Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

CHASE

I really feel like everyone needs to lower their expectations of me. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times—I AM NOT GOOD WITH PEOPLE. Brady’s mad, Blakely is uncomfortable, and dear sweet Easton is munching on his dessert without a care in the world. Although, I guess he doesn’t really have much to be concerned with. He doesn’t have to hang out with Brady alone for two days and now that that’s resolved, he’s fine and dandy.

Jesus Harold Christ, not another one of those catchphrases.

Easton’s trust seems like a delicate thing, and for some reason, it seems he’s trying to give it to me. Could I have handled that better? Probably. But if I had checked with Brady to see how he felt about it before offering Easton a way out seems like a surefire way to shatter the little bit of progress we’ve made.

For some reason, Brady being upset with me seems like the lesser of the two evils .

But I still hate it, deeply and completely. I meant it when I said I have faith in our friendship, at least most of the time. Maybe the tiniest part of me is worried that one day he’ll just be done with me and we’ll never speak again but that’s all it is.

Minuscule, microscopic, not significant at all.

Totally not a concern.

A timid voice breaks me out of my inner turmoil. “Are you okay?”

Easton is peering at me cautiously, like earlier when I came home from work. The kind of look that puts everything else on the back burner because easing whatever is causing it is much more important, anyway. “I’m okay, Chaos. Are you?”

“Yeah, better now.” He offers me an attempt at a smile and holds out a plate with two brownies on it. “If you still want them.”

“Absolutely.”

Blakely pipes up finally. “They’re freaking delicious if I do say so myself. Easton and I were obviously bakers in another life.”

“Easton might have been. You were the kid from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that falls in the chocolate river trying to inhale it.”

Easton giggles and she gasps. “How dare you?! Take it back.”

“Never,” I swear.

She rolls her eyes. “Have you watched the new season of GBBO without me?”

“Come on, Blake. I do have some loyalty. Tradition is tradition, after all.”

Easton raises an eyebrow. “Am I missing something?”

“I’m so glad you asked, Easton. So Chase here refused to believe the appeal of the amazing train wreck that is Bake Off until I made him watch it with me when we were seniors, and now we wait to watch any new episodes until we can do it together. Hence, tradition.”

“It sounds like an important one,” he says.

She claps her hands together delightedly. “The most important. Come on. We’re super behind by now.”

She marches off to the living room, a woman on a mission, throws herself down on my couch and starts getting it set up. Easton doesn’t move an inch. “It’s totally cool if you want me to hang out in my room and leave you alone so you can watch with your friend in peace.”

His eyes stay trained on my feet, and I can’t help but remember comparing him to a stray animal. It seems like he’s expecting rejection even though I can’t think of a single reason I’ve personally led him to believe that it’s even possible for him to be in the way.

“I don’t want anything less than that, actually. If you want some alone time, that’s another story, but don’t do it on my behalf because I think it’d be great if you hung out with us.”

He contemplates it for a moment, chewing on his full bottom lip. It comes away rosy red, sending a wave of desire I wasn’t prepared for. “Yeah, okay.”

I reach out a hand for him and he surprises me by taking a few steps forwards and intertwining our fingers. “Gotta make sure you don’t disappear on me,” I tease, gently tugging him into following me as he giggles then tries to cover it with a cough.

Blake eyes me knowingly and stretches out as far as she can on my couch leaving one available spot for the two of us.

