"Yeah, sure," he hesitated near the sofa, not moving toward her or the stairs. "Do you need me to walk you home?"

Carrie smiled, always the gentleman, "No, I can make it." Ben glanced out the window, "I think it finally stopped snowing." He walked to the window and looked out, "But it's supposed to start again later."

"Oh," Carrie remembered her plans for tomorrow, "I'm going to take Two-fer out in the snow tomorrow, do you want to come with us?"

"Isn't he Three-fer now?" Ben said, acknowledging Christopher's last birthday.

Carrie smiled and nodded, "Yeah, I guess so." "Yeah, sure. I need to get some work done tomorrow, but come by and get me." The tension between them was easing. Carrie started up the stairs and Ben followed.

"I'm going to help him build a snowman in the morning, but we'll need your help to make a fort." When they reached the back door Carrie realized she had left her socks downstairs. She decided to ignore it. No sense prolonging the awkwardness.

On her way out the door she said, "We'll probably come by around 10 or 11." "OK," he leaned against the door frame, watching her gingerly step into the ankle deep snow with a thick crisp layer of ice on top. "Good sledding snow."

Carrie turned briefly, "Yeah, let's do that too. See you tomorrow." He watched her 'til she opened the back door to her house and went in. He held the door open a little longer, letting the frigid air clear his head and the residue of the feel and smell of Carrie from his skin.

As he climbed the stairs to his room then looked over at the glowing curtains of her room he reasoned with himself that tomorrow would be safe. Christopher would be there, it would be day. He could do this. Before going to sleep he made a mental note to call Joelle and check on her tomorrow morning.

Chapter 15.

The end of Christmas break couldn't come soon enough for Carrie. She couldn't wait to get back to school, to the routine, to her friends, away from her house. Family time was never a good idea for the Gould's. Her only break during the break was when Aunt Rose and Uncle Will came for Christmas dinner. Rose was her mother's youngest sister, and she was the complete opposite of Lana. She was funny and laid-back and full of great stories from traveling all over the world.

They brought Carrie a totally cool jacket they got from a shop in London and some perfume from Paris. Christopher got a handheld computer game that he didn't put down all Christmas day. Carrie spent hours curled up on the couch with Rose, looking at her pictures from their European trip, discussing the latest fashions and the decorating they had seen on their tour of castles.

Rose and Will left early the day after Christmas. They said they were headed some place warm, but Carrie knew Rose was also getting away from Lana. Her mother was extremely jealous of her younger sister's exciting life and freedom, and she covered it up with a barrage of underhanded jabs and criticism. She also played the victim with sad stories of how horrible life was for Lana. Carrie knew it was jealousy talking, but that didn't make it hurt any less when her mom complained to Rose about her being an ungrateful, rude, lazy daughter. Her dad seemed to tune out all the complaints she aired about him, and sweet Christopher was immune. Rose and Will, however, had enough after two days and they were off again.

That left Carrie with the usual tension at home and the new tension between her and Ben. Neither of them wanted to talk about the elephant in the room, but they could both feel it. Winter break was two weeks of spending time together, always with Christopher, feeling the spark between them, then retreating to neutral corners and avoiding each other again. Sometimes she could still see him as Ben, her friend, and other times she wanted to drag him to his basement and under the quilt again. It didn't help that he kept touching her, warming her hands or sitting behind her on the sled. Even wearing her heavy winter clothes, she was acutely aware of the feeling of him, a solid, warm presence pressed up against her. And she was guilty of finding ways to touch him too. She fell on him during the snow ball fight and shoved her icy hands under his shirt to tickle him. Of course, Carrie reasoned, he was just a physical guy. He would always pick Two-fer up and carry him around. Maybe she was reading too much into it. Maybe him liking her was all in her imagination.

MG wasn't much help during break either. First she couldn't come and rescue Carrie because of the snow, then she sort of disappeared. Every time Carrie called she had to go somewhere, or she would cut the conversation short for another reason. She finally called and said she needed to talk and would pick Carrie up and give her a ride on their first day back to school.

They only had a fifteen minute drive from Carrie's house to the school, so she didn't waste any time, "OK, what's up? And why couldn't you talk to me about it on the phone?"

MG pulled away from the curb, but her attention was not on driving, she was searching for words, "I think ... well, Steve ... Steve has been living at my house and I couldn't talk with him there, but I think he thinks we are like dating, or in love, or something"

"You just made zero sense. Start from the beginning." MG turned left out of Carrie's neighborhood onto Elm road, school was to the right. That meant they were headed to the park to talk, and probably miss some classes. This must be huge.

MG didn't talk again till they were in a parking space near the ball diamonds. "OK, so the night of the big snow storm, Steve called me at like 11:30 and asked me to come pick him up." She stopped for a breath and to think about the order of events, "Well, first he was at home and Stony showed up. He had been missing for a few weeks, not that Steve missed him. So, he showed up like totally wasted, not drunk or stoned wasted, but like freaked out on some hard drugs and pissed off." She checked to make sure Carrie understood how out of control Stony was. Carrie nodded, "So Stony starts yelling about Steve stealing his drugs and some money from him."

