She finally reached her car and poured herself inside; she had no business driving in her current state, but she turned the key in the ignition anyway.
Andie wove through the darkened streets, one hand on the wheel and the other swiping at the inexorable tears. In her mind, she knew that she should go home now. But everything in her body screamed for Chase.
She just needed to see him.
Andie realized she should probably wait to talk to him. She needed to calm down and gather her thoughts. After screwing things up so badly with Colin, she wanted to make sure she at least did this part right.
And yet five minutes later, she was on the highway that would lead her to him.
She had never been to his apartment before; she only knew about it from their discussions on the way to Florida, and she hoped that through the darkness and her incoherency, she could figure out which one it was.
When she finally pulled onto the street she knew was his, she parked the car, squinting out the windshield and trying to make out the numbers on the buildings through her bleary vision. It wasn’t the best neighborhood, and she didn’t want to wander around it in the dark, especially in her current state. Her eyes were burning, and she could already feel how swollen they were.
She exited the car quickly and sprinted up the steps of the building she hoped was his, glancing quickly at the buzzer; the word McGuire was scrawled next to 3B.
With renewed urgency she ran inside and up the stairs, slowing down as she approached the door. Her hand trembled as she knocked softly. It was a minute before she heard the sounds of someone on the other side of it, and as the door swung open, her eyes filled with tears again.
Only this time, there was relief behind them.
He was shirtless, the flannel pajama pants he was wearing riding low on his body, revealing the muscled V of his hips. His hair was a rumpled mess and his eyes were squinted with sleep.
“Hi,” Andie whispered softly, her chin trembling.
His eyes widened in alarm. “Jesus Christ, what happened to you? Are you okay?” He stepped forward quickly, reaching for her.
“Colin asked me to marry him.”
He froze before bringing his arms back to his sides. There was the tiniest flicker of something behind his eyes, but as soon as it appeared, it was gone, replaced by a polite smile.
“Congratulations.”
“I said no,” she whispered.
She watched his smile drop, and she blinked up at him, a fresh round of tears spilling from her eyes as she waited for him to say something.
His expression was unreadable.
“I said no, Chase,” she repeated.
He closed his eyes before he exhaled heavily, dropping his head as he ran his hand through his hair. “That’s not what…” He trailed off, fumbling for words. “I didn’t mean for that to happen.”
“Chase,” Andie said, shaking her head. She would not let him take the blame for this. She had made this decision. He may have opened her eyes to certain things, but Chase or no Chase, she and Colin would never have worked.
Andie took a step toward him, and he stepped back abruptly.
She stilled, her stomach twisting unpleasantly at his reaction.
Slowly, he lifted his eyes to hers. “Andie,” he said, his voice soft but resolute, “you should have said yes.”
All the breath left her body as she looked up at him, her heart sinking as she took in his smooth expression. The fire in his eyes, the longing she had nearly drowned in that night at the piano, was nowhere to be found.
“You should have said yes,” he repeated softly as he took another tiny step back.
She felt the heat flood her cheeks as humiliation settled around her like a fog, preventing any logical reaction or thought, any rational response.
Instead she turned, attempting to maintain some semblance of dignity as she walked quickly toward the staircase that would bring her back down to street level.
He didn’t try to stop her.
She exited the building, her breath coming in shallow little bursts as her legs trembled, struggling with the task of supporting her.
To her surprise, her eyes remained dry as she slid into the driver’s seat, and even as she pulled swiftly out of the parking space. It wasn’t until she sped onto the highway that would take her home that she felt the familiar stinging behind her lids, and for a second, she wondered if it was possible to run out of tears.
She wished that it was.
How could she have gotten this so wrong? How could she have misread him? Images of Chase ran on a loop through her mind, a slideshow of her indiscretions: the hotel room in South Carolina, the lake, Tybee Island, the dance floor, the night she locked herself out.
The piano.
Was it possible she had misinterpreted all of it? Or had he just changed his mind?
Andie swallowed hard, shaking her head. It didn’t matter. As awful as she felt now, she knew what she had done tonight was for the best. Somewhere behind the dull ache in her chest was a tiny ember of reassurance.
She’d never be Tracey, looking back on this night with regret.
She’d never be her mother, marrying for stability instead of love.
And she’d never be sorry that she fell for Chase, even if he didn’t reciprocate those feelings. She looked at the world around her through different eyes now because of him. He had given her confidence; he had shown her how to find humor and comfort in the things she feared; he had proven to her that a person could take his suffering and use it to become a better person; he had reminded her that the world was full of possibilities. Even if they had no future together, she’d never lament the experiences she had with him.
And if it weren’t for Chase, maybe she would have ended up with Colin, and she would have never been genuinely happy.
Colin deserved a girl who was head over heels for him, and Andie deserved to love someone with her entire being, her heart, mind, and body. And now they were both free to find exactly that.
This was all for the best, she told herself repeatedly.