When Brady and I graduated college, we decided to split a studio to save money because we were starting out with less than nothing in our pockets. What the hell, we were used to being crammed into the same space, anyway. Even our upperclassmen suites had us sharing a room, so what was one more time for old time’s sake if it saved us a metric ton of money. We got almost everything secondhand from garage sales, and honestly, we had a good time picking out the best of the worst so we could try to make the place feel like home. We went to an estate sale just outside the city one sunshiny Saturday morning and found an absolute gem. And by that, I mean, quite possibly the ugliest chair on the continent. Velvet, because why the fuck not, and oversized enough to comfortably fit a large person and a half. What really caught our eye was the goddamn color. Holy shit, was she a beaut. Dingy, grimy, damn thing looked like it had bed bugs, but it was fucking purple. And I don’t mean stylish purple, I’m talking about the combination of plum and something that can only be described as Barney and Friends. Then, like it needed another selling point, it reclined. We almost sprained an ankle rushing to load it in the truck. We were out forty dollars for the monstrosity and another fifty for a used upholstery cleaner. Worth every penny in my opinion. I was prepped and ready for a fight when I moved out because that thing was coming with me on my life. Brady, in all his endless audacity, said to throw it in the dumpster because we were adults now. We’re too old for ugly furniture.

I told him to speak for himself because I was certainly not too old for my beloved Purple Rain.

Now, I don’t even think about it because if I do, I’ll talk myself out of it. I pull Easton onto the chair with me so he falls clumsily on top of me, all arms and legs. Not gonna lie, I really expect him to slink off onto the floor and act like I didn’t just pull this stunt, so when he wiggles his ass and makes himself comfortable, packed in tightly enough, half of him is on my lap.

With Easton, I feel like I’m collecting moments like little seashells along the beach. I don’t know what’s compelling me to seek them out; I have no idea what I’m going to do with all of them once I have them, but I need them. I crave these tiny moments where I can feel him give me a chance. A sliver of trust, an ounce of faith, and now this fraction of affection that I know in my bones he doesn’t give easily. I’m doing something that earned it in his eyes, and there is not a shadow of doubt in my mind that I have to keep doing it.

“This okay?” he murmurs as the show kicks off. I can already tell it’s going to be a good season. Hopefully, we can make it through a good chunk before Blake has to fly out.

“More than,” I answer honestly. He feels so right against me, and I’m really trying not to think too much about why that is.

We make it through about half an episode before it occurs to me that I haven’t seen him eat since the sandwich last night and a brownie just now. Surely he made himself something while I was at work. “Did you eat today?” I ask softly.

He stiffens. “You just saw me eat.”

“Anything besides that?”

I watch the heat crawl up his neck out of the corner of my eye as he stammers, “I-I, um, I. Fuck.”

“Is that a no?”

“I, um, didn’t sleep great last night. It didn’t occur to me,” he admits.

It may create more issues than it solves, because now I’m worried about why he isn’t sleeping—maybe nerves about being in a strange place?—but at least he’s honest. “Chinese delivery okay with you?”

He nods his head up and down rapidly, so I swipe on my phone until I find the place I like and hand it over so he can put what he wants in the cart. “Get however much you want,” I instruct him. “Blake, you good with Chinese for dinner?” Dinner is a loose word for it because it’s the middle of the afternoon but we’re all starving from our weird schedules today.

She always is. “Yep,” she chirps with a grin.

Easton hands my phone back to me since I’m closer to her, I pass it along after making sure he actually got something substantial. After she’s done, I add what I want, checkout, and tell them it will be here in half an hour.

When it arrives, Blake hops up lightning fast and says she’s got it, and I’m kind of grateful that she’s taking care of it so I don’t have to make Easton get up. If the spell is broken, there’s a good chance he’ll put some space between us. That would be the reasonable thing to do, but I would also hate it, so here we are.

She distributes the paper takeout boxes and chopsticks, and he doesn’t leave. We argue about who’s going to win while we eat. Easton has very strong favoritism towards the self-taught underdog, I think the guy who puts liquor in every damn thing has got it in the bag, and Blakely likes the crazy-haired grandpa.

In other words, they’re both wrong, but there’s no accounting for taste with this group.

After we’re all stuffed to the gills, Easton starts powering down for lack of a better word. It’s slow, but he starts resting more of his weight against me and leaning back onto my chest. I take a risk and shift so he’s on his side with a leg wrapped around mine. When his head settles at the base of my throat, filling my nostrils with the clean smell of his shampoo, I breathe a quiet sigh of relief.

