Chapter 60 Chase
Chase
Colors and shapes blur together as I haul an acoustic onto my lap and let muscle memory take over. Tag sits beside me, strumming familiar chords, humming melodies under his breath.
It feels like nothing’s changed—which is a goddamn lie.
Everything’s changed.
My body, my brain, the way the world slips in and out of focus like it’s deciding whether I deserve to see it. But this moment still lives in the bubble of who we used to be.
Luckily, my headaches have become manageable after finally getting on a new prescription called Dexamethasone. The pressure’s eased, the sharp edges dulled. The relief is real.
But so is the countdown.
Tag doesn’t say anything about the tremor in my hand, or the way I pause too long between transitions, waiting for my eyes to catch up. He just plays. Syncs with me like he always has.
We land on a chord progression we haven’t touched in over a year, and suddenly he’s grinning, shaking his head. “Jesus,” he mutters. “This takes me back.”
I smile. “To that rooftop in Baltimore?”
“Shit, yes. That was the night those girls tried to climb the fire escape to get onstage.”
“They made it halfway.”
“One of them threw her bra and it landed on my tuner pedal.”
“You didn’t even flinch.”
“I’m adaptable,” he says, mock defensive. “I was like a war hero. Middle of a solo, blitzed out of my mind, ducking under flying lace.”
We laugh, and it’s the first time in a while that my body doesn’t feel like a battlefield. No scans. No shadows eating at the corners of my sight.
Just music. Nostalgia.
“I didn’t think it would happen that fast,” I say quietly. “The sold-out venues, the fame, the fans. I thought we’d have years of opening for shitty cover bands before anyone cared.”
“Yeah, well, some people spend a lifetime chasing it. We caught lightning in a bottle overnight. That kind of thing makes you family whether you planned on it or not.”
“I’m glad it was you.” I clear the catch of emotion in my throat. “I’m glad it’s still you.”
Tag doesn’t shift toward me when he answers, still focused on the guitar. “I’m not going anywhere, man. You get sick, we show up. That’s just the rule now.”
My windpipe tightens, but we keep playing.
Me, blurry and scared.
Him, solid as ever.
I blink hard, fingers drifting across the strings. “Thanks for coming.”
Tag nods. “Of course.”
“I mean it. We’ve only known each other, what, two years? And half that time you hated me. You didn’t have to show up.”
He exhales through his nose. “Listen, we’ve slept in vans together, showered at roach-infested motels, played dive bars and pretended it was Madison Square Garden.” A pause. “You watched me almost die.”
“But you didn’t.”
His lips twitch. “I puked on your feet in Richmond.”
I groan. “You insisted that barbecue was safe.”
“My point is,” he says, levity lacing his tone as he finally twists to face me, “I don’t need a decade to give a damn. I don’t need a pretty beginning either. You’re my frontman. The love of my sister’s life. That means you’re one of mine. And I don’t let mine go through hell alone.”
My chest squeezes with sentiment. “Yeah,” I say, voice barely holding. “Goes both ways.”
“I know we’ve only done a couple laps around the sun together, but seriously. Bandmate, friend, future best man—whatever you need, I’ve got you. We all do.”
That hits harder than I expect.
The best man part.
I press my tongue against my cheek, nodding once, hard. “I don’t know what comes next,” I admit. “I’m scared shitless.”
“Good,” he says. “Means you’re still here.”
The silence that follows is full, heavy in a way that says everything else we’ve been too proud or too broken to admit.
Then come the footsteps.
Annie moves into the room slowly, not wanting to interrupt. Her hair’s pulled back in a high ponytail, and I track the trail of multicolored silk bobbing as she approaches.
She settles beside me without a word, her presence folding into the space like she never left my side. Her hand slides to the back of my neck, the gesture light and familiar, and I lean into it instinctively.
Tag taps the front of his guitar. “You always said things happen for a reason, sis,” he says, voice softening. “That even the messy shit lines up somehow.”
She lets out a wry breath. “That doesn’t sound like me at all.”
“Right.” He snorts. “You know, I used to think it was just something people said to make sense of the madness. But then I think about how we met this asshole under the most messed up, wrong-place-wrong-time circumstances…and here we are.”
She inches closer to me. Doesn’t argue.
“If you really believe everything happens for a reason, then I guess this all started with that gas station clerk,” Tag adds.
Annie’s thumb pauses its tender strokes.
He continues. “I mean, a little less trigger finger and none of this happens. No band. No tour. No Chase-and-Annalise.”
“Yeah,” Annie says after a beat, her tone low. “At least they dropped the charges. The family seems to be doing well.”
“Still wild.” He nudges me, waves a hand in the air. “One second you’re pilfering dog food, and the next you’re stealing a car with a bullet in your leg and my sister in the back seat.”
My face sours. “She wasn’t supposed to be back there.”
I feel Annie shift beside me. Not away, but inward. Her fingers falter slightly at the base of my neck, just for a beat, and resume their rhythm like nothing happened.
Then she murmurs, almost to herself, “Yes I was.”
***
The guys pick up pizzas in town, and we play music on my living room floor, beers in hand, laughter on our lips, and old memories coming alive between chords and ancient stories.