And she wondered how long it would take before she believed it.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
What had he done?
Chase paced the length of his living room, one hand fisted in his hair as he brought the other to his mouth, taking a long pull of his cigarette. He hadn’t smoked in months, not since before the drive down to Florida, but he was already on his third one in the hour since Andie left.
Her eyes. He couldn’t stop thinking about the look in her eyes.
If only he had seen that fire, the one he knew was capable of igniting there. The one that had seared him with her anger that night in Justin’s wine cellar. If only she had looked at him that way, if he had seen some level of self-sufficiency or resilience in her stare, if she had told him to go to hell, then maybe he could begin to move past the fucking calamity he had created.
But the hurt behind her eyes, the embarrassment, the confusion—he couldn’t stop seeing it. The scene kept unfolding in front of him again and again: her trembling chin, her tear stained face, the hope in her expression, the words that elated him and tore his heart out at the same time.
I said no, Chase.
He closed his eyes and shook his head, taking the cigarette between his lips to free his hands as he walked briskly toward the kitchen and reached above his refrigerator. He grabbed the first bottle his hand landed on and glanced down as he unscrewed the cap.
Johnnie Walker Black, although it hardly mattered.
He pulled the cigarette from his lips with one hand as he brought the bottle to his mouth with the other, taking a swallow as he walked back to the living room.
Chase fell back onto his couch, his head resting against it as he switched the bottle for his cigarette.
He wanted to tear himself open, to reach inside his chest until he could get his fist around the feeling that was aching there and yank it out of his body.
He had felt guilty e
nough when he thought he was intruding on their relationship, but he had no idea things were that serious. Shit, they had only just started dating when he met her, which meant they couldn’t have been together for more than a year and a half. He didn’t expect that either one of them would already be thinking about marriage.
It was shitty enough to want Colin’s girlfriend, but to want his wife? To take that away from him?
He exhaled a puff of smoke as he brought the bottle to his lips again. Chase had no idea their relationship was there. If he did, he would have tried harder to rein himself in. How could he have been so selfish? How could he have done this to his friend?
How could he have done this to Andie?
He swallowed, feeling the heat glide down his throat, and he leaned forward, putting the bottle on the coffee table before he ran his free hand roughly down his face.
He shouldn’t have gone to her apartment the night she left Ripley’s. Up until that point, everything was manageable. Everything was under control. He should have just left well enough alone. But no, he had to follow her. He had to invite himself in under the bullshit pretense of giving her a piano lesson. And with one selfish move, he had managed to ruin her entire future.
He stared down at his hand as he rolled the cigarette between his thumb and forefinger, and with a dexterous flick of his wrist, he watched the ember disintegrate, raining down on his carpet and speckling it with little dots of gray. Chase brought the cigarette to his lips once more, jumping slightly as a loud, frantic knocking sounded at his door.
He stilled for a moment before he closed his eyes. Only one person would be coming to his apartment at this time of night, knocking with that sort of frenzied determination.
Colin.
Mother fucker. He did not want to do this now.
With his eyes still closed, he fell back against the couch, exhaling the smoke slowly through his nose. The banging on his door sounded again, a little louder this time, and the muscles in Chase’s jaw flexed.
He had never been the type to run from consequences. In fact, few things turned him off more than a person who couldn’t own his mistakes. And as questionable as Chase’s integrity had been over the past couple of months, he would not show weakness of character now. He ran his tongue over his teeth, laughing humorlessly to himself at the pathetic irony of it all, as if he’d be showing some type of moral fiber by facing his friend after he had furtively lured his girlfriend away from him.
Despite the fact that he could not even wrap his mind around having this conversation right now, he knew he would open the door out of principle. Colin deserved an explanation just as much as Chase deserved some type of repercussion.
The thumping on his door sounded again with such ferocity that Chase was sure the person on the other side had kicked it, and he sat up slowly, reaching lethargically for the bottle on the table and taking one last swallow.
Chase knew, on some level, that this was coming. He knew it the second the words left Andie’s mouth earlier that night. He just didn’t expect that it would be this soon. But maybe it would be better to get this over with. Maybe it was early enough that something could still be salvaged.
He stood from the couch, bending to duck out his cigarette as he placed the bottle back on the table, and he finally straightened, rubbing his eyes roughly with the heels of his hands before running them up through his hair.
Chase approached his door, feeling the instinctive set of his jaw as he steeled himself for whatever was coming now.
But as he pulled the door open, his mind went completely blank.
There was nothing that could have prepared him for this.
She stood at his threshold, her eyes red and swollen, and although her face was still streaked with tears, it was expressionless; her eyes were impassive, her posture perfectly still.
Chase stood frozen, staring at her. It seemed like an hour had passed before any coherent thought returned to him, and at that moment, he realized he should probably say something. But as she met his gaze from behind that blank expression, Chase found himself struggling to find words. A simple apology would never be good enough for what he had done, but it was the only thing he could think of in that moment that made any type of sense.
