24. Chase
CHASE
“Chase,” Julian says as he strides into my room. “You going to fucking talk to me about this?”
I glance up from my laptop, where I’m editing Logan’s photos I’ve scanned in, to see Julian holding out his cell phone up to my face.
The picture at the center of the screen is of me and Logan.
I shut my laptop, reaching out to grab Julian’s phone.
“Holy shit. How many fucking comments and likes does this have?”
“Millions of people have seen it already, Chase. Now talk.”
Julian is pissed and I instantly know why.
It’s a photo from last night at the gallery show, and it shows me and Logan sitting at the bar, posing for the camera.
But on the bar between us, there are multiple beer bottles, wine glasses, and shot glasses.
Someone even had their pack of cigarettes out on the bar, too.
I scroll through some of the comments and most of them are pretty innocuous, just talking about how hot Logan is. But some of them seem very curious about me, too.
“Jules,” I tell him. “I know how this sounds, but none of that shit on the bar was mine.”
He gives me a cold stare. “You just happened to be sitting in front of it all? Who the fuck leaves half-full glasses like that?”
“People at gallery openings do, all of the time.”
He exhales. “Can I trust you?”
My heart twists in my chest. “You know what? I’m tired of this. Trust me or don’t, Julian. I don’t care anymore.”
He grabs his phone from my hand, more pissed now.
“Honestly, I do believe you. I believe that the drinks aren’t yours, and I know people sometimes leave their empty packs of cigarettes on bar tops.
I trust that you’re not going to relapse, and that you’re telling me the truth about last night. But I don’t trust you with him.”
I stand up, moving toward the door to leave.
But he blocks my way, holding out his arm like a bar.
“Get off of me,” I mutter, shoving him.
He shoves me back, the same way we used to fight as kids. “No. You need to talk to me. What are you doing with him?”
“Why do you care so much?”
“Because I’m going to be the one picking up the pieces when you go off the deep end,” Julian says. “Because I always am. When Logan inevitably goes back to Los Angeles, am I going to get a call that you’re in the hospital?”
“So you do think I’m going to relapse, huh?”
“Maybe not with substances. Maybe just with hurting yourself. Hating yourself, when this fucking implodes.”
“Damn. You’re already betting against me and this thing with Logan has barely even begun.”
Julian puffs out a bitter laugh. “See? You’re referring to it as a thing. It’s not even serious, is it, Chase?”
“Maybe it fucking will be,” I tell him firmly. “You’d rather cut me off before I even get a chance to try?”
He pauses for a moment, silence hanging in the air in a way that feels like it’s suffocating me.
“After Logan left last year, I thought you were going to self-destruct—”
“Of course you did.”
“Let me talk. I thought you were going to self-destruct but instead, I saw you become the strongest, most stable version of yourself I’ve ever seen.
Your art is incredible. You’re dedicated.
Hell, even in the fucking gym, you’ve been unstoppable.
And it’s sure been a while since I had to rescue you from a hospital bed, too. ”
“You’re trying to say I’m better when I’m not around Logan?”
“I’m trying to say I don’t want you to lose yourself again,” he tells me. “I couldn’t take it. Mom couldn’t take it.”
“Don’t use Mom to try to guilt-trip me. Mom would fucking love Logan, and you know I’m right. She’s practically Yard Line’s number one fan.”
He lifts his eyebrows. “She doesn’t know how badly you’ve been hurt, Chase.”
Something kicks in my chest.
I reach out and in a snap, I try to push past Julian again. He grips the front of my shirt and stops me from leaving. He releases me, glaring like a fierce tiger, like he’s challenging me.
“You’re right,” I tell him. “Mom doesn’t know what Dad did to me. But that has nothing to do with Logan.”
“It has everything to do with him. Logan makes you feel like you’re not a fuck-up, doesn’t he?
He actually recognizes your talent. He likes who you are.
But you need to realize that being obsessed with someone isn’t going to fix you.
You’re valuable with him or without him.
Would you know that, if he ditched you and went back to LA? Cutting you out of his life?”
“Logan wouldn’t cut me out.”
My throat feels tight as I say it.
Because I know what Julian’s going to say.
“He’s already done it once,” he tells me, and I want to claw out of my own skin.
“And I know you. I know you’re more obsessed this time, even without any substances involved.
You’re barely at home anymore because you’re at the Bellwood, hoping he’ll have time to hang out with you, and when you do come here you only talk about him. ”
“Fuck this,” I mutter under my breath.
All of the fight inside me suddenly feels like it’s been zapped away.
And I’m just done.
I grab my laptop, push past Julian, and leave.
I take my bookbag and sling it over my shoulder, and I get out of the apartment as fast as I can, not looking back at my brother. I take the stairs down fast and out on the street, I duck down into the subway below ground.
The train comes quickly.
Once I’m above ground again, I’m right by the Bellwood. I pull out my phone, ignoring the 12 unread messages I have from Jules.