Now that I think about it, the last time I cuddled with a guy, post sex-haze excluded, had to be my high school boyfriend. It’s normally not my thing, it seems like something that you’d do with someone you really care about, so when the endorphins start to wear off, I’m out of there. But with Easton? The jaws of life couldn’t pry him out of my arms.

Oh shit.

I was worried about Brady getting attached and him disappearing again, but I should have been worried about me.

Denial is a river in Egypt and this is my delusion, and I’m sticking to it, damn it.

He won’t leave again. I’m not harboring a soft spot the size of Illinois for him, and even if I was, he’s not fucking taking off.

Maybe I squeeze him a little tighter just in case.

He hums happily, the most he’s capable of when he’s most of the way asleep, so I just press my nose to the top of his head and whisper, “I’ve got you, Chaos. I promise.”

It earns me a knowing smirk from Blake, but I can’t find it in me to care. I mean it more than I’ve meant anything in my life. Maybe this is how Brady felt when he met me. This deep-set knowledge that this person needs you whether they can admit it or not. If I could take even the smallest bit of pain he’s obviously feeling away, I’m going to do it.

Blakely waits until he’s out cold and I’m halfway there before telling me she’s leaving. “Shit,” I mumble, rubbing my eyes. “I forgot you had a return flight to get to. I’ll take you right now.”

She shakes her head, looking pointedly at Easton. “Nope. There’s already a car outside for me. You look like you have more important places to be tonight.”

I frown. “It’s not what it looks like.”

When she ruffles my hair as she walks past, I roll my eyes. “I didn’t say a thing. Make sure Easton has a good time at the art exhibit for me, okay?”

The argument isn’t worth waking him, so I accept defeat. “Promise. See you next time? ”

“Always,” she swears on her way out the door.

