Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14

EASTON

S leeping with Chase is nothing like sleeping with Aaron. Chase makes me feel safe and secure, almost cherished. I drift off easily into a dreamless sleep. At least I have the two nights I’ve spent with him. Without him, I can’t get out of my head. It’s torture, but at least I’m alone for it. It has nothing on how it felt to fall asleep next to him for years. The constant mid-level panic that my body had just got accustomed to functioning with, even if I knew I had done nothing wrong that would incur his wrath.

I can’t help but try to make sense of it sitting in Chase’s car on our way back to his house from the airport. How one person I knew for years made me feel sick and scared so often that I learned how to get used to it, but the person I’ve spent less than a week with makes me feel comfortable enough that I use him as a sounding board for my dumbest and most convoluted thoughts. And he’s disgustingly supportive, like, all the time. No matter what falls out of my mouth, he’s just there for me.

How weird.

What’s even more weird is that I really liked going to Chicago with him. His family was not what I expected at all. They’re all so fucking open. Even when I went off the rails with his parents, it’s like they didn’t hold it over me at all. This is not what I’m used to, but I kind of like it. His mom literally got teary-eyed when she hugged me goodbye in front of the security line in the airport—she insisted on walking with us as far as she possibly could. Even told me to call her, her exact words were, “There is no such thing as hearing from you too much.”

Back when my mom acknowledged I was alive, she would get annoyed if I texted her too frequently. Anymore than three messages from me and I was going to fucking hear about it.

Chase’s phone goes off with a text message and he spares a glance at it in the cupholder. “Can you see who that is?”

I’ve fallen into this trap before, so I’m skeptical, even with how nice he’s been up until now. “You want me to look at your phone?”

“If you don’t mind,” he says.

What the hell, I guess. He gives me the passcode to unlock it and when I see the message from his sister, my heart constricts painfully. “It’s for me,” I murmur.

He prompts me to keep going, “Yeah? Who from?”

“Sage.”

Chase hums softly.

Logan: Easton, someone is missing you big time already!!

She attached a video taken from the dashboard of her car. Sage is in the back with fat tears running down her face. When Logan asks her why she’s sad, she says Eassin had to go away. You can see she cries in earnest just before it’s shut off.

When I look up, Chase has a soft look of sympathetic understanding overtaking his gorgeous features. “She has that effect.”

I have to swallow a couple of times to get around the lump in my throat. “What do you mean?”

“Sage. It gets harder every time to leave her. She’s the worst part about being so far away.” Chase might not feel close to his family, but people don’t talk like this when they’re really on the outside. “You really made an impact on her,” he adds.

Maybe knowing my brother is waiting for me, hoping that us talking will clear the air so we can be hunky-dory again, but I’m especially pessimistic. “She’ll forget in a couple of days.”

I never will, though. Having a taste of the big family that was ripped away from me makes being alone seem impossible.

Chase isn’t bothered by me raining on his day. “Give her a chance to surprise you.”

With nothing else to do with my hands to keep them occupied, I start sifting through the contents of my backpack. My boarding pass crumpled carelessly in my wallet, the rest of the candy Chase bought me to snack on, his hoodie I borrowed that smells like him.

After a few minutes of sorting, I notice something for the first time that makes my skin crawl. “My middle name isn’t spelled right on this,” I announce, mainly to myself, but I’m not alone.

“Say again?” Chase asks.

I roll my eyes at my own stupidity. “My state identification. I thought it was weird that Aaron handled getting it for me, but he didn’t spell my name right. I’ve never even noticed. I’m so fucking dumb.”

Chase raises his dark eyebrows. “Well, okay. First of all, don’t call yourself dumb. Secondly, what the fuck? Lemme see.”

Diligently, I pass it over, watching as he cocks his head to the side at a red light. “I’m not sure what happened here, but I’m kind of amazed this scanned through security. I must not have used your middle name when I got the ticket or they would have noticed this. How did he even get it?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. The normal way, I guess. It’s always worked fine, so I never thought too much about it.” He hands it back and I toss it in my bag. Just add it to the ever-growing list of inexplicable moments of my own sheer stupidity. Chase lets the conversation drop, leaving me to stew in peace.