Chase
Your hotel room is empty, right?
Logan
Unfortunately. We’re already on the road trip up to the Catskills. Hi, by the way.
Please say yes to the question I’m about to ask you. Also hi.
Yes, yes, yes, to whatever it is.
Fuck, I hate how good he is.
A stormcloud of deeply held guilt is still kicked up inside me from everything my brother said, but when Logan treats me as kindly as he does, some small fraction of that seems to settle.
There’s an edge to it now that I hate. A seed of doubt that Jules planted in me, making me question fucking everything.
How long will Logan be that kind to me?
There’s no fucking shot he’d cut me off and just go back to LA like last year, right?
I try to push it out of my mind, finally responding to Logan.
You wouldn’t be deeply opposed to me using my employee card to get into your room while you’re gone, would you?
I need to edit the photos, and I just need a clear head.
I can’t be in my own apartment right now.
Use my suite for anything you’d like.
Thank you. Fuck, thank you so much.
Is everything okay? You can’t use your studio, either?
No.
Julian knows where that is, and I don’t want to see him right now.
My phone rings and I only see Logan’s name on the screen for a split second before immediately answering.
“Is everything really okay? What happened with Julian?” Logan asks right as I pick up.
“God, I hate how good your voice sounds, even on the phone,” I murmur.
“Yours sounds good, too. I don’t hate it.”
“Yeah. I don’t actually hate it at all, either.”
“What’s happening there, Chase?”
I sigh, waiting for a couple of police cars with their alarms blaring to whiz past me on the busy street outside the Bellwood.
“Julian and I got in a fight. He saw that photo of us online and noticed all of the alcohol on the bar.”
“Shit. I didn’t even think about that. I saw the picture, but I was only looking at you.”
Fuck you, Logan Stone, fuck you for saying the most perfect things when you’re not even here to let me hug you.
“Thank you, Logan,” I tell him. “I just need to finish the edits. I promise I’ll be good while I’m in your suite, okay?”
“You can be a little bit bad.”
My mouth breaks into a smile, and I’m surprised I’m even capable of that right now. “Always. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Um, Chase? Could you do me a favor before we hang up?”
“Yes.”
“Call me that thing you said last night?”
I draw a blank. “Hmm… did I say you were my beautiful cock-hungry slut or something in the heat of the moment?”
An old woman walking down the street glances up as I say that phrase and she cackles, giving me a thumbs-up before walking away.
“No, but I’d have liked that too. The other thing.”
“Oh.” It dawns on me, and suddenly my blood is calming even more. “Thank you for letting me use your suite, baby.”
I hear him hum. “That’s it. That’s the one.”
“God, I cannot fucking wait to see you again.”
I stay in his suite all week. I don’t read through Julian’s messages, but I do at least message to let him know I’m safe and sound, sobriety included.
I’m pretty sure he knows where I am.
Luckily, he lets me exist on my own for a while.
Logan’s suite mostly becomes a makeshift photo editing den, because it turns out I’m a total perfectionist when it comes to getting Logan’s pictures just right, and I keep staying up too late after my shifts at the restaurant, making little fixes and changing tiny tones of color in the background.
But I also sleep in his bed.
Because I don’t care if it means I’m obsessed.
I bury my head against his pillow and get the faint scent of him, and I take showers in his body wash and make myself come, wishing it was his hand on me instead of my own.
The place gets messier than it would if Logan were around, but I at least keep it clean, other than pillows and blankets being draped around every soft surface in the place and a few coffee cups and cans left out on the balcony table.
It’s a couple of days before I know that the photos are probably ready.
But then it takes another two days before I’m ready to send them. I keep going back to them, over and over again, gazing at Logan and the way I captured him.
The photos are shockingly tasteful.
Him, on the ground in my studio, lying back in front of my painting of a tumultuous ocean scape, the waves tinged with accents of neon, of course.
Or others of him standing up, in shots where he tried on my glasses thinking it would look funny, when in reality it just made him look even more handsome, like Clark Kent.
There are ones where he’s leaning on the windowsills, and his cock isn’t even visible in the pictures. His ass sticks out in the back, though, and it’s enough to make me covet him every time I see it.
The more I look at the photos, the more they feel like they’re mine, too.
I almost send them out to Emily to give to the magazine one night ahead of schedule.
But I can’t get myself to pull the trigger.
I finally send them at the last minute, after Emily shoots me an email reminding me that the magazine’s deadline is that day. I don’t let myself glance over them for the millionth time.
The photos belong to the world now, not to me.
They’ll be ready to publish on the internet in two days, and that night, Logan will return to the Bellwood.
Emily’s return email is succinct:
These are exquisite, Chase.
Ready to break the internet?
-E
I used to think “breaking the internet” was just a phrase people used.
With Logan’s photos, I had no idea how true it was about to become.