Summary: In a quiet night at the dorms, Carla has a meal by herself and remembers how her life used to be not so long ago.
Carla walks down the hallway of the dorms with a brown bag in one hand and opens the door to her room. On the weekends, her roommate would go back to her folks’ home in a city nearby. Carla, however, couldn’t afford the same luxury. Oklahoma City was quite far from LA and her father is working on a complicated case and will be on duty most of the time. She has no complaints though. Since her mother passed away, she got used to staying at home alone. The female dorms of Langston University were quiet and she took advantage of the time to study, read something, watch a movie or join any activities on campus.
She opens the curtains to watch the rain falling outside as she sits down and opens the bag to pick up her dinner. The rich flavor of steamed vegetables, noodles and meat fill her lungs and she smiles contently. As she grabs the chopsticks, she eyes the fortune cookie and remembers the last time she had Chinese food.
…
Four months earlier
Logan opens the door to his loft and throws the keys on the counter while Carla slumps on the couch and takes off her jacket and her boots. She frowns and massages her forehead.
“Are you okay?” Logan eyes her, placing their jackets on the wall hanger.
“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just a headache.”
“Are you sure? You were the brains of the job today. You must be at least tired or really hungry.”
“Try both,” she squints her eyes shut. Even though the crew did most of the heavy lifting today, she stayed on the car controlling the operation on one exit while Colt and his father handled another job.
“First day calling the shots can be tough, but you did great.” He sits down and places an arm around her. “Why don’t you hit the shower first? I’ll grab something for us to eat. Anything you want. Dessert included.”
“Are you spoiling me, Logan?”
“Absolutely not. I plan on eating most of our orders,” he gives her a cheeky smile.
“Ah, yes,” she grinned. “In this case, I want Kung Pao Chicken, spring rolls and cotton candy ice cream.”
“Then I believe you’ll be happy to know cotton candy became my new favorite flavor of ice cream.”
“But you said it was too—” she narrows her eyes as he grins. “Oh no! You’re not going to eat all my ice cream again,” she objects, walking across the room to grab her towel and a few beauty products and head to the shower.
“I can easily convince you to give most of it to me,” he smirks.
“I’m not falling that.”
“Believe me, I can be…” he pulls his shirt over his head, tosses it aside and saunters over to her direction, flexing his muscles to show off his toned arms and abs. “… Persuasive.”
Carla gapes at him and gulps as he stands before her, the faded smell of his cologne mixed with his natural scent taking over her senses. “I… Uh… I’m going to—” she furrows her brows.
“The bathroom?” He smirks.
“Yeah, that. I—” she tries to keep cool, leaning on a column but trips on the carpet and some of her beauty products slip away from her hands. She frowns and bends down to pick them up.
Logan grins as he helps her pick up her things. “For someone so skilled behind the wheels, you’re pretty clumsy. I sincerely hope you’ll be careful in there.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll be fine.” She smiles trying to hide her embarrassment and walks out of the room, going to the bathroom.
Carla hops into the shower and begins to wash her hair, massaging her scalp in circles. The water cascades over her head and she closes her eyes, relishing the feeling of the water. Suddenly, her thoughts take her back to the room, where a shirtless Logan is picking out food for them. That was the first time she ever saw a man so handsome and sexy up close. She did imagine he’d have a nice body, considering he spends three hours per day on the improvised gym MPC has on the basement and how many times she savored the warmth of his strong arms and torso around her whenever they hugged or cuddled. But to actually see it was something else.
She shakes her head, turns off the shower and applies a hair conditioner massaging the ends of her hair. Her mind wanders, thinking about how she made a fool of herself back there and how self-conscious she’ll be once she returns to the room. How is she going to sleep next to him?
Carla shakes the thought away as she washes off the product out of her hair, finishes her shower, blow-dries her hair and returns to the room. Logan is nowhere to be seen, which means he went downstairs to pick up their dinner orders. She puts her pajamas on and begins to organize the room, but she’s startled by the sound of his voice.
“I take the headache is gone, since you already returned to your M.O. of constant cleaning and organizing stuff,” he says with a hint of amusement in his tone as he places the boxes of Chinese food, the ice cream and two bottles grape juice on the table.
“You promised you wouldn’t mock me again,” she wrinkles her nose and pouts.
He laughs. “Hey, I have no complaints here. Just cut yourself some slack once in a while, okay?”
“What if I say this is my idea of cutting myself some slack?”
“Then I say you should take a break from all the fun you’re having by yourself and join me for dinner because I’m starving,” he jokes.
Carla giggles.
Logan kisses her temple and they sit down. “But first, pick your fortune cookie.”
“Really?”
“Do you have something against fortune cookies?”
“No. But they clearly have something against me.”
He chuckles. “Don’t be like that. And regardless of whatever it says, you’ll work harder to choose the path you want for yourself. You make your own fate. Now, let’s do it. We can’t eat without reading our fortunes,” he smiles.
She picks up one, cracks it open and finds the note with a message.
“Soon you’ll realize some people can stay in your heart forever but not in your life.”
Carla frowns.
“That bad, huh?”
“Yeah, you could say that. What does your say?”
“Not much. But I could’ve gotten rich if I’ve ever got these numbers three weeks ago.”
They laugh, share a kiss and dig into their meals.
…
Carla sighs at the thought of one of her first dinners with him at the garage and the many fond memories she shared with him and the other MPC members. Her life has changed so much since then. She dreamed about studying at Langston for so long and now that she’s there, it feels so mundane. She knows why she had to let him go, yet it still hurts.
She examines the fortune cookie and remembers his words. Wherever he is, he’s working hard to get where he wants to be and he’d be disappointed to know she’s not doing the same. Cracking it open, she picks up the piece of paper and reads the fortune.
“Sometimes good things fall apart, so better things can fall together.”
“Yeah, whatever…” She rolls eyes, throws the paper in the trash can and relaxes savoring her meal and the sound of the rain falling down.
