Chapter 3
CHAPTER 3
CHASE
Inside the gallery, Teddy Bircher was loudly berating Joe for having sex with the harpist at their engagement dinner eight years ago.
The story was, unfortunately, true. An affianced Joe had quietly excused himself after the first course and when the ambient strings stopped, I’d known why.
Call it brotherly intuition.
“That was eight years ago!” my brother was telling his ex, looking tired. The packed gallery hung on their every word. “Why do you still care, Teddy? We broke up. You disappeared to Europe.”
Joe had sworn his days of raising hell with harpists and spoiled heiresses were behind him, and I believed him. For the most part. But with Teddy back in town dredging up the collective misdeeds of their youth, it was going to be hard to convince the trustees Joe wasn’t still the spoiled liability he had been when he was twenty. I had an additional, more selfish concern too—every time Joe’s name was in the media or went viral, it increased the risk I would lose anonymity with my blog. Association with his antics could ruin my credibility.
The onlookers were preoccupied with the scandal playing out in front of them and only a few people noticed me arrive. Every person in this room was known to me—as a Sanford, you were always stuck in the same crowd, no matter how rarely you responded to their invites. Sonya fluttered her fingers in hello, but her eyes barely left Joe and Teddy.
“Later that night,” Teddy was saying, projecting like this was Shakespeare in the Park, “you accepted ten thousand dollars to paint your balls and stamp imprints up the wall of the?—”
I strode to my brother’s side and cut her off. “Hello, Teddy. Remember me? Chase Sanford. It’s good to see you again.” Dishonesty tasted like cilantro, so I added truthfully, “You look well.”
The diminutive heiress, who I hadn’t seen since she dumped my brother a year into their engagement, blinked at me. Joe’s eyes were burning a hole in my head, and my skin felt hot under the scrutiny of a full gallery, but I stood my ground.
Teddy’s brown hair and blunt bangs were the same as always. Her pale skin shone, with life or makeup or both, and her distinctive Bircher chin jutted stubbornly.
My memories of Teddy were few and distant, so I was unprepared for the real-time, real-life sight of her. She was dressed to kill—her black dress clung to her in a way that could stop a room. It had stopped this room.
Some poor server thought to break the tension by offering a tray of hors d’oeuvres and Teddy selected some skewers, either uncaring or unbothered that everyone was staring at her, waiting to hear what she’d say next. Leisurely, she bit into the drizzled cucumber, chewed, and resumed reciting ugly memories as if she’d never stopped.
“Joe, remember the time you sold my grandmother’s heirlooms for blow?”
Joe sighed. “That was you, Teddy. ”
She was undeterred. “You definitely stole Richard Corman’s yacht.”
“Rich and I worked that out.”
“I was a virgin when we met!” She all but draped the back of her hand over her forehead. “Only nineteen!”
“Virginity is a social construct,” I interrupted. I’d blogged about this. “And you and Joe are the same age.”
When my nineteen-year-old brother started talking about proposing to his girlfriend, believe me, I’d checked.
Joe rolled his eyes. “Now’s not the time for a lecture, Chase.”
He didn’t seem very grateful that I was here to rescue him. I was about to remind him what was at stake when Teddy Bircher turned to me, hands on her lush hips.
That adjective startled me and I pushed it away.
“Who asked you, Jane the Virgin?” she demanded.
“Shaming men for virginity, again, a construct, is as outdated as lauding women for it,” I replied.
Her mouth fell open.
Has Teddy Bircher always had lips like this? Hips like this?
I never would have looked at the hips or lips of my brother’s fiancée, so she must have; I’d just never noticed. Or she’d done what the kids at the games store I co-owned would call leveling up.
It didn’t change the fact she was a heinously immoral person, back to drag my brother’s name through the mud when it would damage him the most.
Joe clapped his hands together and addressed the crowd. “Dinner and a show tonight, huh folks?” Laughter ran through the room. “I’m glad the ghosts of my past were able to entertain you all.”
My half brother was very comfortable being the center of attention. Like our dad.
“I’m a changed man now. Very responsible, very boring. And it’s past my bedtime. Teddy, good luck with your life. See you… never.” Then he nodded stiffly at me. “Chase. ”
With that, my brother slipped out the doors and disappeared down the street.
The gallery burst into whispers and the weight of their eyes on me became physically painful. Itchy. Like the poison oak rash I got after going to my first and last summer camp, which I’d begged my mom to let me go to because that’s what everyone else at school talked about after summer break. Rashes, I learned, didn’t impress my peers at all. The opposite.
“Wow,” the hellion heiress drawled from behind me. “I don’t think your brother likes you very much.”