The closer we get to his house, the tighter my skin feels. One thing that made me feel awful about myself is when Aaron would take things out on me that wasn’t my fault, so I don’t make any further attempts at breaking the silence, not trusting myself to snap when it’s not warranted. Chase is so thoughtful and kind, and he’s not who I’m angry at. The streets blur as my breathing becomes more labored, each intake of oxygen harder than the last.

By the time he pulls up to the garage, I’m nice and pissed off. Handy, because my brother is sitting with his back against the front door having the nerve to look like a dejected puppy. “I’ll be inside if you need me,” Chase says as I unclick my seatbelt. I’m on the move before the car stops, charging forward, ready to expose him for the two-faced son of a bitch that he is. Rip him open so I can show the Adlers his sick, rotten insides.

“How,” I demand as I round the porch. He stays seated, but for some reason, that makes me more furious. “How did you get them to believe you? How did you get them to fall for the woe is me act? I bet Mom and Dad helped you hatch up the perfect plan, didn’t they? They were probably sitting right there with red eyes lying alongside you. I was your brother! I was a fucking child! How could you do this to me? How?!”

Something wet drips onto my collarbone and when I bring a trembling hand to my face, I find the source. There’s nothing cathartic about these tears, they’re angry and visceral. Ripped straight from my soul, resentment I didn’t even know I was holding on to rises to the surface and stains my skin.

It fucking hurts, his betrayal. My bones feel like more than I can hold up so I don’t. My legs collapse under me, only a hand that I don’t seem to have control over on the porch railing keeps me from face-planting. I’m shaking, whole body tremors rattling me to my core. There’s no stopping them, all I can do is clamp my jaw shut so hopefully he can’t see how exposed I am by my outburst.

I don’t look up, I can’t. For a long time, he’s silent. Preparing to defend himself, I guess. Maybe he’s texting our parents, telling them how terrible I am. Whatever. I’m not going to stop until he loses the love of Chase and his family. He doesn’t deserve it. He doesn’t deserve the tiny but impactful hugs from Sage or Margeaux’s steady hand or to listen to the playful banter of Parker and Emerson.

“Eas,” he starts. “I failed you. It has haunted me every single day. I’m sorry doesn’t cover even ten percent of how deeply apologetic I am.”

I’m expecting him to continue but he doesn’t. We’re bathed in the golden glow of late afternoon, just before the evening sets in and starts to cool the air down. My focus is on letting the warmth ground me. His regrets are meaningless to me. Like a child that gets lost in the busy mall, apologies don’t heal that wounded place in your heart, because this never would have happened if the person you trusted most didn’t let go of your hand in the first place .

“You can tell Mom and Dad that you tried, their perfect child did his due diligence. Tell them that I’m not interested in being saved from my sinful ways so you can move on. Truly forget about me.”

I hear a thunk, like he let his head fall against the heavy oak door. “Oh, Koda.” He hasn’t called me that in probably ten years, the nostalgia is a stab to the gut. All it does is remind me of the movie we watched on repeat when we were kids. I thought we were the main characters, brothers that could survive through it all together. Being wrong about my own brother ruined me. How am I ever supposed to trust myself when the person I kept closest to my heart could turn around and stab me in the back?

His voice wavers, but he pushes through. “The last time I spoke to Mom and Dad was the day they kicked you out. I couldn’t—” He coughs to cover the catch in his throat. “I couldn’t even look at them. When I was listening to them spew their fucking vitriol at you, I was stunned. It was like I was stuck in some alternate universe and couldn’t snap out of it. There was never any moving on with them after that, but it was so surreal to hear. But it all seemed so fast. I kept thinking, ‘okay, any second now they’ll change their mind and tell him they love him,’ and it never came. One minute, they were yelling, and the next, they shoved you out the door.”