Before he could even attempt the words, Andie lunged forward, shoving him with such force that he went stumbling back into his living room. Chase struggled to steady himself, and as soon as he regained his balance, she drove forward again, her palms making contact with his chest hard enough to send him reeling back into the wall.
“You don’t just do that!” she yelled, her voice hoarse with emotion. “You don’t just show up in someone’s life and screw it up like that! I was fine before you!”
Chase pushed himself off the wall, completely stunned, and she took a step back, shaking with rage.
“You think you can do whatever you want at the expense of other people? That you don’t have to care about anyone but yourself? Chase only lives for Chase, right?” she shouted, gesturing at him angrily. “You think that just because you’ve been hurt, you don’t have to consider other people’s feelings anymore? That you get to flip me upside down on a whim and then just walk away?”
He stood immobilized beneath her glare, his heart pounding in his chest. He deserved this. He deserved every second of this and more. He would stand there and take whatever she needed to dish out, giving her the only kind of reparation he could.
She roughly swiped the hair out of her eyes, her chest heaving.
“I didn’t imagine it, Chase,” she said, her voice softening and trembling in a way that caused a sharp pain in his chest. “So what was it? Did you just want to fuck me?”
Except that.
He would take anything she had to give, except that.
He could stand there and let her tear him down, let her call him out for everything he was and wasn’t, but he would not tolerate her demeaning herself. He would not stand by and let her diminish what he felt for her, or let her believe, even for a second, that this was just about sex.
That he would think so little of her.
“Andie, don’t.”
“No, tell me,” she said, shifting her weight as she folded her arms, putting on an air of mock intrigue. “I know I didn’t imagine it. Whatever this was between us. So what was it? Did you just want to screw me and send me back to him? Let him handle the actual relationship while you had your fun? Did it suddenly get too serious for you?”
He swallowed, his chest stinging with a familiar pain, and he realized the last time words had cut him this way, they had come from his father’s mouth.
“Stop it, Andie,” he said, his voice low.
“Well then tell me what this is about!” she shouted, throwing her hands up in frustration. “I deserve an explanation, goddamn it!”
Chase could feel heat pooling in every surface of his body, feel his hands shaking. He had no idea what was coming, and he was afraid to move, afraid to open his mouth for fear of what might come out.
So he stood there, his eyes on her, and said nothing.
Andie stared at him, waiting for an answer, but after nearly a minute of silence, Chase watched as the bravado slowly left her body; the anger melted from her expression, and suddenly she just looked defeated.
He looked on in horror as her eyes welled with tears, and when she spoke, her voice was trembling. “You’re a coward,” she said before she turned and headed toward the door.
He had let her leave once. He would not make the same mistake again.
In three long strides, he crossed the room and grabbed her arm, turning her quickly as he pulled her back toward him. She stared up at him, her eyes wide with alarm, and before he could even think about what he was doing, he brought his mouth to hers.
He felt her arms come up, and for a split second, he thought she might hit him. But instead they slid around his neck, her fingers snaking into his hair as she pulled his mouth against hers, and in that second he stopped think
ing altogether.
His hands came to the small of her back, pressing her body against his as he continued to kiss her, causing her torso to bow with the force of it. When he felt the arc of her body, the way she was yielding to him, he began to pull back, but her hands in his hair curled into fists as she pulled him back toward her, asking without words for what he was giving her only seconds before.
With a soft moan he obliged, kissing her fully, their lips and breath combining with renewed urgency. Andie’s hands were still tangled in his hair, and he could feel his own fingertips digging into the flesh of her back beneath her shirt.
Every second of built-up tension, every ounce of forbidden longing, every illicit desire, had finally found an outlet; he could feel her readily submit to it in his arms, fueling his own surrender, giving it free reign as the onslaught of repressed emotions exploded between them.
Chase brought his hands up to her face, his thumbs caressing her cheeks, trying to show her through the frenzied kiss that this was more than just physical for him, but he couldn’t stop kissing her long enough to say the words.
As many times as he fantasized about this, Chase had never imagined her lips would be this perfect; every time he removed his mouth from hers, he found himself leaning back in just to feel them again. She actually tasted sweet, and he could already feel himself getting drunk off of her.
Getting addicted to her.
He ran his thumbs over her cheeks again, and she pulled back slightly, looking up at him. This time as he leaned back in, he took control of the kiss, slowing it down, brushing his lips against hers, parting her lips with his own, pulling back ever so slightly before allowing their mouths to make contact again.
With a tiny whimper that broke Chase’s heart and mended it simultaneously, she followed his lead, kissing him with the same reverence with which he was regarding her, and suddenly they were both present again, so achingly aware of each other, of every breath and sound and touch.
He brushed his lips against hers again, fighting every instinct in his body as he pulled away from her, lifting his hand to brush the hair away from her face.