38. Chase
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHASE
“ W hat the hell, Maggie!” I pull my face out of her hands and drop her foot.
“Oopsie,” she says with a shrug. “I think your girlfriend saw us kissing.” She turns to look up the stairs, wearing a triumphant smile on her face.
Following Maggie’s gaze, I lock eyes with Kayla on the patio, wide-eyed and shaking her head. I’ve never moved so fast, trying to get across the courtyard and up the stairs, taking three at a time. By the time I reach the landing, Kayla is weaving quickly through the jigsaw of tables on the patio, trying to make it inside. Someone stops her for a quick water refill, and it gives me enough time to catch up to her.
“Kayla, that wasn’t what it looked like,” I say, panic coursing through each word as they leave my mouth.
“I know what I saw, Evan .” Her hushed voice trembles as she continues her weave through the patio.
“Evan?” Shit. “Kayla, no. This wasn’t like that. I?—”
She maneuvers around chairs and shareholders, trying to get away from me while the requests for refills continually slow her down.“It doesn’t matter,” she says, her voice low as she crosses the threshold into the dining room. More people have cleared out of this room, making for less obstacles in her race to the kitchen.
“It does matter. Kayla, please, let me explain,” I plead, grabbing her elbow to turn her around. “Will you just wait? Please?”
“ Don’t touch me, Chase.” Whipping around, she stares down at my hand on her arm before jerking it away. She reaches the swinging doors of the kitchen with me right on her heels as I follow her through them.
“Please, Kayla, I LOVE YOU!”
“I’M WORKING!” she fires back, looking at me for the first time. I said it louder than I intended, and the moment wasn’t anywhere near what I’d imagined telling her would be like. The coldness in her eyes is a near perfect match to the hostility in her voice, and it’s enough to knock me back down to earth as I slowly become aware of the space we’re in. I look around at the catering staff volleying glances between the two of us and realize I’ve made it halfway across the kitchen. The hiss of the water sprayer and clang of pots and pans from the dishwashing station becomes more evident the longer I stand here.
She drops her eyes, her chest heaving as she holds the mostly empty water pitchers down at her sides. The full weight of the last ten minutes settles in around me. This is her job. Her future rides on landing an internship based around this event. As much as it pains me to let her think what I can only imagine she’s thinking, this is not the time, or place, to hash any of this out. I turn around and slip back through the swinging doors without another word, heading down the hallway to find a place to be alone.
Thankfully, the ballroom is deserted. Trevor was in charge of packing up the presentation equipment, and it appears he’s already done so. I sit in one of the empty burgundy velvet-tufted chairs, loosen my tie, and take off my suit jacket. It feels like I’m roasting. As my thoughts spiral, I undo the buttons around my wrists and roll my shirt sleeves up my forearms.
Trying to organize the chaos in my mind to come up with a game plan, I start with the facts I know. One of the twins flagged me down to help with Maggie. I tried to coax her down from her drunken dance on the edge of the fountain when she twisted her ankle and fell. She asked me for help removing her shoe, and like the helpful idiot I am, I moved her leg onto my lap to reach the strap. She grabbed my face and attacked me with her sloppy, wine-soaked lips. Kayla saw it and thought…what? I don’t know what she thought, just that she saw it. I told her, shouted at her, really, that I love her. And I potentially ruined her internship chances. Cool. Fantastic .
Breathing out a heavy sigh, I tip my head back in the chair, covering my eyes with the heel of my hands. The more I think about how it looked with me and Maggie at the water fountain, the more agitated I feel. This is bad…so bad. Kayla called me Evan , that asshole who broke her heart. That’s what this looks like to her, that I strung her along in the same way he did. It’s not the same, not in the slightest, but that’s how it looks . I pull out my phone and send a text that she’ll hopefully read when she’s done working for the night.
Me:
Please text me when you’re done.
Please… I’ll wait for you by the catering van.
