4. Chris
Chapter 4
Chris
Now
July 10 th
T he wedding is off.
Annie’s words spin in my head, faster and faster, until they lose all meaning. I have no idea what I’m doing as she climbs into the passenger seat, and I start the engine. It seems we’re both on autopilot.
She doesn’t ask me to stop when we leave her uncle’s property in Ennis, Texas. She doesn’t ask me to turn around when we turn onto I-45. The early burst of activity that had her packing her cameras like the slightest delay would jeopardize everything has left her, and she stares out the window in a very un-Annie-like silence. When I started the car, I turned the radio off—nothing felt appropriate. What goes on a playlist for running away from one’s wedding? Annie could probably come up with something, but she’s lost in her thoughts.
My fingers itch on the steering wheel. I want to hit the gas and get Annie as far away as possible, but I can’t. She’s making a mistake. Not that I have a clue how to fix this—I’m good at fixing problems, but Annie’s better at running away.
I flick on the indicator and take the next exit, ignoring Annie’s sigh from the passenger seat. I pull into a gas station and park off to the side. She won’t look at me when I turn to face her. Her eyes remain focused on something out the window.
“It’s not too late,” I say. “If we turn around, I can have you back to the house before the ceremony starts, but it has to be now.”
“I’m not getting married,” she says, fidgeting with the pearls dangling from her ears. There’s no engagement ring on her finger. Was she wearing one when she came into the office? I don’t remember. I was too distracted by how beautiful she looked in her dress to notice the running shoes on her feet. I’m still not sure where she pulled her phone from.
I pinch the bridge of my nose and ask the question I’m afraid of. “Did he hurt you?” Marc is a good guy. He’s a counselor. He spends weekends at the local animal shelter and is involved in community work. He’s kind, and for two years, he's been understanding about Annie spending April to June on the road chasing with me. I hate how much I like him, but even good guys can make mistakes. If he broke her heart, I’ll break his nose.
“No,” Annie says, but her voice is a whisper, and I catch the soft sigh on her exhale. She’s not happy, but I believe her. She’s not hurting from something he did or didn’t do.
“What happened? You love him.”
She doesn’t say anything, which doesn’t help the panic swelling in my chest.
“We can fix whatever’s wrong, we’ll go—”
“We’re going chasing,” she says in a tone that tells me she’s not changing her mind and arguing with her is pointless.
“You can’t run—”
“Don’t,” she snaps, brown eyes brimming with tears and flashing a warning. “Don’t say it.”
Say what? The truth? That Annie runs away from her problems? We both know she’s guilty of that. But I bite my tongue. If I push her too hard, too fast, she’ll run from me, too, and I can’t take that again.
“Don’t try to fix my problems,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest. “I need time and space to think, and I can’t do that if you’re trying to micromanage my disaster. Can we go now?”
The sound of traffic fills the space between us. Maybe she needs time, but the time to return is slipping away. “Does Marc know?”
Annie nods, a tear falling free. She brushes it away and sniffles, turning her head from me.
Okay.
That’s something. Annie might be running, but Marc won’t find out at the altar.
I tap my fingers on the steering wheel and look out the windshield at the sky. “Can we talk about—”
She cuts me off before I can say our last chase . “No.”
With a sigh, I turn to her. She doesn’t turn back to me, though. We don’t have to talk about it, but I owe her an apology. “Annie, I’m—”
“I want a do-over,” she says, wiping another tear away. “I don’t want what happened in April to be my last memory after eight years.”
Her words suck the breath from my lungs. I don’t want to remember ninety-nine percent of that day, either. But that one percent? I don’t ever want to forget, even if she does.
A do-over. One final chase. Time and space to get her head on straight and figure out what she wants. I could refuse. Take her home and remove myself and my stupid feelings from the equation.
My fingers tap the steering wheel again. “What if I can’t keep you safe?”
Annie sniffles. “Didn’t you once tell me chasing is dangerous?”
It didn’t dissuade her on that first chase, and if the last one didn’t do it, nothing ever will.
I guess we’re doing this. Chasing on her wedding day. “I need to fill the tank before we go.”
She extracts her bank card from the bodice of her dress.
“You can get the next one,” I tell her as I pull up to a pump. She tucks it back without a word.
