Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
ADDISON
Going out on this date had been a horrible idea.
Not only did I have to sit through multiple mind-numbingly boring conversations Chad dominated, but I had to suffer through it all with Chase sitting directly next to me while wearing a suit that looked like it was tailor-made for him.
I was used to seeing him in jeans and a T-shirt or his uniform, but I couldn’t deny what the sight of him dressed up did for me.
Every time his knee bumped into mine, it shot a zing of awareness down my spine, my nipples responding in kind.
I’d been a fidgety, uncomfortable mess through dinner. And though I’d tried to minimize how often I glanced Chase’s way, I could feel his stare on me, heavy and unwavering. And I hated how much I loved it.
Despite the fact that Chad had listed himself as heterosexual on his dating profile, I was beginning to wonder if he didn’t have a little bit of a crush on Chase.
Or, more accurately, a big-ass infatuation.
He’d spent the entirety of dinner kissing Chase’s ass.
He’d talked Chase up about every great play he’d made this season, fawning over the injury that had taken him out in June during the play-offs and the reinjury a couple weeks ago that had sent him back home to Starlight Cove.
Not to mention tripping over himself to get Chase whatever he wanted, as if the guy weren’t a literal millionaire who could get it himself.
And it turned out Chad and I hadn’t had to argue about who was paying the bill because Chase had reached for it before Chad’s finger could even twitch.
And me? Well, the only attention I got was from the one person I shouldn’t want it from.
Shouldn’t but couldn’t help that I did.
All that combined meant this was going to go down as one of the worst dates I’d ever been on in my life. But that didn’t mean I was going to give Chase the satisfaction of knowing that. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to let him think he ruined this date, which had no doubt been his goal.
After Chase signed a couple autographs and the three of us strolled outside into the cold January air, I turned toward Chad and plastered on a smile. “What are you doing the rest of the night?”
“Yeah, you going to a sports bar later, or what?” Chase lifted his chin toward my date’s ensemble, one that made him look like an overgrown little leaguer.
“No. Why, do you want to go to one with me?” Chad asked, as eager as a puppy with a new toy.
I definitely needed to steer this ship back on course if I had any hope of salvaging it.
“Actually…” I stepped closer to Chad and placed a hand on his forearm. “I was thinking we could have a drink at my place.”
Chase snapped his head in my direction, his mouth set in a firm line, his brows drawn down in a scowl. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Good thing I didn’t ask you, then.”
“It’s already late,” Chase gritted out through clenched teeth.
I shrugged. “What I have in mind will be worth the lost sleep.”
I was baiting him, every word I said designed to get under his skin. Make him feel an ounce of what I did whenever I saw the photos of him and the puck bunnies hanging off his arm.
And it was working.
“Fuck. No.” Chase’s words were little more than a growl as he stepped closer to me, eyeing my hand still resting on Chad’s forearm. “You have work tomorrow.”
I raised a brow at him. “I missed the memo where you became my boss. I’m an adult. He’s an adult. We’re going to do adult things. Now kindly fuck off.”
Chad, for all his loudmouthed bluster in the restaurant, was doing little more than shuffling his feet and shooting worried glances at Chase.
Though, there was a good reason for that, considering the anger rolling off him in waves.
He was a big guy under normal circumstances, and I’d been right about Chad’s misrepresentation of his six-foot stature, which meant he looked positively puny next to Chase’s imposing frame.
Wearing ratty jeans, a well-worn—read: holey—graphic T-shirt that said something about his balls being bigger than mine—absolutely false—and a baseball hat, Chad looked like a kid playing dress-up compared to Chase.
Especially considering Chase had shown up in an impeccably tailored black suit, the pale blue shirt beneath it making his even paler blue eyes pop.
It was truly unfair how fucking good he looked tonight when all I wanted to do was claw those beautiful eyes out.
Chad cleared his throat. “I, uh, I don’t mean to impose, man.”
Without looking away from me, Chase said, “But you clearly are.”
“Chase!” I snapped, hitting him with my purse for good measure.
“What?” He shrugged. “It’s the truth. You and I have history. And I’m working really fucking hard to make it not history. I let you go on this date—”
“Let me?” I huffed out a harsh breath. “Excuse the fuck out of you.”
Chase glanced to Chad for the barest moment, lifting his chin toward him.