My, oh, my, how things can change over a measly twenty-four hours.

~~~

Easton

For the last few years, dreams have not been my friends at night. My eyes close and those suckers come out with sledgehammers and beat the ever-loving shit out of me until dawn. You get used to things over time, you know? Slowly, my body conditioned me to try and avoid dreaming at all costs. I barely sleep, and when I do, it’s not like it feels any better when I wake up than when I’ve spent all night staring at the ceiling fan. So really, I’m indifferent. It’s all just hours I’m trying to survive anyway, so either way, no sense in crying over it or anything.

So I thought.

A warm hand is currently rubbing circles on my back, firm and slow like my mom used to do when I had a nightmare. At first, I think it’s her. Maybe it’s a Sunday morning, and she needs me to be up in time for church. After that, we’ll come home and have a great big lunch. It doesn’t matter what it is, it will be delicious, but I really want lasagna.

Then I hear the voice: deep and smoky, urging me to wake up. “Come on, Chaos. Let me see those pretty eyes so I know you’re listening.”

I groan and try to burrow into the pillow like a mole. Sunlight bad. He chuckles. “I know. You can go back to bed in a minute, I just need you to hear me.”

“Why?” I croak.

His hand is on my forehead now, smoothing my hair away from my face. “Mm-mm,” he chides. “Eyes first, then I’ll talk.”

The task is harder than he makes it out to be; I feel like they’re glued shut. Eventually, I pry them apart and blink Chase Adler into existence.

Even blurry, he’s fucking gorgeous. “Good boy.” The praise slides over my skin and makes me shiver. Chase thinks I’m cold and tucks the blanket in around me tighter. “Morning. I left you some breakfast in the microwave and set the timer so it should start beeping at you in an hour.”

“Joy,” I rasp.

Another one of those throaty chuckles. Damn, it’s a good sound. “Our flight is at three-thirty so don’t worry about rushing to get ready. But you do need to get up and eat, okay?”

“Mmm.”

“I’ll take that. There’s some leftover Chinese in there for lunch. It’s in the fridge with a sticky note on it. Be ready to leave after lunch, I’ll come pick you up.” Seems easy enough. That’s a lot of words, though, so I just nod. “Oh, and my old phone is on the coffee table. It doesn’t have a SIM card but you can use it on Wi-Fi just fine, so text me if you need me. I mean it.”

He keeps up with stroking my hair, and I’m about sixty seconds from asking him to call out just so he can keep doing this to me all day. “We’re only going to be gone a couple of nights, so you don’t have to take a bunch of stuff if you don’t want to.”

I can fit everything I own in a duffel bag, but I get the point. “Repeat it all back to me.”

Umm. Fuck. Why can't I just ask him to cuddle me all day long? I’ve never slept so well, and to my core, I’m greedy. I want more. A pathetic whine climbs out of my throat, and I’m too slow to stop it.

“What’s wrong?” he murmurs, cracking the dam inside me. Fuck. Can’t he just yell at me sometimes? Does he always have to be so sweet ?

My eyes start to sting. It’s too much. I’m almost positive he slept in this ugly recliner so he could hold me all night, and then he got up and went to so much effort to make sure I’m eating. Now he's still being perfect in the way he’s touching me. No one has ever used this much tenderness with me.

“Oh, Easton.” He drags his thumb across my cheekbone and it comes away wet. What is he doing to me? Either he’s making me forget how to string words together or turn into a fucking crying mess.

I was fine a week ago, I want to scream. Now the slightest human decency makes me crumble.

Suddenly, he slips his arms underneath me, one under my knees and one on my shoulder blade, and hefts me into the air without so much as a grunt. “Okay,” he decides as he carries me off. “Sick day it is.”

“I’m s-sorry,” I gasp in between sobs.

Chase must have gotten me settled where he wanted me because I can feel both his hands running up and down my spine. “Don’t you dare be sorry. I've got you. It's going to be okay. We’ll figure it out together.”

All my secrets almost come tumbling out. If I could talk around my cries, he'd probably be hearing it all this very moment. Just like four years ago, I desperately want to throw my problems at his feet in hopes he can help me sort through the tangled mess inside my head. But I let him hold me while I fall apart. I can’t do this alone, it’s too hard and too confusing. So, while I may hate myself for this later because it feels intimate and personal, that’s the price I’ll pay for the comfort.

Eventually, my gut-wrenching sobs dissolve into hiccupy cries wrapped in the safety of his arms. I look up and see his pale eyes, more blue in the morning light, watching me carefully. Embarrassment floods my cheeks, his shirt is soaked through with my tears and I’m on top of him, chest to chest, clinging like my life depends on it.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I admit in a hoarse whisper, my throat aching as if I swallowed gasoline.

Chase lifts face with his thumb under my chin. “Just talk to me, Easton. I won’t force it but it’s tearing me up to see you so upset and be entirely in the dark over here. There’s only so much help I can give until you talk to me.”