For a while, it’s easy to forget why they’re here.
Easy to pretend everything’s normal and that I’m not walking around with a clock ticking inside my head.
Annie stays close, head tipped against my shoulder, hand brushing mine more often than it used to. I feel her eyes on me, lingering. Watching.
And I’d give fucking anything to see them. To go back in time and memorize them better. The icy blue, the shimmery flecks, the glaze of love.
Later, when the others have crashed in a row of sleeping bags in the second bedroom, and Rock is snoring like someone left a chainsaw running in the hall, Annie nudges me with her knee and gestures toward the back door.
“Come on,” she whispers. “Air.”
We slip outside, the wood cool under our bare feet, the night thick with crickets and the distant rustle of trees. The stars are brighter out here.
Or maybe I’m just trying harder to see them.
But we don’t make it far, stopped short when a soft noise breaches the air.
Not from her. Not from me.
A breathless laugh—hushed, close, and then cut off. Footsteps shuffle just out of my clear range of vision, near the far end of the deck, behind one of the support beams.
I squint into the blur, but it’s useless. What I can pick up is movement: shapes pressed together, a hand slipping around a waist, someone murmuring something low and half laughed. A pause. Then the unmistakable sound of a kiss, slow and familiar.
I turn slightly toward Annie. “Is that…?”
She cups a hand around her mouth, smothering a giggle, then tugs me backward into the house, granting privacy. “Kenna and Tag.”
Frowning, I scratch my head. I’d wondered, based on context clues. “That’s actually a thing?”
“It’s a semi-thing. A weird thing. But…I think it’s a good thing.” She quietly closes the door, taking my hand again, reminding me she’s close. “I walked in on them after one of our West Coast shows. It was horrifying. Truly traumatizing.”
“Shit. I didn’t know you walked in on them.”
“They both refused to talk about it. I think Kenna was ashamed.” She sighs, pulling me over to the couch. “Looks like she got over that.”
My gaze shifts to the back door on instinct, only catching the sway of leafy branches through the glass. “Good for them.” I settle on the couch, absorbing the heat of her body pressing against me. “How do you feel about it?”
“I love it,” she says, braiding our fingers together. “Can you imagine them ending up together? Getting married? And then if you and I…”
Her voice trails off, tripped up with emotion.
I turn toward her but don’t press. I feel the way her grip tightens, how her thumb stops moving over mine. She doesn’t need to finish the sentence. I already know the ending she was afraid to say out loud.
Get married.
Have a future.
Had more time.
The silence that follows is different now. Sadder.
Laughter from earlier still echoes faintly in my mind, muffled and strained, but it doesn’t quite reach. Not anymore.
I lean back into the couch and stare at the ceiling, a cedar blur above me. I focus on her hand in mine. Something I can feel.
“I hate not knowing,” I admit, my voice quiet. “I hate waiting around to see how much worse it gets. Every day feels like someone’s flipping a coin I don’t get to see land.”
Annie doesn’t say anything at first, just shifts closer, her head resting on my shoulder. “It’s not going to get worse tonight,” she says softly. “That’s all we need to worry about right now.”
She tries to sound hopeful, but I can sense the way the words stick in her throat like they don’t quite fit, too neat for what she’s really thinking.
She stays there for another minute before pulling back, sitting up straighter. Her fingers slip from mine. “I, um…I need to go out of town for a few days.”
I blink, caught off guard. “What?”
“Tomorrow. I’ll leave early and head back right away. I already talked to Kenna and the guys. They’ll stay with you and make sure you’re okay.”
I study her face, but it’s impossible to get a read. I can’t make out her expression, just the way she tucks her hair behind her ear, the violet stripes streaked from roots to tips, and the neon-yellow pattern on her sundress. “Where are you going?”
She hesitates for several seconds. “There’s just something I need to take care of. A meeting. It’s probably nothing.”
“Annie.”
“I wouldn’t go if it wasn’t important.”
I huff a perplexed sound, fused with disbelief and worry. “That’s not an answer.”
She exhales, the way she does when she’s trying to keep herself from unraveling. “It’s not something I want to explain yet. Because it might not lead anywhere. And if it doesn’t…I don’t want you building hope on something that turns out to be a dead end.”
That lands sharp.
I want to argue, want to demand more. But I know her. I know that tone. She’s not shutting me out—she’s protecting me. The same way I tried to protect her when I left.
So I swallow my frustration and nod, even though everything in me tightens. “You’ll tell me if it matters?”
“The second it does.”
Emotion bubbles behind my eyes, cracking my voice. “And you’ll come back?”
“Chase…” She grips my hand again, holds tight. “Of course I’ll come back.”
Annie leans in and presses a kiss to my cheek, lingering there, trying to memorize the shape of me.
I believe her.
I know she’s with me until the end, whenever that might be.
But the fear is already rising, thick and choking. Not because I don’t trust her, but because I’ve lived the before and after of losing someone, and I know how fast everything can turn.
Sometimes by death. Sometimes by choice.
“I’ll come back,” she says again, firmer this time. “I promise. I love you.”
She’s right in front of me, her face foggy but close. Her love undeniable.
So I don’t tell her how scared I am.
I just nod.
And hold on tighter.