I look at him without meaning to. Silent tears fall down his cheeks from closed eyes. I can’t even remember the last time I saw him cry. Brady was always the unmovable force of pure sunlight, sharing rays of light with anyone that needed them. Not that he didn’t cry because he thought it was something to be embarrassed about, he just was never sad enough. Could find the positives in anything and cling to them to steady himself. Seeing him cry now pulls on that one last heart string that connects him to me that I have never been able to sever.

“Then what?” I croak.

From his shallow breaths, it’s all he can do to keep talking, but he does. “Then when I was too scared to face them for who they really were, Chase helped me stand. When I said I was never coming back to this house, he told me to get our important documents and anything that was sentimental enough to warrant saving. I packed your clothes while he did mine, we got what we needed, and we left. Dad tried to threaten me about the truck, but it was grandpa’s and he put it in my name. They confiscated my phone, not that I cared. By the time we had everything loaded up, there was no trace of you. Not anywhere. It was like you vanished into thin air. We searched day and night, slept in the fucking truck in shifts so that one of us was always looking. You were gone.”

Words are out of reach. Is he lying or is he not? It’s quite an act if it’s not true, but I’ve been fooled before. Hating Brady is a reflex ingrained into my body. Like if someone asks my favorite candy bar, there’s no thinking. A Payday. When things sucked, especially when Aaron was on a tirade, I hated Brady. If only for a fleeting moment, the thought was there. Just a knee-jerk reaction. I’m well and truly unraveling on my own. This hatred is fuel, something that keeps me going. Letting it go would be letting go of a cornerstone of my survival. Standing without it to lean on seems like scaling a mountain in flip-flops. I don’t have the right tools to even take the first step.

It lends me the strength to stand on spongy legs. He hears me and looks up. Brady is wrecked. Demolished. Obliterated. “I’m sorry, Easton.”

So fucking useless, that word is. “Sorry doesn’t do much about the cigarette burns on the inside of my arm, given to me from someone who has the nerve to tell me it’s because he loves me. Doesn’t un-break my left wrist for asking him if I could try reaching out to you again, see if maybe you were ready to accept me. But it was better than the streets, and those were my only two options because I had no one else. No money of my own, no education, no family, no way out. So you’ll have to forgive me if I tell you where you can shove your apology.”

Wounding him is like a branding iron straight to my chest, but the vindictive sixteen-year-old that still lives in the back of my mind feels a little better. Brady’s breath punches out of his lungs painfully, the sound more akin to getting hit with a crowbar than sitting on your best friend’s front porch. The blow I wanted to land hits its mark as realization dawns across his face. Confusion first, then slowly, it sinks in. Next, denial, as he looks me up and down like can see the healed fractures beneath my skin. When I don’t deliver the punchline he’s hoping for, all the blood drains from his face leaving him sickly pale.

I need out. I can’t do this, hash out my trauma and dissect each little piece while Brady coddles me with more useless words. My body carries me, stepping over my brother’s stunned form and into the house. When the front door is closed behind me, I can finally force myself to clear out some of the static taking over the corners of my vision.

Awareness is hard to hold on to, so I flinch when calloused fingers touch my shoulder. Of course he would find me when I’m falling apart again. “Should I even ask?”

There’s humor in his tone that I’m grateful for, making my lips quirk up. “Chase, are you trying to tell me I’m not the epitome of beauty right now?”

I’m expecting him to keep playing along, the last thing I think he’ll say is, “You always are, no matter what you’re feeling. You just wear your equally beautiful heart out in the open so I can’t help but notice it too. ”

Rational thought abandons me. It’s just him. His proximity, his smell, the crinkle around his glacier blue eyes when he’s looking at me like I’m something precious. Chase, the guy I’ve had a crush on since I was a teenager, is looking at me in a way that no one ever has. That realization gives me the confidence boost I need to lean forward, pressing my lips to his. Chase deepens it, one hand snaking to my waist so he can haul me closer, and the other going to the back of my neck to take control. Butterflies flutter in my stomach at the way he manhandles me without ever taking it too far. Lightning floods my body as his tongue meets mine. I groan, and Chase takes the opportunity to explore my mouth further.