“Why do you care so much?” I have to know. He didn’t try to find me either, and I went years wondering how he could be the most supportive person I’d ever had in my corner one minute to not saying anything when my family cast me out.

That fucking day. It haunts me. How I had to stand there and hear bible verses shouted at me, how they shamed me for my perversion, and my brother and his best friend were just outside. How could they listen to that and let them kick me out?

Chase takes a deep breath and blows it out through his nose. “I’ve always cared about you, Chaos. Maybe more than I should.”

Am I being too naive? Because it really feels like he’s being truthful. I try to crawl off his body but his hand darts out to the middle of my back to halt me. “I don’t even know where to start. There’s too much.”

“What can I do to make you feel more comfortable opening up to me?”

The last tendrils of my dignity fly out the window, and I snort. “Probably just keep petting me like a cat.”

He smiles. “Easy.”

The ministrations resume, relaxing me enough that I let my head fall back to that perfect spot on his chest where things seem possible. “I don’t know how to do the after. Nothing makes sense. Normal things seem impossible, like sleeping or remembering to feed myself. It’s not like I was great at that stuff before but it was never this bad. I’m constantly afraid. No, that’s a lie. I’m terrified of something happening that knocks me to the ground out of nowhere, then you’ll see how I’m barely hanging on to real life, and it will be too much for you and then you’ll make me leave because obviously you and Brady were fine without me, so you’ll be fine after I’m gone again. But I don’t want to leave. I don’t want you to give up on me and… and a?—”

“Easton,” he interrupts, his tone firm and unyielding, commanding me. “No one, absolutely no one is going to give up on you. Least of all me. If you want to be here, then you’re staying. All I need from you is one thing. You know what that is?”

I shake my head. “What? Money? I can get a job so I’m not a burden, I promise.”

“Easton.” He waits for me to meet his gaze so I can see the truth in his eyes before he continues. “You are never a burden. Not financially, not emotionally, not physically, not in any other way you can think of.”

My throat threatens to close up on me again, tightening like a noose. “You don’t even know me…”

He hums in consideration. “I know more than you think, sweetheart. I know that your nose scrunches up when you’re confused, that you love to be paid attention to, and you’re one of the most talented, creative, and good-hearted people I’ve ever met. That’s enough for me to say with full confidence that you have a place here. You’re wanted here, with us. In our lives and in my house. All I need from you is for you to be honest with me. Do you think you can do that for me?”

“I can’t tell you everything, if that’s what you’re looking for,” I grumble.

We’re close enough that I could count his dark eyelashes when I look up but as it sits, there’s a little patch of freckles on the golden skin at the hollow of his throat that my attention won’t stray from. It’s far more intimate than any sex I’ve had; him holding me while my greatest fears and insecurities spill from my lips.

His heart is thumping in my ear, the birds are chirping loudly outside the window, and maybe it’s the full night of sleep speaking but if he believes in me, maybe I could start over. Maybe I could do it.

“Trust takes time, Easton. I’m not expecting your full story today, but all I need is for you to tell me if you’re not okay, or what you need from me. That’s it. Sound reasonable?”

He always sounds reasonable. Any other day, it would make me feel stupid, even with the knowledge that he never intends it to be that way. Today, it feels like something I could do. “Yes.”

“Good. You’re going to be okay, Eas.”

I tell him in a whisper, “I can’t keep this up anymore.”

This is more than I have words for, it’s anxiety clawing my throat out, being too tired to eat and too exhausted to rest, being viscerally furious with my brother for turning his back on me, the wholly unpreparedness for how challenging starting over would be. Maybe I am weak, that’s what he always told me, and maybe there’s truth to it, because I need someone in my corner. Just one person who cares.

Chase brings his warm hand to the back of my neck and squeezes, not even close to being painful but firm enough that it’s reassuring. “It’s really hard to be strong when you just want to be safe.” He sighs.

It hits me square in the chest. Is that what I’m chasing? Safety… I’ve had financial security, I’ve had new beginnings and finery, but have I had that?

The answer to that has the potential to set me off, so I don’t even dare go down that road. Chase is offering me something here, bigger than I understand, and I just want to soak it in and stop obsessing about my every single failing.

So logically, that’s when the timer goes off in the kitchen, rousing Chase and making him grumble as we extract ourselves from our entanglement. I miss him the very moment that he separates himself from me.

“I’ll go heat up something for you to eat. Why don’t you go take a shower and wash off all those bad feelings. I think we need a redo start to the day,” he muses.

