Redemption (Complete)

8. Never Let Go

After Jasmine there was Felicity. After Felicity there was Candy. After Candy... well, Carl lost count pretty much after that. Or didn't even try to remember the women's names. The ones he slept with that is.

And they were pretty much all a poor man's carbon copy of the original.

In the past, Carl had had a thing for leggy blonds with very little brains. He didn't want someone he was f*****g thinking about the fact that they would probably never see each other again. And California seemed to have an ample amount of tanned flaxen-haired beauties who were more than willing to spread their legs for him- even if half of them got their color out of a bottle.

That was until he met a certain raven-haired beauty whom he couldn't seem to get out of his mind- even after weeks of trying to rip her visage from his head.

The fantasies and dreams had not waned and he decided- for the first time in several years- to make a trip back east to spend Thanksgiving with his brother and his family.

Elliot Smith was just an older version of Carlton and the younger man had felt the need to bond with someone who at least at some point in his life had shared the same need for s*x without strings. And that was definitely Elliot. Until he had met his future bride that is.

Diana Winters had been the exact opposite of Carl's brother Elliot, and that suited the man just fine. They had met when Elliot was 25 and just a year older than Diana. Their initial encounter had been at a party being hosted by Elliot's new boss Randall Crane. Crane was a Wall Street millionaire and had decided to host a barbecue in honor of Independence Day. Diana had been there with a date who had quickly left her high and dry to try to schmooze with Big Man Crane in order to get ahead in his career.

Diana, in turn, got drunk and sloppy and went to bed with Elliot that same night. Upon morning when she woke up in Elliot's bed, she was none too pleased with herself and left before the man she had spent the night with could wake up. Without her phone number, it took Elliot another 6 months to reconnect with the woman that had frustrated and aroused him to distraction that fateful night.

But when things are meant to be, they are just meant to be. They ran each into each other again in one of the myriads of coffee shops that lined down Manhattan and though she hesitated at first, she allowed him to take her out on a date.

As ass-backward as their relationship started out, Diana and Elliot ended up engaged and married just a year later and were pregnant right away. They now had three adorable children and lived in a large penthouse apartment in the Flatiron district of New York City.

Penny was the oldest and at just nine years of age, was already acting like a snotty teenager. Brendan came along two years later and already considered himself just as robust as his father at only seven years old. He had a cute fixation that he would be the next Bruce Wayne and rid The Big Apple of criminals and thugs with his own brand of vigilante justice.

After having two children, Elliot and Diana had decided to call it quits on babies before a surprise little tag-along by the name of Jase made his appearance just two years ago. He was in the midst of his terrible two's and was quite the handful. Except for his birth, Carlton hadn't seen the child and was actually looking forward to seeing his nephews and niece again, though not so much his niece if Elliot's claims were true. It was bad enough that he had problems with grown women without having to deal with a precocious nine year over the holidays. Penny was already obsessed with makeup, high heels and surprisingly, boys.

Carl had taken a cab from Laguardia to his brother's place a few days prior to Thanksgiving. He had wanted to stay at a hotel, but Elliot and Diana had insisted on him staying with them during the holidays. They said the boys could share a room and Carl could stay in Brendan's room for the duration of his visit. That suited him fine, though he wondered if he would get any sleep with young ones in the house.

The first few days of his mini-vacation, Elliot noticed Carl was not at all his usual self. He was more quiet and pensive and he wondered if his brother was merely stressed from his job, or if he had finally gotten bitten by the bug he called 'Love'. Diana, of course, had a suspicion it was the latter and had commented on it to her husband the night before Thanksgiving. They tried to get an early night since the next day would be an early one with turkey prep and the baking of pies. It was in the kitchen when Elliot finally spoke to Carl about his behavior.

"What's eating your ass lately, Carl?" his older brother asked as he peeled an onion in prep for the dressing his wife would be preparing to make shortly.

"What do you mean?" Carl grunted out as he barely missed cutting his finger while peeling a potato.

"You've been brooding and out of sorts these past several days," Elliot stated. "It's damned unlike you to be so quiet and thoughtful. It's like having a ghost staying with you for the holidays. It's kind of spooky."

"Boo," Carl muttered under his breath. It was a half-hearted attempt at humor, and one that Elliot saw through.

"Seriously, Carlton," the older man coaxed. "Spit out what the problem is so we can tackle it already. You know you'll just end up drinking too much and moaning about whatever's eating at you later on after the kids go to bed."

It was true. Elliot had a knack for pulling information out of his brother by hook or by crook. Usually with the aid of some strong liquor.

For her part, Diana was quiet in the corner of the room and was placing strips of bacon across the top of a fat turkey that they had picked up the day before at the market. She pretended to let the men chat amongst themselves, but she heard every word as if she were part of the conversation. She truly liked Carl and just wished the man would settle down already. He was 32 and by that time, Elliot was already married with one child and another on the way.

"I'm gonna need something stronger than this crap beer if you want to hear the whole f*****g story," Carl muttered out.

