Chapter 14 Chase
CHASE
After leaving the Smythe’s house, I go to the same hotel as my parents but stay down the hall.
Mom has a major case of fizzy post-party excitement and can’t stop gushing about my courtship and future bride.
The upside is she adores Pippa. The downside is she’s still off-limits.
My sisters would often come home from dances or parties and bend my ear for hours about so and so and this and that. The only thing to do is ride it out.
“I loved watching you dance together. You make the perfect match.”
I agree. But Pizza is off-limits. It’s bad enough that I’d been thinking about her for the last few days.
“Mom, thank you for trying to help me with—” I tip my head toward the door to her room, where Dad retreated without so much as a good night.
“He’s been under a lot of pressure at work.”
“Yeah, I know the feeling.”
“Is your coach really making you attend that program?”
“He really is. So, I’ll be unavailable for the next thirty days. Hammer also said that dating is off the table unless it involves a trip down the aisle.”
“Well, that’s what we’ve been saying all night.”
“Mom.”
She tips her head to the side. “Chase and Pippa. Has a good ring to it. Just think about it.”
Trust me, I have.
“Good night, Mom.” I hug her and then head to my room.
After showering, I stretch and then check the weather for tomorrow. I sit on the bed and swipe the screen to my contacts. I feel stupid admitting it, but like Mom, I too need to diffuse.
It’s no surprise that my father didn’t speak to me at the Smythe’s party.
But he’s like a snake in the grass. I know it’s there.
Definitely dangerous, but I’m not sure when it’ll spring.
He likes to keep me waiting. It’s the burn of his silence and the anticipation of his strike that’s part of the punishment.
Then he’ll tell me what a disappointment I am.
Meanwhile, Mom carried on like I didn’t get in trouble for showing my backside to the world. Well, technically, Brandon was the only intended audience. If I were being tried in front of a jury, I’d want to drive that point home.
My mother also decided that I’m marrying Freddie’s sister. Cue the badum-dum sound effect. Is the joke on me? I thought I was the prankster.
Again, in my defense, I was following Freddie’s lead because it seemed the safest way to avoid my crush, aka his twin sister, by eliminating any possibility of a spark forming between us.
Doesn’t my mother realize that? Surely, Mr. and Mrs. Thompson know their son and that he’s insanely protective of her.
I’m certain they’re aware of what he did to Jason Gibbons after he said something about Pippa’s—well, never mind.
Then there was the whole Eli Barnes thing when I had to talk Freddie down from beating the kid to a pulp for having the nerve to ask Pippa if she wanted to study in the stacks at Gilson Library.
Granted, the location had some connotations, but I don’t think she was aware of them.
Mom isn’t an option, even though typically she’s a good person to talk to. I don’t want to feed the beast.
My sisters, except Rhiannon, are in the States. Although it’s earlier there with the time difference, if I mentioned any of what transpired tonight and how I feel, likely it would get back to our mother.
Then there’s Rhiannon, but if I avoid her, I can pretend the Crush or Cupid thing doesn’t exist. I do not want to get involved in that.
Of course, I have an entire football team of friends who’d drop whatever they’re doing, day or night, if I needed an ear. But the subject of this particular conversation would result in a team tackle and I’m still recovering from the last time I so much as suggested that bachelorhood was overrated.
That leaves my best friend.
Nope. Not telling him that I like...Pizza.
The fact of the matter is, there is no world in which she and I would ever be together.
It’s a lovely notion, but it’s not happening.
Not in real life. Not in Mom’s fairytale fantasy of being neighbors with the Thompsons on some remote island or whatever it was they concocted while Pippa stood there looking shell-shocked as we said our goodbyes for the evening.
This situation is fictional. The first page doesn’t read Once Upon a Time. No, the first words of the first chapter are The End.
And yet, I need to talk to someone about what happened because I saw my future.
No, it wasn’t because I became a possessive man-beast when Benedict tried to make a move.
Nor did I drink whatever Charlie Smythe had hidden in his flask, and I certainly didn’t fall on the damp marble steps and crack my head.
I saw the aisle Coach Hammer mentioned. I saw all the days, months, and years after that.
There was our wedding day and night. The honeymoon, making a home together, kids in the kitchen, and playing ball outside.
There was even a swing in an old oak tree detail, like my grandmother and Cap had at their house when I was a kid.
There were Easter egg hunts, skinned knees, and exhausted nights where Pippa and I just looked at each other like What are we doing?! then start laughing.
It was intense and real and everything I’ve ever wanted.
I saw it all as plain as day, more vividly than a movie. But it was a flash. A hint at what could be.
However, it’s an impossibility and I need to tell someone, or at least rant about how I’m caught between a rock and a hard place. Two rocks. Two hard places.
Don’t want to ruin my friendship with Freddie.
I’m his best man. I scrub my hand down my face.
That means he’s going to see his sister and me together next fall, which will result in him knowing something is going on between Pippa and me.
..or worse, our parents doing something crazy like announcing ours is the next wedding.
Then, his would be ruined, he’d be carted off to jail for first-degree murder, and Aimme would already be a widow on her wedding day.
Not that he’d be dead—no, that would be me—but he’d be put away for life, so that would squelch all their future life plans, essentially rendering her husband-less.
Because there was something there between Pippa and me, right?
Just like in Mr. Halverson’s class, I can’t deny the underlying chemistry between us—I detected it then and I sensed it tonight.
The way we moved so smoothly together, like we were meant to dance and laugh and live life together, couldn’t have been a figment of my imagination, a silly hope, or something I could ignore. Could it?
I know, I know, I sound like a dough ball, slathered with olive oil and covered in melty cheese.
But there is no denying that our mothers are certainly aware of something.