“A redo?” I ask, propping myself up on my elbow and getting my first good look at my teenage crush’s bedroom. Emerald green walls, cream dresser with a mirror mounted above it, cherry oak headboard with the fluffiest white bedding I’ve ever seen. It’s masculine but stylish, and somehow not what I was expecting at all and exactly what I was hoping for.

“Yeah, a redo. Today is going to be a good day, I can feel it. So after breakfast, we’re taking a fucking nap and trying again.”

So, it’s that easy. It was a bad morning, so we just try again after some food and a nap. There’s no listing out how exactly I’ve ruined the day with emotions, no storming off, no panic that I’ve caused permanent damage.

It’s worth a shot. “Yeah, okay. A redo.” It’s weird on my tongue, like a foreign language that I can’t quite get the accent right with, but Chase lights up so I know I did all right.

“Good. You hop in the shower. I’ll be back.”

He’s off and out of the room then the beeping timer silences a few moments later. I pop into my room briefly to grab clean clothes and take the fastest shower of my life. The water hasn’t had the chance to warm up when I step in, but the chill doesn’t bother quite the same as it usually does, and I’m not in there long enough to really care .

Washing the bad feelings away seems to be a real thing, though, because my heart feels lighter when I step out. Chase and his infinite wisdom, I suppose. Dressed, I pad quietly into the kitchen in search of the aforementioned breakfast, but Chase isn’t in there. It’s not like this house is really big enough to hide in, so after poking my head around, I head back to his room. The door is open, like he’s waiting for me. Probably too optimistic, though.

He’s scrolling on his phone, head leaned back against the geometric headboard with sunlight illuminating his dark hair with chestnut and red streaks, looking so beautiful that my breath stutters in my lungs. Chase must feel my eyes on him because he looks up and smiles. My lord, that smile. Just for me. Like I belong here, with him, in whatever capacity we can have.

And I thought he was beautiful before… He’s breathtaking. He makes my fingers itch for a pencil. I thought that part of me had died.

Chase pats the bed, drawing my attention to the fact that there’s a serving tray on the bed beside him. “It’s going to get cold, sweetheart.” My legs move before my brain can catch up. As soon as I’m close enough, Chase lifts the covers so I can crawl into bed beside him while he lifts the tray with his other hand. When I’m settled, he presents it to me and it feels way more exciting than it should—like Christmas morning.

It’s not even that the meal is some extravagant thing, it’s a fruit salad and a toasted ham and cheese croissant, but he cared enough to make it for me. “This is so sweet. Thank you,” I say, my throat a little thick. “Was Brady mad that you didn’t go to work?”

I dig into my breakfast, which is lacking all of the foods I can’t stand somehow, while Chase turns to lay on his side facing me and fiddles with the blanket. “More hurt, I think. He’s probably feeling like I’m trying to kick him to the curb. ”

The corners of his mouth turn down, like even the very idea upsets him. “This is hard for you, isn’t it?”

“Brady?” I nod, and he shrugs. “I think the part that sucks is that there’s no immediate solution for how he feels. Normally, any issue Brady and I have can be easily talked through and compromised on so we both can be happy. This is more complicated.”

“Is that a bad thing?” I fucking hate myself sometimes. I have to ask even though he assured me, like, half an hour ago that I wasn’t a burden to him.

“You aren’t a bad thing. And I don’t expect you to try and fix your relationship with him before you’re ready on my behalf.” His warm hand returns to my back. Up and down. Up and down. It’s calming. “Brady and I have been through a lot, we will be fine with some time. It’s not on you though, we’re adults. We can learn to navigate this with each other.”

He always speaks with such conviction, even when his voice is quiet, the tone is clear. “Do you regret asking me to come with you?”

“Not for a single second.” He’s absolutely unyielding. He sees that I’m finished eating so he gets up to put the tray on the dresser, closes the curtains, and comes back to bed before he speaks again. “I could never regret standing up for you, not that you need it, but I’m not blind and you’re very clearly going through a lot. Having someone in your corner is never a bad thing, and I’m not afraid to be that in front of Brady.”

His arms open for me and it’s an invitation I can’t refuse. As soon as they wrap around me, I feel like I can take a deep breath again. “Thank you,” I murmur into his faded black T-shirt.

He smells so damn good. Laundry detergent, woodsy, and a hint of salt.

My fingers trace the words tattooed on his forearm, “no matter what.” The question sits just on the tip of my tongue to ask him about it. It fits him, though. “Don’t say thank you, Easton. You don’t owe me gratitude for wanting to be your ally.”

“Mmmkay,” I mumble.

His voice rumbles in my ear as he whispers, “Get some sleep, Chaos. I’ve got you,” into my hair. I’m warm, I’m safe. Things will be better in the morning. I’ve got a redo for the first time ever.