"That crap beer is the best that can be had on the east coast I'll have you know," Elliot scolded listlessly. "And watch your language, Carl. Brendan and Penny know not to say those words, but Jase is like a mockingbird and will get kicked out of his daycare if he repeats such filth there."

"Sorry."

"We can grab a scotch after you finish up that damned potato," Elliot told him. "You've been working on peeling it for twenty minutes. You're useless as a sous chef."

Carl finished peeling the potato and saw that the pot they would be boiled in was full of spuds and had already been placed on one of the burners to boil. He added a little extra water to the pot and a pinch of salt to help it boil before following Elliot out of the room and into his study.

"Never mind me," Diana called out as they walked away from the kitchen. Her attitude was as fiery as the ginger mane she had struggled to place in a loose bun on the top of her head earlier. "I'll just prep and cook all this food by myself. No need to help me, you ingrates."

Carl chuckled softly. Diana was a banker by day and a home chef by night. If she hadn't opted in a career in banking, she would have made some 5-star restaurant a very excellent cook.

"We'll be back before you realize we've been gone," Elliot called out to her. Diana grumbled something they couldn't quite hear but sounded suspiciously like 'asshats' to Carl.

"Are you sure we don't need to help her right now?" Carl asked his brother. "We can always talk later, you know." They had just walked into Elliot's study and he had closed the door to the noise of the children playing in the living room and the scraping sound of metal in the kitchen.

"If we talk later, we won't talk at all," Elliot accused of him. "You will find some excuse to not chat or try to go to bed early and sit there in Bren's small twin bed, cramped and staring at the ceiling until you finally drift off into la-la land."

Carl smirked and shook his head. "You know me too well, bro."

Elliot poured out a couple near scotches and handed one over to his younger sibling. Though they had a younger sister named Nora, she was away in British Columbia with her boyfriend Louis and rarely came to family functions. Neither of the brothers was very close to her. She was as prickly as a cactus unless you were under the age of 12 or one of her many patients. Nora held a degree in psychology and though you would think that she would be the best fit to hear Carl out about his women woes, she was loath to 'counsel' any of her family members. She told them that she didn't want to know all the ins and outs of their personal lives. Knowing her patient's was enough for her and she hated the constant 'in session' moments that her family gatherings seemed to turn into.

"So spill already Carl," Elliot cajoled. "Is the job still satisfactory? Stress getting you down? I hear big things are coming to Kintech in the next couple of months. It would be no wonder if you were feeling the pressure."

Carl's jaw twitched as he thought. He didn't know how to broach the subject with his brother. Elliot had been very much like Carl himself before meeting Diana. One night stands and the revolving door that was his bedroom were just some of the things that the two siblings had in common with each other. But, if there was anyone in the world Carl could confide in, it would be Elliot. He knew he would not pass judgment on him of all people. Two peas in a pod growing up were both of the older Smith children.

Biting the bullet, Carl finally spoke.

"How did you know Diana was the one?" Carl asked bluntly.

At that, Elliot put his tumbler of scotch down before rubbing his chin roughly with his right hand. He should have expected something like this to come up. He just never expected it to be put in such terms. Elliot felt Carl would have probably been a bit more lackadaisical in his approach.

"Well," Elliot began. "I thought I knew after a few months when I couldn't stop thinking about her. But I was dead f*****g wrong. I really knew the moment I saw her that she was something special. Then when she crept out of my place like a thief in the night after screwing that first time, I knew that she wasn't someone I could have only one night with."

Carl nodded a bit at that. It might not have been the same thing, but it was damned close enough to how he felt about Violet. Though he hadn't slept with her. Yet. Or maybe never. f**k- he just didn't know.

"I tried to see other women, but none really compared," Elliot admitted. "Every time I slept with someone, I was wishing it was Diana. Every time I saw a flash of red hair on the street, I hoped it was her. When I finally saw her at that damned coffee shop ordering some utterly incomprehensible drink, I finally felt like I could breathe again."

"And what if you had never found her again?" Carl asked, curious.

"Hell, I would've found her," Elliot stated. "If it had taken me years, I would've searched up and down New York City searching for her. Put an ad in the classified's or some such nonsense if I had to. Would've even gone up to that turd she came to the party with if I had to. Interrogating the f**k outta him."

"Why didn't you?" Carl questioned.

"I was stubborn and a jackass," Elliot admitted. "Thought I could go back to my old ways. The longer the time became the harder it was to date other women and the easier it was to try to convince myself she was nothing to me. It was... bewildering to say the least. But, I was truly just fooling myself."

Elliot looked over at Carl who had hardly touched a drop of his drink and was staring at the Persian rug that adorned the floor of his study.

"If you can find that, Carl," he told him. "You never let that s**t go. If you catch her in the end, you will only regret the time- no matter how insignificant- you spent away from her."

A tic in Carl's jaw told Elliot that the man wasn't done speaking. He waited for him to say more and was surprised when Carl only nodded and drank the glass of scotch down in one large gulp before exiting the room.