Chapter 4 #2
I can’t blame him. I walked out of the bathroom wearing nothing but a towel.
Now that I think about it, he was so quick to disappear into that attached room once I did.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he went in there before to take care of himself before I realized that my wet, naked body made him as aroused as his is making me, but now?
He dabs his tongue against the corner of his mouth. “Feels fucking good to be clean.”
I know something that feels ever better.
No. No. That way leads danger, and it’ll be a mistake. I can explain away what happened earlier because I’d just been tortured into remembering who Chase is to me.
Who he was.
I also thought that was it for us. That, when we were finished, either Chase was gone, I was dead, or we both were. Despite what I said to him then, I secretly thought of it as “goodbye” to the man I love. Only it wasn’t. He’s here. I’m here. He’s naked. I could be in two seconds…
I shrug, regretting the motion an instant later when his face shadows over as his hungry gaze locks on the bounce of my tits.
I cross my arms over my chest. Chase’s lips purse, then his expression goes blank.
I should’ve expected that. “Sorry. Yeah. You’re right. I’m just tired, that’s all. The shower helped, but after the day we had… I need some sleep.”
Chase’s brows draw together. It doesn’t matter how much his body is drawn to mine.
I know he wants me, but our relationship…
Chase and Hallie’s relationship… has always been more than that.
He cares about her—fuck. I mean me, and I’m not even a little surprised when he lowers his voice and says, “We didn’t get a chance…
I mean, what happened…” He lifts his hand, scratching the back of his neck.
“You up to talking about it? About… you know.”
What part of “you know”, do you mean, Chase?
That my mind broke and I believed for months that I was my dead twin?
That I treated you like a dirty secret instead of the man I loved?
That I almost lost you when the lurker bit you, and that fucking Doctor would’ve taken you away from me again if he had the chance?
That you seem to think I’m your wife, and my tease about the “jailhouse” marriage in East Jersey counts?
That I fucked you back at the NRI, and now you have some sort of expectation that I’m your girl again?
I shake my head. “No. Not really.”
He shudders out a breath. “We both know that’s not healthy—”
Of course we do. He’s in an advanced social work program where he’s interned as a counselor.
My dream is to be a psychiatrist and I’ve done my research.
Keeping it all bottled up inside… definitely not healthy.
But neither was the entire Grave going along with my trauma-induced delusion and letting me believe that I was my twin.
“Chase,” I say, interrupting him. “I know. And I know we have to deal with it. With… everything. But I’m still processing. Please, just… give me time. I’ll be okay.”
Well, okay as anyone living in a post-apocalyptic world where being eaten by zombies is a very credible threat can be.
He thinks about that for a moment. And then—
“When it’s just the two of us, do you still want me to call you Holden?”
Are you my Hallie?
He doesn’t say it, but I know that’s exactly what he means. And I hate to disappoint him, but I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what I do when I nod.
“Okay.” He echoes the gesture. “Okay. Holden. It’s not that big of a change.” His lips quirk into a small smile. “I called you ‘Holden’ all throughout middle school. It’ll be like old times again.”
I snort. There’s a chance that the empathic Chase is testing me once more, trying to make sure that I am Hallie, but that doesn’t stop me from saying, “I couldn’t understand why you kept teasing me when everyone knew how much I liked you.
You treated me like one of the boys, and any time you used one of the other girls’ names, I was so fucking jealous. ”
His eyes sparkle in the glow of the firelight.
“Why do you think I did it? It kept you in my friend group where I could make sure no one else tried to flirt with you, and it had me fucking my hand nearly every night when I thought about how pinched your pretty little face would get when you thought someone was flirting with me.”
I almost choke. “Jesus fucking Christ, Chase. We were, like, twelve. How long have you been jerking off to the thought of me?”
“Sixth grade,” is his prompt answer. “It didn’t take long to figure out that you made me hard and there was something I could do about it. You remember Scott Green?”
Vaguely. “Didn’t he get jumped at the end of eighth grade, then didn’t come back for high school?”
“Yeah. That little creep. He told me that he climbed the tree outside of your window and would watch you and Xandra change. He had the hots for your sister, but he said both of you got his little prick up. He thought I would let that stand. I beat the shit out of him, and when we went to Madison High and Rory stopped threatening me if I tried to date you, I asked you to be my girlfriend and the rest is history.”
That’s right. I don’t know how I could’ve forgotten that.
I spent all of middle school convinced that Chase didn’t see me as anything other than Holden, but that all changed the first week of freshman year.
He asked me out, I was psyched and said yes, and it wasn’t until years later he mentioned that my overprotective older brother used to tease him about locking me down too early.
I thought he meant marriage, and that was why he was holding off on us taking the next step while we were still in our early twenties. But looking at Chase now… no. He was talking about how our relationship wasn’t official until five years after my crush on Chase Knight began.
But the story about Scott Green…
“I didn’t know that.”
“I love you, Hal— Holden. I always have. I gave you every part of me that I could, but beneath the sports star, beneath the good student, beneath the man who has always wanted to help… there’s a possessive bastard whose only trigger has ever been the sweet blonde that he would do anything for.”
My breath catches in my throat.
“And if the same sweet blonde who owns my fucking heart tells me to call her Holden and to give her space… that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
His words say one thing.
The fact that he drops his towel, revealing one hell of an erection says something completely different.
I squeal. “What the fuck?”
Chase grabs his cock, giving it a quick squeeze, then releases it. “Ignore it.”
Impossible. “How the hell do you want me to do that? It’s right there!”
“I can’t help it. I walked out of the bathroom and my wife is in her underwear. Of course I’m going to get hard, but that doesn’t mean anything, Holden. You’re tired and we need rest. It’ll go down on its own. So ignore it.”
Then, as if he actually thinks I can do that, he walks over to the bed—the only bed—and starts to pull back the quilt on top, revealing the matching pale yellow sheet beneath it.
Nope.
“What are you doing?”
He blinks at me. “What do you think I’m doing? I’m going to bed.”
“You’re naked!”
“So?”
“There’s only one bed. I’m going to sleep there, too. And you want me to sleep next to you naked?”
His blue eyes fill with amusement, but Chase has enough sense to pull it back. “Holden. Baby. It’s a big bed. And you know I always sleep naked.”
“Before the Turning,” I point out. I remember that, too. “After, you slept in pants in case the Grave needed you.”
Or he was sleeping fully dressed beneath my window, giving in to his need to be close to me while I acted as though he meant nothing at all…
“This isn’t the Grave,” Chase says gently.
“And though I’m sure Veronica is going to have us as part of her hunting team as soon as she can, that won’t be until tomorrow at the earliest. We’re safe.
We have a bed. My wife remembers that she’s my wife…
I’m going to sleep like a fucking baby tonight, and since I’m not bringing my dirty clothes into bed with me, I’m doing it naked. ”
He has a point. All of it… I totally get where he’s coming from.
From Chase’s point of view, he’s winning. He has his Hallie back, we’ve escaped the NRI, and the lurkers are—for the moment, at least—no threat to us. Tomorrow is another day, but for now, he can enjoy going to bed with his wife.
Only one teeny, tiny problem with that.
“I’m not your wife.”