Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
ADDISON
Chase’s and my relationship had never been anything but casual. In all our years of doing this, we’d never talked about what it was and what it wasn’t. And based on the number of pictures I’d seen of him with other women fawning all over him, I’d assumed it landed heavily on the latter.
It wasn’t. Period.
I’d accepted that. Hell, it was my doing in the first place.
When I’d come back to Starlight Cove after graduation, I hadn’t wanted any distractions as I dove headfirst into trying to save the sinking ship that was the resort.
And Chase was the biggest distraction of all.
So we saw each other a handful of times a year, hooked up—in secret—when we did, and went on living our separate lives the rest of the time.
I assumed his phone was full of all the secrets he kept in our time apart. Call logs and text threads and DMs with all the women I’d seen him photographed with over the years.
And yet he’d just handed me his phone, passcode included. A passcode that, apparently, was my fucking birthday.
Feeling the weight of his stare on me, I shoved down the shock, put in my birthdate to unlock his phone, and navigated to his messages. Over the months of silence, our text thread had slowly slipped farther down the line in my app to the point where I now had to scroll to find his name.
But not in his.
Our thread was right on top, as if he’d recently texted. And it looked so different from what I’d seen for months that I couldn’t make sense of it at first. But then I started scrolling. And scrolling. And scrolling some more.
He hadn’t been lying.
There were hundreds of messages here, all of them unanswered, but that hadn’t stopped him from continuing to text. Daily, for the most part. There were even responses to the couple of texts I’d sent him last year before pride hadn’t allowed me to send any more.
January 4
Addison:
We need to talk
Chase:
Yeah, we do. I’ve got back to back games in Detroit and Chicago. Friday?
January 5
Chase:
Had to throw down at tonight’s game, but the fucker had it coming. Gonna crash and dream about my girl.
January 7
Chase:
Back in Vancouver and ready to talk whenever you are, firefly.
January 12
Chase:
Are you avoiding having the conversation you said we needed to have?
January 17
Chase:
Can I assume the Rage Machine playlist choice today was for me? Can’t work through this shit if you don’t talk to me, Addie…
I couldn’t read fast enough, desperate to inhale every word he’d typed, every thought he’d sent, every glimpse into his mind over the course of the year we’d been separated.
Some messages were sweet…
March 22
Chase:
I need to hear your voice
August 11
An image of three specks of light in a field at dusk.
Chase:
Miss catching fireflies with you, firefly.
And some were decidedly not…
May 27
Chase:
Wish I were celebrating with you. Remember that time you let me lick champagne off your tits before I bent you over the counter and fucked you from behind? Think I’ll replay that in my mind tonight for my goodnight jerk.
September 16
Chase:
Woke up from a dream of you sucking my dick. Now I’m hard as a rock and pretending the poor substitute of my hand is your perfect mouth.
But the ones that were the hardest to read were when he’d, apparently, responded to the minimal texts I’d sent him, and then he received a whole lot of nothing from me in return.
May 29
Addison:
It finally happened
The resort is booked
For months
Chase:
I knew it was only a matter of time. I’m so fucking proud of you.
June 13
Chase:
Tried calling but I just got your voice mail. Again. Didn’t want to tell you over text, but I want you to hear it from me first. Don’t freak out, okay?
I’ve got a medial meniscus tear in my right knee, and I need surgery. They said it’s pretty straightforward, and I should be good as new by training camp.
I barely held in a sob at that. I’d spent months being upset at him, thinking he’d thought what we had wasn’t even worth a mention of his injury to me, when he’d actually tried to contact me about it several times.
June 16
Addison:
Hope your surgery goes well
Heard your mom’s heading there to help
But lmk if you need anything
Chase:
I need you to come play nurse. I miss you so much, baby.
I couldn’t stop the tears from welling up as I continued to read his messages, trying to reconcile what I’d thought had happened with what had actually happened.
I’d spent the past year thinking he’d decided to ignore me and throw away what we had because he hadn’t gotten his way in having me drop everything and move to be by him.
When the reality was so fucking far from the mixed-up version I’d been clinging to all year.