My hands go to his broad shoulders and defined back, as his muscles bunch under my touch. More, more, more, my brain chants. I need more of him, more touching, more kissing, more something. Everything. It’s a fucking effort to stay quiet. Kissing has never felt this surreal. Infinite. Chase’s tongue explores my mouth as mine does the same. He tastes like mint and a warm hug. I can’t get enough.

His hand tightens on my hip, squeezing before it travels up my back as his thumb traces my ribs. My heart threatens to beat out of my chest, pounding so hard I can feel it in my toes. Fuck, I want him so badly, it scares me.

Like he can read my thoughts, Chase pulls away and leans his forehead against mine. “You still with me, Chaos?”

Breathing his air, seeing his pillowy lips swollen from my kiss; I’m not sure I am with him, I might be dreaming. Or in a coma. Maybe dead. This seems too perfect to be reality. “I’m good,” I breathe. I’m not lying, I’m fucking awesome. Him trying to check in mid make-out session makes my head feel fuzzy. Made even worse by how sure I am that he really cares what my answer is. If I said no, he’d stop. No question about it. It’s a bit of a head rush.

I’m feeling a dozen different things, angry and hurt about my brother, embarrassed by how affected I am by things that have already happened, and more turned on than I’ve been in my life. It’s an interesting cocktail, but I’m sure I want this. Wherever it’s going, I’m in.

“I don’t want to push you past what you’re comfortable with.”

That. That right there is why I’m good. “You won’t,” I say with complete confidence.

Christ on a cracker, he smells so fucking good. Would it be super weird if I pressed my nose into his neck and just inhaled him?

Scratch that, it sounded weird even to me.

I do draw back so he can see the honesty I know is in my eyes. “Chase, you won’t. If you’d feel more comfortable slowing down, or you’re not actually into me or whatever, we can cool it.”

He chuckles, which is not the reaction I was expecting. Is it funny that I ever considered him interested in me? Does he think this is just a silly little lapse in judgment? I will die of embarrassment. What am I thinking? I have to live with this guy.

“You’re so fucking adorable, sometimes it’s hard to believe you’re real. Interested is not the word I would use.” My stupid heart sinks. I’m a fucking idiot to have gotten my hopes up, I can’t?—

“It doesn't nearly capture how I feel around you. Captivated, maybe. Enchanted. wonder-struck. Those would be much more descriptive.”

Warm tingly feelings that should have no place here, considering the length of time I’ve spent with this man, spread all the way to my toes. Just for now, even if only for one night, I want to be Easton—boy with a crush that says he’s enchanting. The rest of it will keep. He’s more important. This moment with Chase outweighs all the unease and anxieties, nightmares and fears. His uncanny ability to help me put things into perspective is the dose of reality I desperately need, but more than that, he’s him. Kinder than I deserve, so fucking thoughtful, the lighthouse guiding me away from turbulent seas to the safety of the shoreline.

At least when he’s not making my blood threaten to boil over with the lust darkening those eyes that have been the center of my obsession for years. “You can’t just say stuff like that to me, Chase,” I whine. He’s got to stop being so damn wonderful. It’s fucking with my head.

“Think I don’t mean it?” he asks, a playful lilt to his voice.

The answer seems obvious to me, but he doesn’t seem to agree. “Don’t be silly,” I admonish. “Of course not.”

He huffs, “Sweetheart, you have no idea,” before pulling me into a soul-searing kiss. Whatever response I was going for dissolves on my tongue. Couldn’t have been important anyway, to hell with it. Our first kiss was more exploratory, maybe my skepticism of his interest in me was holding us back. Maybe we were trying to figure each other out. Who fucking knows, but someone dumped kerosene on us this time. He’s not pulling punches, and I have no intention of it either. We clash in a tangle of tongues and teeth and heat. Time starts to still, there is only him and this kiss that I hope never ends.