I don’t expect her to answer right now, but I stare down at my phone anyway, watching for any glimmer of hope—bouncing dots, a middle finger emoji, anything— signaling she’s still willing to talk to me. Eyes plastered to the screen, I tap with my thumb anytime the light dims so I don’t risk missing a message. After a full ten minutes, there’s nothing. I turn the screen off and run my hands through my hair as I lean my head back to stare at the ceiling. I don’t even know how to fix this, but I know if I can get her to talk to me, or stand still long enough for me to talk to her, I can figure it out. We can figure it out.
I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting here, battling every single thought that enters my mind, but I apparently don’t hear the door across the ballroom open or shut.
“There you are…” I jump at the voice coming from behind me. Sitting up, I shake my head, not wanting to look at the face belonging to that voice. “I was worried you’d left,” Maggie says sweetly.
My skin crawls as the tang of bitter rage coats my tongue. The utter disgust scrunched up in my expression while she walks toward me is only matched by the one I had when talking to her dad that one night on the deck. I try to choke down the burning in my throat as I realize she has no limp while she walks, and the strap of her shoe is back around her ankle.
“Oh, don’t look at me that way, Chase. It had to be done. You were getting too attached to that waitress.”
“You mean my girlfriend ? What the fuck did you do, Maggie?” I screech, almost knocking the chair over when I stand. My pulse pounds in my ears as rigid resentment sets into my shoulders and heat flushes up my neck.
“Daddy said you might need a little push, so I pushed. Camryn and Tamryn helped get her to the right vantage point, of course. But it all worked out, so why does it matter?” She steps closer, and I instinctively move back.
“Are you even hurt?” I point down at her feet, shaking my head as I realize I already know the answer.
“I’m a dancer. Do you really think I don’t know how to balance on a wide fountain ledge?” Her look is condescending, like she’s talking to some naive child. And maybe I have been naive, but right now, there’s nothing harmless about her. With one destructive pirouette, she just blew up my life.
I grit my teeth, livid heat engulfing me as she explains how she orchestrated this whole mess. I knew she could be devious, but this—making it seem like she was hurt and in need of my help just to get me close, recruiting her friends to make sure my girlfriend watched—this was intentional. This was diabolical.
She takes another step toward me, reaching out to touch my arm. “Now we can be together, Chase.”
I flinch away. “We’re never going to be together, Maggie! You need to get that through your head. There is not one single point in time where I would ever consider being with you. It makes me sick even looking at you right now, knowing what you just did.” I grab my jacket from the chair and shrug it on. “Stay the hell away from me,” I say over my shoulder as I turn to walk away.
Once I’m safely in the hallway, I scrub my hand over my face to try and ease some of the tension. I pull out my phone to check the time, but mostly to check for a new message. The notifications are blank, and the time reads ten forty-five p.m. Kayla should be done soon, so I walk down to the parking garage, helplessly hoping to find her there. When I reach the catering van, Patti is arranging the supplies in the back.
“Hey, Patti…” I say cautiously, not sure if she knows what happened in the kitchen earlier.
“Oh, hi, Chase! Did you enjoy your evening?” she asks, smiling as warmly as she ever has.
“Yeah, it was great. Have you seen Kayla?”
“Oh… She left with Ashlie about an hour ago. Said she wasn’t feeling well.”
“Left? Do you know where?”
“Back to Bender, I think.” Her voice drops as she softly says, “Hey…” Her tone has changed, and a look falls across her face, her eyes telling me she might just know exactly what happened in the kitchen. “I’m not saying don’t go after her, but I’ve known Kayla for a real long time. Whatever is happening between you two, give her some time to process it…” She knows. Of course she knows. I only yelled it out for everyone in the kitchen to hear.
I nod, considering for a moment that she might be right as I back away from the van toward my car. “Thanks, Patti,” I say, before turning to jog the rest of the distance. The clock reads ten fifty-five when I start the car. If I go the speed limit, it should take a little over three hours to get from here to Fort Bender. I doubt I’ll be going that slow. Shooting off a text to Hunter, I let him know I’ll be back tonight and start my drive, hoping with everything I have that Kayla will see me in the morning.