“Well, firefly?” he prompted. “I know how much you hate being wrong, but don’t keep me waiting.”
“Why did you keep texting?” I asked through a tight throat, voicing the one question that rose above the rest. “Even when I wasn’t responding…”
“Why wouldn’t I? I wasn’t going to give up on us.”
“There was never an us.” As much as I’d wanted otherwise, our lives were on two separate tracks.
“We have always been an us, Addison.”
I blew out a humorless laugh, chuckling through the tears that clogged my throat. “Always, huh? And where were we when you were out fucking anything with a pair of tits shoved into a too-small jersey?”
A grin kicked up one side of his mouth as he stared down at me, still bracing himself above me.
“I love when you get all possessive over me because it tells me you think of me as yours. But let me make this perfectly clear…” He lowered himself until his face hovered above mine, his gaze locking me in place.
“Yours is the only pussy I’ve had, firefly. ”
I rolled my eyes, trying to break this tension. Trying to ground myself when his words were sending me flying. “And I’ve already told you what an amazing feat it was that you managed to go a year without sex when you were injured half the time.”
He made an amused sound in the back of his throat. “You assumed it was just this year, but I never said that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He lifted his left hand from where it had been braced next to me on the bed and held it in front of me, palm out.
Whereas Chase’s torso was covered in tattoos—so much so, I secretly played the let’s see what new ink he’s gotten since the last time I saw him game whenever we were together—his hands were untouched.
Or I thought they were…
Except the underside of his left ring finger was inked with roman numerals, and I didn’t know if they were new or if I’d just never seen them before.
“What is it?” I asked.
He brushed his thumb over the black symbols. “The day I became yours.”
My gaze flew to his, and I had to tamp down the flurry of butterflies swirling in my stomach at his words. “What?”
“You heard me. And I have never—not once in the time since—been inside anyone else. I haven’t kissed anyone else. Fuck, Addison, I haven’t even looked at another woman. How could I when you’re all I see?”
His words cracked my chest straight down the middle, and my breaths came in short bursts. Logically, I understood what he was saying—my brain didn’t have any trouble deciphering his words. But my heart? My heart was cautioning me to wait just a damn minute.
I’d been here before…when I’d thought things would be different between us.
When he’d found me at that college send-off party.
When we’d swiped a key from the main inn and snuck into one of the many unoccupied cottages.
When he’d undressed me slowly. Gently. Reverently.
When he’d kissed every inch of my body, made it so good for me, I thought for sure I was dreaming because it hadn’t been anything like what my friends had experienced.
When he’d been inside me for the first time, his gaze so full of what I’d thought was love…
And then he’d dropped me off the next morning with little more than a wave and a see you around, talking about how he’d needed to focus on his career and he wanted me to enjoy my college experience without the shackle of a long-distance boyfriend.
So yeah. I’d learned to be cautious, not allowing myself to be vulnerable with anyone. Least of all him.
But this… If what he said was true, this changed everything.
I grabbed his hand and held it close to my face, thoroughly inspecting the tattoo. It arched around the base of his finger, resembling half a ring. I was a little rusty on my roman numerals, but I was pretty sure those spelled out the day before Chase dropped me at college.
The night he’d kissed me for the first time. Touched me for the first time.
The night I’d first felt him inside me, before he’d left me brokenhearted on the front lawn of my dorm the following day.
While I’d been crying over losing him, he’d already considered himself mine.
“You’re lying,” I whispered, unable to hide the tremor in my voice.
“I’m not.”
“You expect me to believe that you—a professional hockey player who looks like you do—have been perfectly content getting twice-a-year pussy?”
“I’ve been perfectly content getting you,” he said without an ounce of hesitation. “However you’d have me.”
“You’re lying,” I said again, my voice barely a whisper as I held his hand clutched between mine. A part of me hoped he actually was lying because if he was telling the truth…if his words were sincere…it meant we’d wasted so much time. Years.
“You know I’m not.” His voice was low and calm, as if he hadn’t tipped my entire fucking world upside down. “It’s always been you, Addie.”