16. Chase
Chase
EIGHT YEARS AGO
I ’m sure I should be feeling guilty right now.
I mean I just had sex with my best friend’s little sister, and if that didn’t make me enough of a jackass, it was also her first fucking time.
Not that I had any idea Addie was a virgin, and not because I have any particular reason to think she’s not—other than she’s smart and beautiful and there must be hundreds of guys at her college who’ve asked her out.
And it’s easy not to think about her dating other guys when she’s in Boston and I’m in LA, but whenever I’m back home and I see her talking to other guys, I get this crazy jealous feeling that I try to pass off as being her concerned older brother’s best friend, but I know it hasn’t been that for at least a year now.
And lately, whenever I spend any time in her company, I’m increasingly finding myself thinking about what it would be like to kiss her, touch her. Fuck her.
And now I know.
And now my head is racing with questions and what ifs, and how the fuck I’m going to tell Brax I’m dating his sister.
Because we will be dating. What happened last night wasn’t a casual hookup.
I knew that going into it, and now, now that I’ve felt her nails scraping down my back, kissed her perfect mouth, now I know I’m doomed.
But what if she doesn’t want more? She said she didn’t want things to be awkward, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she wants to take this thing between us further. Maybe she just wanted her first time to be with someone she trusted. Fuck, what if I read it all wrong!
And then there’s Hayley. We’re over and we have been for months, but she gave up Christmas with her family to follow me here to Juniper Ridge—a place she’s previously referred to as the “ass end of nowhere”—to try and make us work.
And even though I contemplated giving us another shot, I already knew it was pointless.
Being with Hayley is easy—but it’s also fucking boring.
Being with Addie—it feels like racing headfirst into a volcano on a motorcycle and not knowing if you’ll brake on time.
It’s exhilarating like that, but it’s also familiar and comfortable in a way things never were with anyone else.
Addie is the first person to have made me feel anything remotely close to real since my mom died.
I’ve always loved her and last night made me realize that those feelings are definitely not just platonic.
And what the fuck does that mean? I’m twenty-two years old and I just left college to start my dream job as an architect. Addie’s only nineteen and in her sophomore year. We’re both way too young to be thinking about forever…
“Chase,” Hayley’s voice cuts through the swirling vortex of thoughts currently racing around my head.
Immediately, I feel guilty. She obviously stayed at my house last night and knows I wasn’t there.
“Hey.”
“Where have you been?’ she asks softly.
“I stayed with a friend.”
“A girl?”
I could lie and spare her feelings, but it’s better she knows there’s no hope for us, and I tell her yes.
She shivers in the cold. “Can we go inside and talk?”
Talking to her is the least I can do, so I nod my agreement and we both head into my house. I leave her at the foot of the stairs, telling her I’m just going to go up to my room and change, and then I’ll be right back.
The floorboards creak as I’m pulling off my T-shirt and when I spin around, Hayley is in my room. “I thought you were—” I stop mid-sentence when she peels off her sweaterdress and drops it onto the floor, revealing she’s not wearing a bra. “Hayley, what the hell are you doing?”
“I’m just asking for one more time, Chase. Let me remind you how good we were together and then if you still don’t want me, we can go our separate ways.”
What? No! This feels like a trick. Or a test. “I just told you I spent the night with someone else.”
“I don’t care, Chase. I need this from you, please? Just let me remind you how good it can be.” She peels off her panties and I take a few steps back until I bump up against the bed.
I sit down and she stalks toward me and all I can think about is Addie. How much I’ve become infatuated with her. Our incredible night together. What the hell that means not just for me and her, but for me and Brax too.
“Please, Chase.” Hayley’s voice reminds me she’s in the room. “It’s the least you can do seeing as how I gave up Christmas with my family for you.”
I didn’t ask her to do that; in fact, I specifically asked her and Freddie not to follow me to Juniper Ridge.
Her guilt trip won’t work with me, but I can’t deny that being with her would be easier.
No feelings involved. No commitment. More importantly, there’s no chance of her ever breaking my heart the way that Addie could.
It’s taken me a year to start to feel anywhere close to normal again after losing my mom, if feeling numb could be described as normal anyway.
But Addison Kinsella makes me feel so much, and that means she could tear me to shreds.
I’m not sure I’m ready for that kind of love… or that kind of pain.
“Hayley. We can’t do this,” I say, but it’s a feeble protest.
She straddles me and rubs her bare pussy over my jeans. “Yes, we can.”
No, we can’t. I love Addie. Addie with her musical laugh and her beautiful smile and her luscious curves. The woman who might not even want anything more from me and the same woman who could obliterate my heart. I’m not sure I’m strong enough to put it back together for a second time.
“Just fuck me, Chase,” Hayley says, reminding me there’s an easier, far less painful option right in front of me.
I do the unthinkable; I flip her onto her back and unzip my jeans.
Then I don’t stop her when she slides her hand into my boxers, or when she wraps her slender fingers around the base of my dick.
If I close my eyes I can pretend she’s Addie.
And I’m thinking of my girl even as I grind into my ex’s hand.
Addie’s tight heat. Addie’s soft skin. Addie’s needy moans.