“Incorrect. We’re very close.”
“I’ve seen closer rats and cats.”
I turned and looked at her properly. “What?”
Teddy shrugged.
Hips. Lips.
Her demeanor was completely at ease. She didn’t care that people were looking at her—at us. As if to prove it, she languidly licked the drizzled cucumber.
Unable to tear my eyes away from the tzatziki running down her hand, I tugged at the neck of my sweater. The air conditioner in here was broken; I made a mental note to tell Sonya.
To compensate for the height difference between myself and Teddy, I stepped closer to recite my preprepared speech warning her away from Joe. But the words died in my mouth when her eyes widened.
“What?” I asked instead.
“You smell....” She swallowed. “Good. No! Surprising. I meant you smell surprising.”
“What?” I repeated, as if I wasn’t a writer and that was the only word I knew.
She wiggled her shoulders like she was shaking off unpleasant thoughts. “I came here to heal my broken heart. Joe can pretend he’s a changed man, but I’ll never forget the havoc his antics caused, or forgive the embarrassment of his cheating. Broken hearts don’t mend overnight. ”
It was rude, but I scoffed. “Come on, Teddy. You’ve had seven years of overnights.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sonya Barlow reach for the straw of her drink with her mouth and miss because she was too busy staring at us. No one wanted Sonya’s famous insatiability for gossip focused on them, least of all me, so I shifted, shielding Teddy and I from her view. Teddy was shorter than me, likely shorter than most people, so the action was easy.
I skipped to the end of my speech. “Teddy, your engagement to my brother was the short-lived foolishness of two nineteen-year-olds. Joe has outgrown you. Leave him alone and move on with your life. If you pester him again like this in public, you’ll regret it.”
She crossed her arms. “Are you threatening me?”
“Yes,” I said, pleased I’d done it correctly.
She cocked her head. “And what will you do if I don’t listen? If I keep doing exactly what you told me not to? Because to be honest, I’m not very good at doing what uptight, overbearing men tell me to. It makes me want to do the thing even more.”
There was suddenly too much blood in my veins, most of it running south.
She pressed her advantage.
“I’ve got your measure, Chase Sanford.” She stepped closer, rising on her tiptoes to whisper in my ear. “Your hands are clenching as you talk to me, and you’re shifting in place like you think that can hide your thickening cock.” Her eyes dropped down to my pants. “You’re a good man and that’s your thing. I get it, Mr. Virginity is a Construct. But not even the good ones can hide all their naughty thoughts.” She tilted her head and slowly raked her eyes up to meet mine. “Yours are broadcasting through your eyes.”
“That’s—” I pushed my glasses up my nose and tried again. “That’s ludicrous. You are ludicrous.”
“Ludicrous!” She patted my chest. “Nice five-dollar word. All right, bye. ”
With one more pat, she spun on her heel and pushed her way out of the venue, waving down a cab. She was gone before I could gather my wits.
Sonya was staring at me. Everyone was staring at me. Feeling like a wild animal, I looked around the room for help, but none was forthcoming. It was an eternity before the gallery burst into motion again. Greta Winters, one of my oldest friends and one of the few people here I truly liked, made her way over to me, sympathy on her face. We hugged, and I told her that I had to go. She understood and promised to call later in the week.
I had planned to be on a flight tonight, so there wasn’t anything to eat in my apartment. Adrian, who sometimes cooked for me, was busy with other clients so I ordered pesto and parmesan ravioli from the place around the corner.
While I waited for the delivery, I replayed the interaction at the gallery.
None of it made sense.
As I ate my pasta one-handed, I scrolled through everything I could find online about Teddy Bircher. Years ago, when she lived in New York, Teddy had posted prolifically. Since moving to Europe, she hadn’t posted at all.
The later the hour grew, the fainter the feeling of exhilaration became and the better I could think. Oddities that on their own were unremarkable became significant. Teddy’s confidence. Her nothing-to-lose argumentativeness. And her face—it looked the same, but the expressions were completely different.
Most inconsistently, she’d been flirtatious.
With me .
Before tonight, Teddy and I had only met a handful of times, always brief. The most memorable was at her and Joe’s clusterfuck of an engagement dinner. Teddy had taken an instant dislike to me and made no secret of it. She thought I was boring. Specifically, her words were, “textbook in a sweater.”
This, tonight? That wasn’t Teddy Bircher.
I didn’t have any proof, only gut feeling. For Joe’s sake, I would need real evidence she was an impostor. Then I’d expose her. Her lies, rather. I needed to get closer to her. This wasn’t about her flirting, or the way her laugh felt like electricity dancing over my skin. This was for Joe.