2. Chase
That was the first time Chase had called Zak by anything other than her name since they got home. It slipped out indiscriminately. She wasn’t his at all, and she never would be.
Fuck-buddies didn’t have pet names for each other, especially not ones that dredged up memories of rock ballads and first kisses. Of asking her to dance because he hadn’t been bold enough to ask her outright for what he really wanted.
But did they buy each other Christmas gifts like this?
He knew jack-all about guitars, but he did know her. And he knew she would never waste her money on one that wasn’t worth every penny.
“Sorry,” he managed.
She shook her head. “Don’t be sorry.”
He needed to get out of here. This room was suffocating. The way she was looking up at him was suffocating. Probably because she was way too close to his face, and it was his fault.
He had dipped his head, and he had twisted her long hair between his fingertips. Now all he could think about was closing the rest of that taunting space between them, and he knew she was thinking the same. Her breathing was shallow as she looked at his lips like she needed his air as badly as he needed her.
But that was the problem. He needed more than another empty night in her bed.
He wasn’t sure what made him weaker. The fact that he couldn’t relax and enjoy the best sex he’d ever had with the woman he cared about, or the fact that he couldn’t even do a good job notgiving in.
“No. I can’t keep doing this,” he said, desperation bleeding into his voice. “You make me feel like I’m fucking crazy half the time, Zak, because I know it’s not just me. I know I’m not imagining how good we are together, but then you try to tell me it’s all nothing.”
She reached for his hands with a touch like hot ash when he tried to pull away. “It’s not nothing.”
“I know it’s not. This isn’t just sex. It never was, it never will be. Tell me I’m wrong, and I’ll give it up.”
She pressed her lips together. Silence.
Chase retreated completely. Back against the wall, his hands pinned behind him to keep them the hell away from her. “Thank you for the gift. I love it, I really do. I’m… going to grab another drink. Do you want one?”
“Yeah.” Her voice caught on each letter of the word like sandpaper on fabric. “I should probably help clean up.”
Regardless of what he’d told her, he would cave again if he remained there. He’d be ripping off her clothes, pulling her in by her hips, just to feel close to her. To feel like he had some semblance of an idea of what was running through her mind.
So, he packed up the guitar and headed back to the living area where it was safe. Where the presence of their three bandmates would hopefully be enough to hold him accountable.
And where there was Christmas Punch with a double shot of rum screaming his name.
“You gave him the guitar?” Alex asked when they rejoined the others.
Zak sat cross-legged next to him on the plush carpet. “As you can probably tell by the fact that he carried it out here.”
Chase filled both their cups in the kitchen, but chugged enough in one sip that he had to fill his again. Desperately hoping the liquor would be strong enough to dissolve the knot of emotion coiled in his chest. He braced his hands on either side of the kitchen sink and took a deep breath before he came back out.
He handed Zak the second cup and distanced himself on the sofa.
“Let’s see it, hotshot.” Dallas took the spot next to Chase and thumped on the cover of the instrument case. “Zak’s never made me a guitar before.”
Made him a guitar.
One gut punch after another.
Chase reopened the case on the coffee table, running his fingers over the polished wood and taking in every detail like he hadn’t before. It was flawless. To his untrained eyes, more beautiful than anything he’d seen hanging on the walls of a music store. “I can’t believe you did this. You madeit?”
“It was no big deal.” She’d been bundling discarded paper into a ball, and it crinkled as her grip tightened. “I haggled for it at the flea market, and I refurbished it. I didn’t make it.”
“It’s not ‘no big deal.’” Alex stuck a stray bow to the top of her head. “You spent weeks working on that thing. The couch still smells like turpentine.”
Chase breathed in, subconsciously searching for that faint odor of pine and gasoline on the fabric through all the aromas of food and drink in the air.
“Yeah, you’re not giving yourself enough credit. It was in terrible condition,” Edge said. “You practically rebuilt it. And that’s a super nice guitar, Chase. Those things are classics.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Chase asked.
Before I lost my shit and gave you the most half-assed ‘thank you’ possible.
She focused on the corner of the room as if the scuff marks on the baseboards were a museum-worthy art piece. “I didn’t think it mattered.”
He waited for her to meet his eyes again. “It matters.”
He knew now what he should have known all along. She was a straight shooter about all her other feelings, but her tongue turned to concrete when it came to admitting how much she cared about him.
Because Zak was intense about everything. Intense about her aspirations, her opinions, and her passions, and he was one ofthose passions. It was in every look, every touch. Crammed into every inch of distance between them. And she was terrified of that intensity, the same way he had always been terrified of the way she made him feel.
Here they went again. Around and around, and he would keep going in circles for as long as she kept drawing them. With her, without her, or with only the piece of her he had now, there was no alternative. For him, Zak was it.