use it to his advantage. His mother and I were so busy with the divorce process we hardly paid attention to him. That's when he became out of control. By the time we found out...it was too little to late."

I don't know if I should speak or not but I do anyway. "He got expelled from school."

Rocco nods. "That's right. And if he continued down the path he was going I didn't know where'd he'd ended up. We didn't know where he'd end up. The whole thing was a burden on Charlotte. Not to mention she had the twins to think of...Carter couldn't continue the way he was."

"So they all moved out here," this time I finish for him.

"Correct again. Carter had been so angry. I knew he resented me. But ultimately it was the best choice for him."

"But..." I pause not wanting to speak out of place but decide to anyway. "If you think that why are you making him move back?"

He looks up at the ceiling as if it will give him the answers. "To be honest, I didn't think Carter had changed much. It's one thing to say you're different but it's another thing to actually be different. I wasn't going to waste my money on a college education for him just so he could blow it off and party it away, getting into all types of trouble."

I open my mouth to tell him Carter is nothing like that, that he has changed but Rocco beats me to the punch.

"But then I came here, just to check and make sure I was making the right decision. Your friends Ryan and Trevor I believe took me on an outing."

For some reason I blush, embarrassed. "Sorry about them. They can be a little...immature. But they're good people I swear."

He smirks at me. "I know. I could see through their little act. The outing was nothing more than a plot to try and convince me to let Carter stay here."

My mouth gapes open.

His expression turns thoughtful again. "They got me thinking though. Maybe I'd been wrong about Carter. I wasn't sure anymore."

He's silent for a while and I'm afraid to speak.

"You know Carter's never had a serious girlfriend. Countless meaningless flings but never a real girlfriend. We had a couple pregnancy scares."

Now my eyes widen to saucers. What?

He sees the expression on my face and laughs. "All false thankfully. But too close for comfort."

"Wow..." is all I can say.

He shifts to face me. "Tell me, how did you two first meet?"

I bite my lip. "It's kind of embarrassing but...we ran into each other at the beach. Literally."

He raises a brow and I take that as a sign to continue.

"Then we ran into each other. Again. He got ice cream on one of my favorite shirts. So I smashed ice cream on his shirt and then," I take a breath. "We kinda hated each other at first. Actually not even kinda, we did hate each other," I laugh. "It's so weird how we got here. I'm not even sure. What I am sure of though is that I don't regret a single thing."

He smiles. "He loves you."

My head snaps up to look up at him. "What? How do you know that? Did he tell you?"

"He doesn't have to. I can see it in the way his entire being lights up when he talks about you. In the way he looks at you. Before you came I was looking at photos on his computer. You're his screen saver."

"I am?" I jump up to see for myself. I am his screensaver. It's two selfies I forced Carter to take with me. Really what should've taken a minute took fifteen because he kept complaining and stalling. It was worth it though. In the first one I was smiling and he was frowning at the camera. In the second photo I had kissed his cheek and he had a half smile on his face.

I felt like crying all over again.

"My son is an idiot though. He probably doesn't even realize it himself."

I swivel around in the chair to face him.

"Carter has changed. I couldn't be more proud of the man he is today."

Me too.

Just then the room door bursts open. Carter is standing in the doorway, a surprised and suspicious look on his face.

"What's going on here?"

"Just the person I wanted to see," his dad stands. "Come, lets all go downstairs."

He exits the room and Carter comes up to me. I speak before he can.

"I came to see you but you weren't here so your mom told me to wait and I decided to wait in your room but your dad was here and then he started talking to me. That's all I know," I say in a rush then hold up my hands.

He nods. "Okaaay," he draws out. "What were you guys talking about?"

"You."

"I don't even want to know," he takes my hand and we walk downstairs together. Rocco, Charlotte, and the twins are gathered in the living room.

"Did someone die?" Carter blurts.

"No you silly goose," Sophia rolls her eyes. "Daddy has something to tell us."

"Tell us daddy!" Olivia says eagerly.

"Well..." he starts. "I've decided something."

There's a long pause.

"I've decided that I'll be going back to England...by myself."

Silence.

"What does that mean?" Carter asks slowly.

"It means you can stay here and I'll pay your college tuition for UC Santa Barbara."

I've been shocked into silence. I don't believe what I'm hearing.

"Why does Carter get to stay and we can't?" The twins whine. "We wanna stay too!"

"We'll come back and visit," Charlotte quickly says to placate them. "Rocco are you serious about this?"

"Very serious. Carter you've matured and I was wrong to doubt you hadn't. I'm proud of you."

He stone still and for a moment I'm worried he's gone into shock.

"So are you going to say something or stand there staring at me like a fish?"

Carter laughs. "I don't know what to say. Thank you so much."

He goes up to hug his dad and my eyes water. Olivia comes up to me.

"Hormones?" She asks knowingly.

I laugh and wipe my tears away.

"Yeah. Lots and lots of hormones."

Yaaaaay! Carter is staying!

But you guys already knew he was. I wouldn't rip your hearts out of your chest like that and make him move. That would be evil. 😈

Two more chapters!

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