Chase trails light kisses over the corner of my mouth and down my jaw, making me lightheaded. “Tell me what you want, Easton,” he demands.

Words, words. Say words. “I—ahh,” I stumble as he sucks on a sensitive spot on my neck. His hands are like iron where he holds me and the combination of sensations is short-circuiting my brain. “You.” It’s the only thing that I can settle on. Him. However and whatever he wants.

I hear him chuckle darkly against my flesh, making goosebumps break out over my arms. My fingers slide through his soft inky hair and pull him back to my lips. I fucking need him. Chase devouring me, Chase consuming me. He dominates the kiss and I’m more than happy to let him. If I had to stop and make any decision right now, we’d be dead in the water.

Rough hands slide down my spine to my ass and squeeze. I make an embarrassingly needy sound, somewhere between a whine and a moan. “I’ve got you,” he assures me between kisses.

His hands go lower to the tops of my thighs before he lifts me up. My legs lock around his waist without breaking our connection as he walks us to the couch. He lays me down, oh so gently, before positioning himself over me. His kiss turns ravenous and when he bites down on my bottom lip, I gasp. It wasn’t hard enough to hurt, but he still gentles it with softer sucking to take the sting away.

My dick is so hard it aches. I just hope he doesn’t notice how desperate I am for him. Nothing has ever felt like this before. If I ever convinced myself that my relationship made me sexually experienced, I was delusional. Because with Chase Adler hovering above me, nose to nose, his glacial eyes molten with lust is the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.

His gaze trails over my body hungrily, like he wants to eat me alive. When he sees my rock-hard dick pushing against the confines of my jeans, embarrassment heats my cheeks. The guy I’ve liked for-fucking-ever probably thinks I’m a damn virgin with how worked up I am. Slowly, so slowly my heart threatens to give out, he meets my eyes with a cocky grin on his handsome face. Stupidly, I’m expecting him to say something. Tease me somehow. It’s what he would have done. Though, I’ve never wanted it with him like this.

A gasp that sounds more like a wanton moan escapes me as Chase grinds his equally hard dick against mine in the perfect amount of friction. “That’s it, Chaos,” he purrs. “So good for me.”

Staying quiet has never been this much of a fucking challenge. The praise slides over my heated skin like oil, which seems like something to unpack a different time. Chase repeats the motion, aligning our cocks and finding a rhythm that makes my eyes roll back in my head. Without permission, my hips start canting on their own in time with his thrusts, seeking more contact.

Chase’s kisses morph into shared breaths, like he couldn’t dare part with me even while seeking his own pleasure with my body as his instrument. And oh, how he plays it so beautifully. He floods out any lingering negativity with a near constant stream of gravelly praises in my ear. Whether or not he knows it, he’s giving me a gift by taking away my ability to think. And instead of feeling slighted or robbed, I only feel relief. Like I willingly handed it over instead of it being taken from me. Now he’s left me with only sensations—the heat gathering at the base of my spine, the scratch of our jeans that should be too much but somehow isn’t, his voice flowing through me like a river.

My orgasm is racing towards me at alarming speeds. I’m so fucking close, but as badly as I want the release, I also never want this to end. Selfishly, feeling so cherished as this undeniable connection flows so freely between us makes me want to dig my heels into the dirt rather than reach the inevitable end where I’m left cold and used, wishing to be held. But I’m helpless to stop it. Chase’s thrusts become more frantic so he must be as close as me.

When he forces my eyes to his with a thumb and forefinger to my chin, and rasps, “Be a good boy,” and “Come for me,” I’m done. My back bows as white noise fills my ears and hot cum soaks my jeans. Someone is moaning, it’s probably me, all I know is that it goes on and on .

There’s a heavy weight on my chest, and not in the metaphorical sense that I would have thought. Blinking away the euphoric haze, I find Chase’s arm slung across me as he’s somehow wedged himself beside me on the couch with his still very hard dick against my hip.