Or they’re just wishing for grandbabies and I’m a romantic moron who is trying to see something that isn’t there because I’m too afraid to take a chance on love with another woman.
But that brings me to the question of the decade. Why am I clinging to my secret high school crush whom I couldn’t date because she’s my best friend’s twin?
Let’s analyze, because that’s what I’m good at. Sure, I can throw a ball like a ballistic missile. I’m exceptionally fast and have a great eye for aerial geometry and velocity—in other words, where I need to be to catch a ball despite two hundred-plus pounds of solid muscle coming my way.
I’m really good at analysis. That was Cap’s ace card that he passed on to me. We’d spend hours studying old tapes of the best and worst football games. I understand the fine points, every nuance, and how fractions of space can make or break a game.
I could go for ten minutes with him right now. What would my grandfather say?
My finger hovers over Rhiannon’s contact in my phone. Everyone agreed she was exactly like our grandfather, if the old man were obsessed with the art of romance rather than football.
I scratch the scruff on my chin when my phone chimes with a call. It’s Freddie. As if he’d knocked on the hotel room door, I jump onto the bed, throw the phone into the pillows, spin in a circle, and then bound toward the door and lock it.
Somewhat muted, the phone continues to alert me to the call.
I tell myself to stop acting like a weirdo and be a man.
If his parents told him about me dancing with Pippa, I’ll have to face the music.
Tell him they made us do it. Practically at gunpoint.
Okay, I won’t go that far, but my survival instincts kick in.
I answer and my voice is an octave higher than normal. “Hey, Phizzle, Philzee, Philzo.”
“Chase?” he hollers into the phone. The deep bass of live music comes from the background.
“Yeah, it’s me. Sorry, not sure why I, uh—”
“You’ve called me Phillip once and that was when I told you I was getting hitched. You okay, mate?”
“I am great. Never been better. Good. Goodzee. Goodzo.” I press my hand to my forehead.
“You sure about that? Anyway, I heard about the #BruiserButt thing all the way out here in Fiji. That was brilliant, mate. Way to wow the world with that backside of yours.” The music is loud in the background and I only make out what he said using context clues.
“Yeah, well, it landed me in hot water.”
“The water here is warm. You’re off season. Why don’t you come out? Say hi.”
“Wouldn’t want to crash your pre-honeymoon.” The comment reminds me of what Pippa said about crashing a wedding.
“Speaking of marriage...”
Never mind the pleasant bath water off Fiji. My stomach floods with what feels like hot swamp sludge. I swallow thickly. “The what?”
“The wedding. Listen, I had an idea—” He goes on to tell me about a bachelor party prank he wants me to help him pull off.
I drop onto the bed. That I can handle. Any mention of his sister would’ve sent me into the deep end.
“And then, we’ll coat the whole thing with hairspray so it holds.”
I’m about to ask what’ll happen if it rains, but relieved it has nothing to do with Pippa, I say, “You got it. Anything for my best friend’s bachelor party.”
“You’re up next, am I right?”
“Up next?”
“Yeah. Sean got married two years ago. Jonesy and Misha tied the knot last year. I’m on deck this summer, then it’s your turn.”
“Oh, yeah. Right. Well, I’m busy, um, you know...”
“Busy-shmizzy, foh-rizzy. Oh, gotta go. Aimme wants to grab pizza before the place closes. Talk soon.”
The phone goes silent and with it, my heart stops for exactly three beats.
Pizza.
Was Freddie just being his normal self—a bit bombastic, always gregarious, and sometimes goofy—or was the last comment a warning because when it comes to his sister, he can be lethal?
Taking a surreptitious glance around the room, I scope it out for booby traps. It’s unclear whether Freddie is an Mi6 agent or if Mr. Thompson set him up well with investments at an early age and he lives off the dividends.
All I know is that I have to forget about Pippa and Pizza. Looking back, she’s always been a handful. Everyone at school had a story about her, extending back to the primary grades.
Mine: I didn’t know she was Freddie’s twin sister until our third rugby game when he came at me like a freight train.
I didn’t know why until later, when another teammate commented that he’d been brutal on the field that day and then commented that he was probably taking out his anger on someone flirting with Pippa.
She said she has rules. My rule is that if you’re friends with a dude for more than three days, his sister is forbidden, no matter how hot or adorable she is.
Sub-rule a: You have to think of her as a sister
Sub-rule b: You have to protect her like she’s your sister
Sub-rule c: but you’re allowed to prank her like her brother
But it’s impossible to think of Pippa with her deep brown eyes, bow-shaped lips, and bright smile as a sister. I avoid thinking of everything south of her neck because I’d risk Freddie smashing through my window like a superhero sister avenger and demolishing me.
Back in high school, they were different and I couldn’t be blamed for not realizing they were siblings.
For one, Freddie is a dude and Pippa most certainly is not.
Whereas he has dark hair and sharp features, hers is lighter brown and she’s softer and rounder where it matters.
Freddie is a prankster and she’s often on the receiving end, and would no sooner step in front of a moving prank to spare someone than she would conceive of doing someone dirty like that.
He’s the life of the party, always eager to entertain. It’s not accurate to say she’s a wild child or a carefree spirit. She’s not entirely quirky or spunky. Though to varying degrees she is a dash of that and a pinch of this, but not super social like her twin.
Pippa is more like a vortex of chaos. Delightful, beautiful, adorable chaos. Once again, I warm through like a ball of dough, slathered in olive oil, and topped with melted cheese.
No matter the situation at hand, whether Freddie is my best friend or the impossibility of the parents’ proposal, the confusing cluster of feelings about whether I am over her or not come into focus.
I still like Pizza. A lot.