“So good,” I moan, recalling how incredible she felt last night.
“See, I told you how good we are together,” Hayley says, running her free hand through my hair.
“Chase!” Now I even hear Addie’s voice.
Fucking fuck! I turn my head and see my girl standing there, tears rolling down her face. My heart splinters into a thousand shards.
I jump off Hayley like she’s on fire, but it’s too late and Addie is already running down my stairs. “Addie, please! I can explain,” I plead.
She spins on her heels, her eyes filled with fury like I’ve never seen. She tosses my wallet at me and I remember I left it at her place last night.
“I know you keep your mom’s picture in there, and how much that means to you, so I brought it straight to you.” She scrubs at the tears on her face. “Not that you deserve it.”
“Addie I was…” I stop speaking. There is no excuse. No reasonable explanation for what I just did. Bile surges up from my stomach, burning the back of my throat.
“You were what? Screwing some other girl while your dick was still wet!” she snarls, pure venom in her tone. “You’re disgusting. How could you?”
I step closer, wanting to wrap her in my arms and tell her how much I wish I could undo what I just did, but she backs away from me, edging toward the door. “Don’t you dare come near me.”
My heart feels like it’s disintegrating in my chest. A deep physical ache that I already know can never be fixed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…” I stop speaking because there’s nothing at all I can say. No absolution for breaking the heart of the only girl I’ve ever loved.
“What happened to you, Chase? You used to be so smart and kind and fun, and now…now you don’t seem to care about anyone but yourself. Your mom would be ashamed of you.”
She turns around and yanks open the front door.
As much as what she just said hurt, she’s also fucking right.
“Addie, please!” I try one more plea, running outside after her.
The rain is coming down hard and has turned the snow on the ground into an icy mush.
I slip in my bare feet, my knee almost buckling before I quickly right myself.
She gives me one last glare over her shoulder, and this one is all ice. Colder than the snow biting into my toes. “Go back to LA, Chase. It’s where you belong. And if you ever come back to Juniper Ridge, I’ll drive a fucking stiletto right through your heart.”
She runs away from me and I take a few steps after her, my feet struggling to find purchase in the slush on the ground, which means she’s currently way faster than I am.
So, I stand in the street and can do nothing but watch her walk away from me.
At least the freezing rain running down my face disguises my tears, but it’s no consolation when I know in my heart that I just made the biggest mistake of my entire life.
I sit on the sofa with my head in my hands, not knowing how my day got so fucked up so quickly.
Well, except for the fact that I almost screwed Hayley when my dick was still covered in Addie’s cum.
I can’t even recall the conversation with Hayley that immediately followed, except that she left and we’re done. So, there’s that.
Freddie, who obviously did not leave with Hayley, but who is even less welcome here, flops onto the sofa beside me and starts rolling himself a joint. “Saw Hayley leaving town. She looked pretty upset.”
“Yeah.” I don’t feel like discussing anything with him. The only person in the entire world I want to talk to hates my guts, and I can’t blame her.
“You’re a fucking asshole letting Hayley Steinbeck go, you know that. She is hot as fucking hell.”
She’s colder than ice compared to Addie’s warmth and fire. “Yeah, well you go date her then.”
He snorts, oblivious to my annoyance or my heartbreak. “So, where the fuck were you last night, man?”
“Out.”
“Yeah. With who?”
I should tell him to get the fuck out of my house but I’m not sure I have the energy to argue with him. “Nobody you need to concern yourself about.”
He’s quiet for a few minutes and then he bursts out laughing. “You banged that chick, right? Your best buddy’s sister?”
This seems to amuse him to the point of hysteria and he doubles over.
Rage burns hot and fierce in my chest. “What the fuck is so funny, Freddie?”
“Just imagining your buddy’s face when I tell him you defiled his baby sister.”
What the fuck? I should knock his goddamn teeth out. “I didn’t defile her, and why the fuck would you tell him that?”
He shrugs. “Why wouldn’t I? Unless she meant nothing to you and then we can go back to LA and get out of this shithole.”
I swallow down the anger and hurt. The truth is, I do want to get out of Juniper Ridge, but only because the sole reason I’m back here is to spend Christmas with the Kinsellas.
And that’s clearly a place I’ll no longer be welcome.
I can’t bear to have to look my best friend in the eye and tell him how I betrayed his sister and broke her fucking heart.
So, I tell Freddie what he wants to hear.
“Of course it meant nothing.” The words cut me open, but I force them out anyway.
“You sure about that?” he goads me.
I’m sure I want to end this fucking conversation. “Yes, I’m fucking sure, Freddie. She was desperate for a hookup and I threw her a bone. We can catch the next flight back to LA. Now fucking drop it. Okay!”
He gives me a shit-eating grin and it creeps me the fuck out. I need to drop him too.
I lean back against the couch and close my eyes.
I cannot believe I just told him that and now it adds to the giant knot of guilt and regret and shame sitting right in the pit of my stomach.
The look on Addie’s face when she saw me with Hayley will haunt me for the rest of my days.
I had the best girl in the entire world and I let her slip through my fingers. What the fuck is wrong with me?
Maybe Addie was right. My mom would be ashamed of me. What exactly am I doing with my life?