“And you spent the entire night with your nose shoved so far up my ass, you could smell what I had for breakfast instead of focusing on the most gorgeous woman you’ve ever had or will have the privilege of sitting across from. ”
Chad’s gaze bounced between Chase and me, his eyes wide as he nodded vigorously. “You’re right, man.” He held up his hands in surrender. “She’s all yours. I wasn’t really interested anyway. But if you ever want to grab a beer or—”
“Are you a fucking idiot?” Chase asked, his words low and controlled, his eyes hard as he stared at the immature frat boy I’d asked out tonight.
He took a step toward Chad, looming over him in a way that probably had him close to peeing himself.
“You disrespect her like that, and you think we have a future other than me handing you your ass?” He jerked his chin toward the parking lot. “Get the fuck out of here.”
Before I could even blink, Chad scurried off toward his car, glancing back every few seconds as if to make sure Chase wasn’t following him.
Chad fleeing as fast as his legs could carry him meant I was left there, on the sidewalk, on a cold January night.
With Chase as my only way home.
The ride back to the resort was silent, and I barely waited for Chase to stop the truck before I jumped out and hustled my way up the front walkway, uncaring of my four-inch heels.
“Jesus Christ, Addison,” he called across the parking lot. “Would you wait a second?”
“Get fucked,” I tossed over my shoulder without slowing down.
It was late, the inn closed down for the night except for the emergency after-hours number Aiden was monitoring. Thank God, because no one needed to see me yell at Starlight Cove’s golden boy before storming inside and slamming the door behind me.
Or attempting to anyway.
Chase caught it before it could provide that satisfactory thump in his face. He slipped inside the inn, his gaze finding me immediately, his brows drawn down in a scowl. “What the hell, Addie?”
I was already halfway up the stairs, and I whirled around to stare at him openmouthed.
“You’re asking me that?” With nowhere for the anger bubbling up inside me to go, I kicked off my ridiculously uncomfortable shoes in his direction, hoping like hell one of them landed against his stupid head.
Unfortunately, my luck just wasn’t that good tonight.
“I can’t believe you did that. You crashed my date, dominated all his attention, and then scared him off at the end of the night. You are such a jackass!”
Chase blinked up at me, mouth agape. “Are you kidding me? He was the jackass.”
“I don’t care if he came to the restaurant dressed in a fucking donkey costume. That wasn’t your call to make!”
He ran a hand over the layer of scruff on his jaw, frustration written over every inch of him. “Don’t even try to pretend you were into him. I’m intimately familiar with exactly how you behave when that’s true, and tonight wasn’t it.”
“How about you become intimately familiar with my knee in your junk?” I snapped back. But instead of doing just that, I turned and stormed the rest of the way up the stairs. “I’m a big girl, and I can make my own decisions.”
Chase was on my heels, even with his bad knee, and this was one of the few times I hated our ridiculous height difference. “And the best decision you could come up with tonight was to revenge-fuck a dudebro?”
I headed straight for my room, not bothering to glance over my shoulder to find out how far he was behind me.
That was how all the idiots in horror movies got murdered.
And if Chase caught me? I feared my fate would be much, much worse than death.
“I wasn’t actually going to fuck him. I just said that to get a rise out of you. ”
As soon as I was over the threshold to my bedroom, I attempted to slam the door in his face. And, once again, he caught it before it could hit its mark.
He stalked toward me, a scowl firmly on his face. “Well, it fucking worked.”
“Good.” He deserved to feel even a sliver of what I’d felt every time I was faced with a picture of him and another woman. “It serves you right.”
“It serves me right to see my girl out with another guy?”
“Your girl? Your girl?” I yelled, not bothering to keep my voice down.
The only people who resided in the main inn were me, Aiden, and Avery, and they were all the way on the other side of the house.
“Fuck all the way off with that bullshit, Chase. I’m not your anything, which you proved this past year.
And now you want to sweep back into my life and pretend like you have some kind of hold over me? You don’t.”
I said the words even though every inch of me fought against the lie. Even though my heart was thrumming in my chest, the furious thump-thump-thump a reminder of just how big his hold over me was, despite how much I hated it.
“Well, you’ve got a fucking hold over me,” he said, his voice low and rough, his gaze pinning me in place as he stood too close, too close, too close. “You always have, firefly, and you always will.”