"Oh, shit," The picture Carrie had in her head of a drugged-up, pissed off Stony was terrifying. "Right, so he starts beating the shit out of Steve and somehow Steve gets away and out of the house. He walks all the way to the pay phone at the gas station in the snow, with no coat. And he's like bleeding from his lip and all bruised up."

Carrie kept nodding that she understood, not wanting to interrupt.

"So he calls me to come get him."

"Your mom let you?" "Not exactly, she fell asleep watching TV in her room, so I just left to go get him. And it took me like an hour to get there. I got stuck twice, first some people came out of their house and gave me a push, then some tow-truck guy pushed me out of a snow bank on Appleton Rd."

Carrie's look told her to get back to the meat of the story.

"So when I get there he is like frozen and all beat up, and I didn't know what else to do, so I took him to my house."

"So how did you explain this to your mom?" "Yeah, well, she gets up the next morning and sees this bruised-up guy crashed on our couch, but she was amazingly cool. I told her what happened. She was pissed I drove in the storm, but she seemed to understand why."

"So he stayed there all break?" " Yes!" This was clearly the bigger problem. "I mean he couldn't go home because of Stony. My mom was like taking care of him and it was cool at first, but ... " She stopped to bite the cuticle on her thumb, which she only did when she was really freaking out.

Carrie waited patiently. "We couldn't fool around with my mom hovering, so we watched a lot of TV and talked, a lot." MG let out an exasperated sigh and looked up, "He is totally my friend. I would drive through the snow to get him again, but ... the more we talked," she stopped to look at Carrie, "and the longer he wouldn't leave ... "

Carrie was getting the idea, but there were details MG was leaving out, "What happened?" "Nothing! Everything!" She was really worked up now, "It was like he was so grateful, then he starts talking about how much he cares about me, then. . ." she let her head fall onto the steering wheel, "He told me he loves me."

"Oh, crap." Carrie got the whole picture now. "What did you say to him?"

"Nothing. I was a totally fucking coward. I kissed him so he would stop talking."

Her heart went out to MG. "Now you have to see him at school." She shook her head, still leaning against the steering wheel, "Oh, no, he decided that he is dropping out to get a job and his own place."

"Oh, god." "And, I think he plans to stay at my place 'til then." She beat her head against the wheel, "Next thing he'll want me to move in with him and have babies and, hey, we can start a rockin' life together in government housing." She looked up at Carrie with pleading eyes. "I can't do this! I can't hurt him, and he can't stay. I do love him, as a friend. See what happens when you are nice to someone? Learn a lesson from me."

Carrie gave her a small smile. If MG was still joking, she was OK. "You could come stay with me, but, I don't know, sleeping in the snow might be better."

Now it was MG's turn to laugh a little. She looked at the clock on her car radio, "We'd better get to school, we already missed first period." She touched Carrie's arm, "Thank you for letting me vent. You are the only person I know I can trust not to tell anyone else."

Carrie nodded.

MG backed out of the parking space, "So what was up with you during break? Parents just driving you nuts?" Carrie knew MG would listen to whatever she had to say about Ben, but it suddenly seemed so trivial and juvenile compared to MG's problem. "Yeah. Same shit."

School was a calm refuge for both girls. Steve didn't show up and Carrie only saw Ben once, between Lit and Comp classes. They passed in the hall, and he bumped into her on purpose. He smiled at her and said, "Oh, sorry." She rolled her eyes and smiled at him, trying to think of him as only a friend, hoping the jolt of excitement and wave of happy she felt inside wouldn't show. But it was hard to keep that much bliss under wraps. One touch, one stupid little nudge, and she was riding on a high for the next hour. And she probably would have stayed there, if she hadn't seen Joelle at lunch. Then guilt washed over her and landed in the pit of her stomach.

She didn't tell any of her friends about Ben. It was too complicated, and personal, and she wasn't sure what there was to tell anyway. He bumped me in the hallway. MG was also not sharing her drama about Steve. Telling Carrie was one thing, but telling the others would seem like a betrayal. She may not be in love with him, but she still cared about him, a lot.

MG drove slowly to Carrie's house that afternoon. She was dreading going home, a feeling Carrie could definitely relate to. "Call me later?"

"I will." MG stared straight ahead out the window

"Maybe if you tell him your mom wants him to go."

"Yeah, I've thought about that. But where would he go? Back to his dad's apartment, with Stony?"

"Stony might be gone by now. You said he had been missing for weeks before this." MG perked up a little. She was starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel. "Maybe I'll offer to take him by his apartment to get some stuff. We could see if Stony's still there, and he could talk to his dad."

Speaking of Steve's dad, "What about his dad? Doesn't he want him to come home?" MG shook her head, "Probably not. Steve said he gets along OK with him, but really, they hardly ever see each other. He works second shift at Tricon and sleeps and drinks, and that's about it. I guess he noticed Steve was missing." She shrugged.

"He didn't try to call his dad the entire break?"

"Nope. He always tells Steve to stay away from Stony, so maybe he was glad Steve was gone if Stony was there."

"What a mess!" Carrie realized how unhelpful that statement was after she said it, "Sorry."

"No, you're right."

"Will you call me after you take him to his apartment? Let me know what happens."