Chapter 4 #2
Does he believe me? He bites down on his bottom lip—I fist my hands, trying to erase the way that simple gesture twists my insides—before exhaling softly.
“Then I’m glad to hear that. When Jack told me this morning you weren’t feeling up to going to today’s meeting, I was…
” He runs his fingers through his hair, his eyes still worried and haunted as he admits, “I was real fucking worried about you.”
I feel myself frowning now, and I can’t tell if it’s because of what Chase just confessed—or because he actually thought I’d purposely miss this meeting I had no clue about until right before I left the house.
Hang on—
“Wait. You talked to Jack? Today?”
“Yeah.” His brow furrows even deeper, leaving lines etched there. Worry lines. Shit. If there’s anything I hate, it’s having anyone concerned for me. But Chase… that’s so much worse. “Didn’t your old man tell you we had coffee and pancakes at the house this morning after my patrol?”
Not really. Sure, Jack said something about seeing Chase last night, but nothing about this morning. But then I remember the mug of coffee on the table he didn’t touch, plus how he didn’t have any of Mrs. B’s pancakes with me, either.
Why would he if he already ate?
Goddamn it. I grit my teeth, trying my best to hide the fact that I’m both angry at Jack for lying to me and at myself for not expecting something like this.
Not even just how he’s protecting me, either.
But having breakfast dates with the man who would be Hallie’s widower if they’d managed to get hitched before she died?
“It must’ve slipped his mind.”
Chase shrugs. “It doesn’t matter now anyway. We can both go to the meeting together.” A glutton for punishment, he reaches out a second time, smoothing the edge of my jacket’s collar before I can slap his hand away. “What do you say, Holden? Walk with me to the school?”
He’s bold. So fucking bold. For whatever reason, I freeze under the gentle caress, and he takes advantage of that by shifting his hand.
His fingers brush absently against my neck.
It tingles where our skin meets this time instead of burning, the sensation traveling like a current all the way down to the soles of my boots.
I jolt in place like I’ve been shocked.
“Sorry,” I say flatly, jerking my head away from him. “Can’t. I just remembered… Jack needed me to grab something from the condo for him. I forgot it. I’ve got to go back.”
“No problem. I’ll go with you.”
No fucking way. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Xandra—”
I firm my jaw. “No.” I feel like I kicked a damn puppy, the way his face goes flat like that, hiding his pain, but I… I can’t.
“But don’t you want to talk—”
About what happened three weeks ago on the living room couch? “I’ll see you around, Chase.”
“Will you? Really?”
Sometimes I wish that Chase wasn’t so candid and honest and open.
Hallie used to love that about him. He’s the kind of guy who never keeps secrets, and who always told her exactly how he felt, good or bad.
You never have to worry where you stand with him.
When he was my sister’s boyfriend and just another guy in our friend group, that didn’t bother me.
But that’s not all he is anymore, is it?
What makes it worse is that Hallie was always just as honest and forthright with Chase so that’s why he expects it from me. I wish I could just tell him what I feel, but that’s impossible.
My smile is rusty and feels out of place as I force it to my lips. I keep my hands balled up and concealed inside of Rory’s jacket so that, when I place my sleeve on his arm, I’m not actually touching him.
Though I know it’s wrong, I use his insistence that I’m just like her to my advantage—
“Promise. Look, why don’t you head over to the school and get ready for whatever Jack’s got going on? I’ll be right there. Save me a seat?”
—because I can lie straight to his face and he’ll never see it coming.
Hope. Hope fills his expression, and he answers my smile with a dazzling one of his own. “Of course. I’ll make sure it’s the one right next to me.”
He stands there for a second longer, staring at me as if there’s something else he wants to say.
Whatever it is, he changes his mind and shoots a finger gun at me before jogging off.
He joins a group of guys our age that we both went to school with that are heading down the path, diving into their conversation as easily as if he were jumping into a pool.
It’s easy for him.
It’s never been that easy for me.
I watch him for a moment before deciding that, if I’m going to pretend I have to go back for something for Jack, I should probably start heading up Grove again.
Once I cross over Oak Street, I bend down and untie one of my hiking boots.
I count to five, re-tie my bootlace, then double-back toward the high school.
I don’t stop thinking of Chase the whole time I’m doing this. And I wish I didn’t know why.
All of our lives, there were people, places, and things that we shared, that belonged to the Holden twins together.
Going ice-skating together at Mirren Park.
Bowling with our old friends over in Randolph.
Shopping at the mall before the lurkers turned it into a nest that got burned down last February.
Then there are those that belonged to me, or were only Hallie’s. Camping used to be my thing. Hallie had cheerleading. I spent weekends going hiking in the mountains upstate with Rory, and then going out with a different guy every couple of months.
Hallie? She always had Chase.
Chase is Hallie’s, I remind myself. And I won’t ever forget that.
I can’t.