10. Chase
CHASE
ONE YEAR LATER
Yeah, I’ve fucking lost it.
And I’m not even a little bit sorry.
Tonight has felt like being pushed out of a plane, suddenly, wondering how the fuck I got on the plane in the first place, and praying that there would be a parachute on my back as I plunged down toward the ground.
Except worse.
Or better.
Because skydiving couldn’t possibly make my heart drop through my chest in the same way that Logan Stone does.
I pace back and forth on the rooftop, trying to feel nothing.
But it’s real.
Logan is back at the Bellwood Hotel after a year.
Rumors about his stay at the Bellwood started a few weeks ago, and I didn’t believe it at first. He wouldn’t come back here. But I came up to the rooftop about ten minutes ago, when he was slated to arrive, and I saw his driver pull up in the back alley.
And I watched his arrival from up here.
The resulting flood of camera flashes looked like a little lightning storm from twenty stories high. The paparazzi that used to follow him around has practically tripled in size now, it seems. Yard Line was very popular a year ago, but now it’s a complete global smash hit.
Being with Logan feels like it was an eternity ago.
But it also feels so fresh it’s like an open wound.
I’m still standing up here ten minutes after the paparazzi flashes have stopped.
I don’t know how it’s possible to feel numb and wired at the same time, but my body is managing it right now.
I don’t know what to feel. Like I just took a still-wet canvas and mixed all the paints together into a murky mess, and I can’t tell what’s what inside me.
You’re really there.
Just down there, twenty stories away.
Maybe even closer, if you’re already upstairs.
The thought gives me goosebumps.
The easy part, after Logan left, was confirming that I’m not straight.
The difficult part was testing the theory. Or not being able to. I hit up gay bars and clubs and I appreciated the way other men looked. They certainly seemed into me, too, and my ego was disgustingly inflated.
I met a young redheaded guy who said I was so hot that he wanted me to put a collar on him and keep him as a pet.
On another night, I met a wealthy Portuguese businessman who offered to fly me out to Europe for a week of no-strings sex, which I politely declined.
I even saw a guy who used to be a Bellwood bar regular, who asked me if I wanted to take a ride on his handlebar mustache.
All of it was flattering.
And I’m sure I could have even enjoyed hooking up with some of those men, but every time I got close, I went cold and backed out.
Not because they were men.
Because they weren’t him.
My brother told me I’d get over Logan within a few weeks. Well, it’s been over 52 weeks now, and I still have dreams about his cock, or his tight hole I never fucked, or the way his back muscles flexed when I was behind him, watching him come.
Or his eyes. Those are the worst dreams.
I got a taste of him and it reared up a stubborn feeling inside me, and now I’m apparently the greediest bisexual on planet fucking Earth because I only want to fuck a man I can’t have.
And I don’t want to feel anything about that.
I pace back and forth on the rooftop. I pull out my phone, shooting off a text to my brother.
Chase
Any customers come in while I’m on my break?
Julian
A few.
Regulars, or…?
You’re making it way too obvious that you’re asking about Logan Stone.
Rude.
But I’m right.
He’s as famous as the fucking Beatles now anyway. I might be a distant memory for him.
And the answer is no, by the way. He hasn’t come in.
The low buzz of the big neon sign across the street fills the air. The orangey glow saturates everything around me like someone took a fat watercolor brush and dabbed it onto this rooftop. I look back down toward the city, wishing I had a canvas or my sketchpad.
That’s what that night was.
What that entire three weeks was… until it wasn’t.
Neon-drenched. Alive with color.
I’ve painted this cityscape view many times since then, with color exploding through the sky. I’ve even photographed it with my film camera, etching this exact viewpoint into my brain.
I step all the way up to the edge again.
The wind blows hard as I peer over, looking at the sheer drop. My legs feel like jelly looking that far down.
It isn’t really as fun when Logan’s not here to act all worried about me.
“Fuck this,” I say into the air, stepping away from the edge fast as I make a decision.
He needs to know that I’ve gotten better.
I don’t haunt this city like I used to, drinking on the job and having no goddamn clue about my future. When Logan found me, I was still hollow, only just learning how to heal, living my life minute to minute and turning to alcohol because it made it so much easier to pretend I didn’t care.
But I do care.
And I’m not afraid to anymore.
It would be easy to say that quitting drinking helped me with my art, but it’s the opposite.