Once inside, though, doubts creep in. I stand in front of the candy aisle, and before I can talk myself out of it, I pull my phone out of my pocket and call her uncle. He’ll tell me if I can do anything to fix this. He answers on the second ring.
“She told us,” he says after I explain the situation. “She needs to do this. Trust her.”
I take a deep breath after we end the call. Annie’s uncle knows and isn’t upset. That’s good.
It doesn’t lessen the pounding in my head or the stress of being an accomplice in jilting a groom who doesn’t deserve to be jilted. But something relaxes inside me.
I don’t have to bring her back. She isn’t getting married today. Whatever happens next week or month, we're chasing for the next two days, and she’ll be with me.
I grab a bag of strawberry Twizzlers, a breakfast burrito, and two cheap coffees, pay for everything, and head out to my new SUV. It’s the same model as the previous one, but black rather than silver. It’s not pock-marked by hail yet, which feels wrong in a chase vehicle.
“Did you call my uncle or Marc?” Annie asks, clearly pissed. I glance at the gas station, and yup. She could see me through the windows.
“Your uncle,” I say, dropping the Twizzlers into her lap and handing her the burrito. “I wanted to make sure he knew where you were.” Her aunt and uncle been nothing but kind and welcoming to me over the years. I won’t repay that by not letting them know their niece is safe.
“I told him,” she says, sounding annoyed as she transfers the Twizzlers to the glove box. Her mood doesn’t last—by the time she unwraps a corner of the breakfast burrito, there’s a smile on her face.
She didn’t eat this morning. She always forgets breakfast when she’s stressed. I sigh but start the SUV and pull out of the gas station.
Annie takes a bite of the burrito, making a happy little noise like nothing in the world is wrong, and I snap. “Get out of that dress before you drop a tomato on it.”
Unoffended, she shoves the burrito into my hand and unbuckles her seatbelt, climbing into the backseat. For someone as tall as she is, she’s good at moving in tight spaces, but still. Her satin-covered ass brushes my arm, and her burrito is suddenly in danger of having the fillings squeezed out of it, so I set it on the dashboard.
“I didn’t bring any clothes,” she calls from the backseat, unzipping my bag.
This day is going to kill me. Annie in my clothes is a special kind of torture. Her scent will cling to them, rendering me unable to wash them until it’s gone. And the stupid caveman part of my brain will scream mine .
But at least I won’t have to look at her in the wedding dress she chose to marry Marc in.
After a minute, there’s the sound of another zip sliding down and the rustle of fabric. I tighten my grip on the steering wheel and resist the temptation to glance in the rearview mirror.
She climbs back into the passenger’s seat wearing my gray sweatpants and an undershirt. It’s tight on me and loose on her, but it still manages to cling to the curve of her breasts, the white of her strapless bra visible beneath the white fabric. The gray sweats on her long legs leave more to the imagination, but that’s even better. Or worse.
“You still look like a bride,” I grumble.
Without a word—only a glance my way—she pulls off her earrings and drops them in the glove box. Then she combs her fingers through her hair, releasing that damned orange blossom scent into the cab of the SUV. It scrambles my senses, leaving me dizzy with how badly I want to bury my face in her hair and breathe her in. Preferably while naked in bed. All I can do is grip the steering wheel, focus on the road, and try to remember where we’re going and why.
“Better?” she asks, reaching for the burrito on the dashboard.
Yes, because she looks like my Annie now.
No, because she can’t be mine. Her feelings for me run platonic. They always have.
My feelings…
I fell in love with her slowly, each chase drawing me deeper and deeper until there was only her, and my whole life revolved around the next chase day. Even on the marginal days with little to no chance of anything happening, I wanted to chase because she’d be sitting next to me, her feet on the dash as we watched cumulus towers going up. Talking about nothing and everything.
I tried so damn hard to make it work with someone else, but at the end of the day, there’s only ever been Annie.
I grab my old OU hat off the dashboard and stick it on her head. “There. Now you’re ready to get some storms.”
She readjusts the hat with a grin before biting the burrito. “Mm,” she says around a mouthful. “How does a shitty old gas station have the best breakfast burritos?”
We’ve had this conversation for years, and the familiarity settles the air between us and makes me smile. “How do you not succumb to food poisoning?”
She takes another bite and shrugs.