It’s a bucket of cold water. He didn’t even finish? What even was this to him then? Is he about to laugh at me for coming in my pants like a horny teenager? My breaths come in shallow pants as humiliation takes root in my bones. I’m going to have another fucking panic attack.

No. NO.

I can still save this, I can make him like me again.

He has to like me. I can’t live with myself if he thinks less of me now.

“Hey, hey,” he murmurs as his hand finds my cheekbone and turns my head towards him. “What happened inside that pretty little head of yours just now? One second ago, you were all noodly and happy. Now you look like you’re about to cry.”

I refuse. A few painful inhales to try and compose myself. I need to still be attractive and falling apart is not. If he still thinks I’m hot, maybe he’ll let me suck him off so he won’t hate me.

“You didn’t… I can…” Well, that wasn’t exactly eloquent, you worthless dropout. No fucking wonder he didn’t come.

He hurries to prop himself up on his arm as his thumb starts stroking my cheekbone. “Oh, sweetheart, no. No, no. This was about you. Do you hear me? I wanted to make you feel good, and that’s it.”

Horrifying humiliation is a sharp blade in the hollow of my throat. “I messed up,” I whisper. I’m covered in drying cum, sticky and uncomfortable with my face too hot, spiraling deeper into shame and self-hatred.

“Easton.” Chase’s voice is sharp. The only reason I’m able to look up is the fear of further disappointing him. His finger runs along the bottom of my abdomen, just above my jeans. When he brings it up to his mouth, it’s shiny, coated in the remains of my release. Chase pops it into his mouth, making my jaw come unhinged and my cheeks hot for an entirely different reason. He gives it a good suck before pulling it out and leveling me with a glare. “You trusted me to help you sort through things, correct?”

Suddenly, this feels like getting called on in class when the teacher saw you weren’t paying attention. “Yes.”

“You trusted me not to hurt you, correct?”

“Yes.”

The approval in his eyes does something awful to my heart. “Good. Then hear me when I say this. This wasn’t about me. I wanted to get you off, make you feel good. There’s no ulterior motive, nothing I wanted to gain from this than getting to watch you come undone. Sex is not transactional. You don’t owe me anything, there’s nothing to make up for. Making you come was better than I hoped it would be. Now, go wash up. I’m sure you’re fairly uncomfortable. I’ll be right behind you. Okay?”

My response is automatic, even if I’m still processing most of that. “Okay.”

Chase nods in approval. “Good boy.”

My dick twitches in an attempt to rally, but he's right; I’m sticky and gross so I pad my way through the house without another word.

I took a chance and used Chase’s shower, not sure where he wants me or what’s too private, but it’s nice as fuck in here. It’s a separate shower with black marble tile, gold shower heads and the kind of water pressure that makes your eyes roll back. But high end fixtures didn’t impress me anymore, I knew all too well that they didn’t equate to having a good life. The best part to me was the little thrill I got from using his soaps and smelling like him, but that only lasted as long as it took me to get out of the shower, only to find a towel still warm from the dryer and a pile of his clothes that weren’t there when I got in.

How do people like him even exist? I intend to ask him, but when I waltz out of the bathroom, I find him leaning against the headboard, biceps bulging where his hand is cushioning the back of his head, and my mouth dries up on the spot. Only to be made worse when he catches sight of me and his eyes darken dangerously.

“Come here,” he demands softly. Filthy thoughts are running rampant in my brain. Maybe I don’t have to get him off necessarily, but I sure as shit wouldn’t mind the opportunity.

I’m mentally flipping through all the options as I crawl into my place beside him, but he only chuckles. “I can hear you thinking all the way over here and it’s not happening tonight, sweetheart. I said tonight is about you, and I meant it. Now for the important question, Bruce Almighty or Ace Ventura: Pet Detective ?”

He’s got both pulled up on the TV mounted above his dresser. The choice is easy to me. “ Bruce Almighty. ”

Chase presses a soft kiss to my head. “Good pick.”

Now, all there’s left to do is eat the popcorn he brought for us to snack on while wondering if he knew this is my favorite movie, and settle in for the perfect night.