My art has been saving me.
The more I got back into painting, the less I drank, until one day I woke up and realized it had been months since I’d had a tequila.
Over the last year, I’ve channeled all of my misplaced energy into my paintings. My father used to tell me “art ain’t worth shit,” but fuck him. Years ago, one of my exes told me I was talentless, but fuck her, too.
I post videos of myself painting now, because hitting rock bottom meant that I didn’t give a damn about shame anymore.
My art is mine.
A place where I can put all the parts of me that don’t have another home.
Every time I complete a painting, I catalog it on my Instagram page, because I’m done overthinking whether or not I’m talented enough.
I’ve also had a few paid photography jobs over the past few months.
Nothing fancy, just some pet portraits and one bridal shoot for a woman who works maintenance at the Bellwood.
But it’s something.
And I’d like it if Logan at least knew that, even if I have no place in his life.
It’s the first time in my life that I can say I’m proud of something I’m doing.
“I know he’ll show up,” I tell Julian the next day as we’re walking into the back entrance of the Bellwood. “Just tell me if he comes to the lounge, okay?”
Julian is going in for his shift at the bar, but I work in the restaurant now.
After I got sober, there was an opening for an assistant pastry cook in the kitchen, and moving to that position was much better for me in every way.
I love making desserts now.
I like it a whole lot more than I liked making cocktails, actually. The bar also serves a lot of the finger foods and desserts from the hotel restaurant, so I still get to see Julian a few times a shift when he comes over to grab batches of food from us.
“Keep dreaming,” Julian says. “Isn’t Logan just as likely to visit the restaurant?”
“No. He liked the lounge because it was members-only, but any hotel guests can visit the restaurant. I don’t think he’ll be showing up. Logan is very private.”
Julian hates it when I talk about Logan. He thinks Logan was bad for me, but I still think the opposite.
“If he shows up, I’ll tell you,” Julian says.
“He will. And I’m going to give him my business card, congratulate him on all his Emmys, and nothing about it has to be weird.”
The hotel restaurant and the bar are in the same hallway, but the restaurant is prominent, front and center as soon as the hall splits off from the main lobby. The lounge is tucked at the end of the hall, away from the commotion.
As Julian stops to say goodbye before we split off, I glance down toward the bar entrance.
“You think he’s going to be waiting there before it’s even open?” Jules asks.
“Give me a break.”
“Don’t do this to yourself, Chase.”
“I’m completely fine.”
“Don’t hurt yourself for no reason, thinking that Logan fucking Stone is going to risk any more drama in his life. Have you seen the headlines about him recently?”
“Fuck no. I don’t Google him. Ever.”
“Well, the rest of the world does. The whole world is speculating—”
I hold up a hand. “I don’t want to hear it. Everything the media writes about him is bullshit. They didn’t know the Logan I knew.”
It sounds a little delusional, but it’s also kind of true.
For the past year, I’ve refused to watch his interviews on YouTube. I don’t scroll through the memes and Cosmopolitan jokey videos with his costars, or “57 Questions” videos with Vogue magazine. I have no desire to know Logan like the rest of them.
Yard Line has won multiple Emmys now, two of which were for Logan himself. That’s one thing I did see.
But a darker part of my mind still always nudges at me, reminding me he wasn’t fully mine.
Sometimes my dreams are about that, too.
Dreams where I’m following Logan down dark hallways, trying to get him to turn around and look at me, but he never does.
“I never even got to know you,” I call after him. But he still never turns.
And it’s true. I don’t know him.
I don't know what his childhood or family is like. I don't know his friends or his favorite color or anything personal about him at all. I don’t even have his number.
“Chase,” Julian says in a warning tone. “I just don’t want you to get hurt again.”
“I can’t get hurt again if I already know I’ll never have him,” I tell him. “Our lives are completely different. But that doesn’t mean I can’t give him my card and show him the art I’ve been working on.”
“He’s not going to come here,” he says, a bitter anger rising in his tone. “And you know what? I kind of hope he doesn’t ever.”
I don’t respond.
Julian’s pissed.
When we found out that Logan was coming back, Julian started acting this way. I appreciate his love, but my brother doesn’t run my life.
I do what I want.
I know I’m not going to backslide into a toxic, unhealthy obsession and start blasting myself with substances just because Logan is in town again, but I know it’s going to take some convincing for Jules to believe that.
He just needs time.