Chasing Allie (Breaking Away Series #2) (4 page)

“You all right?” Chase asks with a frown, finishing his protein bar and throwing the wrapper away.

All I can do is nod.

“Allie?” Marissa asks. “Is that going to work? Chase won’t mind coming here and staying here, right? Unless he has other plans...”

“No, no. I don’t think he does. Hang on.” I cover the mouthpiece to the phone and Chase walks over to me, putting his arm around my shoulders. The faint scent of salt and sweat, plus soap and spice, makes me wish we were already in California.

In that bed.

“Marissa’s offering to let us stay at her place. One of her roommates is out of town and there’s an empty bedroom there.”

His face splits instantly into a very dangerous grin, the hand on my shoulder sliding down the back of my ribcage to rest lightly on my hip. “Really?” he says in a low, sexy voice.

I can’t help but laugh. “Really. But I told her we’d be much happier if I just slept with her in her room and you get the spare bedroom all to yourself.”

He pretends to be sad. “Sad Chase,” he pouts. He points to his face. “This is my Sad Chase Face.”

I can’t stop giggling. I can’t believe I can be this happy. For eighteen years I have lived as if the world didn’t have this kind of joy in it. Turns out it did, all along. 

I just had to find the courage to search for it.

“What’s up, Allie?” Marissa asks as I stand there, thinking. “I have to get to the bank before it closes. I got paid today and need to deposit my check. So how far away are you guys?”

Chase can hear her, so he just says loudly, “About two hours. Three if traffic’s bad.”

“Hi, Chase. Nice to ‘meet’ you.” She puts an emphasis on the word
meet
with her voice. “And you must know L.A. if you know about the traffic.”

“Nice to meet you too, Allie’s sister.” I punch him. He knows her name. I’ve told him plenty of times. He smiles, “Marissa, I mean. Yeah, I’ve been to L.A. a few times. Gotta show Allie the ocean. Nice to make someone’s dream come true, you know.” 

“Oh,” Marissa says with emotion. “That’s so sweet of you. I can’t wait to meet the guy who’s making my sister so happy.”

“Can’t wait to meet you in a few hours, Marissa,” he says back, giving me a silly look. 

A few hours. In a few hours I’ll see the ocean. Kiss Chase at sunset on the beach. Hang out with my sister.

Ignore the fact that a Mexican drug lord expects me to be delivered by my stepdad to use me as a sex toy and take my virginity however he wants. 

Wow. That thought comes out of
nowhere
. I mean, not literally nowhere, because it’s true. But does the truth have to be so, well...
true
? 

“Allie? Allie? You there?” Marissa’s voice sounds far away, like her question echoes down a long, metal tube. Chase’s hand gently closes over mine and he puts the phone to my ear.

“Yeah,” I mumble. “I’m just kind of tired, you know?”

She laughs. “You can’t exactly sleep on the back of a motorcycle, can you?”

I perk up. The tiredness comes from feeling overwhelmed. I know it well. Out here, I don’t have to feel like the world is sinking in around me. On the road, I have Chase.

“True,” I answer. “I just need some coffee and I’ll be back to normal.” As the word “coffee” comes out of my mouth, Chase lets go of my hand and walks with purpose back into the gas station. A car rumbles up, more rust than paint, and pulls in front of a gas pump. As the owner turns off the engine it rattles and bangs, like it’s not quite sure it’s ready to stop. 

I look down at my arm. There’s an ugly dark bruise.

I feel like that car.

“You be safe,” she adds, and we get off the phone. I eat my protein bar and finish my drink, throwing the trash in a garbage can. The sun is lower in the sky and I’m exhausted but impatient. Amped up inside and ready to get back on the road. I need motion. I need speed. 

“Here,” Chase says, coming toward me with a paper coffee cup.

“What’s this?” I marvel. He’s smiling.

“I got you a coffee. I wasn’t sure how you take it, so...” He bends down, puts his own cup on the ground, stands up and reaches into his front pocket. A bunch of cream containers and sugar packets fall out of his hands onto the seat of his bike.

“And the fake stuff, too, if you like that,” he adds, tossing down a packet of artificial sweetener. By the way he crinkles his nose, I’m guessing he’s not a fan.

“I like coffee with just cream,” I say softly, reaching for the little plastic containers. “Lots of it.” 

He gets his own cup and peels back the lid, showing beige coffee. “Me, too! How about that? No sugar and no fake stuff. Those chemicals will kill you. Rot your gut.” 

Fate, right? I laugh. “We’re meant to be together,” I chirp as I dump five creamers into my drink and take a sip. As I lift the rim of my cup again to my lips, his eyes lock on mine.

“Funny,” Chase says, stepping toward me with determination. “I was thinking exactly the same thing.”

Police sirens pierce the air. I jump at being startled by the sudden sound, and then two cop cars shoot right past us, the wind from their speed pulling my hair around my neck. My hand holding the coffee begins to tremble. My eyes see nothing but the residual blue and red flashes from their lights. 

As the sirens fade, Chase watches the cars until they’re eaten by the horizon.

He turns to me and nods at my cup. “Drink more. You can carry it on the bike if you need to.”

With my hands still trembling, I take a big sip. It’s cooling off now.

“You can do that? How will I hold on?” 

He laughs. “Hell if I know. The old ladies in the clubs figured it out. You will, too.” A warm feeling shoots through me, glowing and bright. It’s not the hot coffee. Chase’s words give me hope for a future together.

“Thanks,” I murmur, feeling fuzzy and good. I reach into my pocket to pay him back for the snacks and coffee.

He looks at the bills I hand him like they’re dog poop. “You have got to be fucking kidding me, Allie. I don’t need your money. Save it for L.A. You’ll need it to live on.”

“I don’t—”

“I make plenty on my own.” He leans against the parking guard rail again and drinks his coffee. He’s taken off his jacket and sweat molds his tattered white t-shirt to his chest. The large winged wheel tattoo peeks out.

I frown. It hurts, the skin feeling like it might tear. “How?” From the expression on his face I realize I might be heading into dangerous territory, but he’s a member of a motorcycle gang, right? I’d imagine he doesn’t earn a living selling Girl Scout cookies.

“From selling drugs to four year olds,” he says, not looking at me.

“Oh,” I say in a small voice.

He makes a noise of disgust in the back of his throat and sighs. “Allie, I don’t sell drugs to kids who watch
Sesame Street
. I don’t sell drugs, period. It’s David who helps me earn my money.” Folding the bills I handed to him in half, he tucks the money in my palm.

“David?” I’m really confused now. “How does David help
you
make money?” I knew David would never sell drugs. Not in a million years. His older sister is a huge meth addict and he is horrified by what has become of her. Their parents are heartbroken. David’s dad is the postmaster in town, and his mom is a nurse’s assistant at the retirement home in town. Our moms used to work together when mine was alive. Drugs aren’t something that is part of their lives. 

Until now.

Leslie is a barfly a few towns over now, living in some musician’s trailer and supposedly selling herself for drugs. David wants nothing to do with that life. His parents have tried over and over to save her. Everything they give to her gets sold for drug money. The grip of meth is so strong. Learning that Jeff deals it makes me want to throw up. So there’s no way David would deal meth.

“Remember we told you how David hooked my videos on YouTube up with an advertising account?” Chase says, drinking more of his coffee, calming down. I sense he’s hurt about something, but either I’m too confused, too tired, or too dense to understand what’s going on.

“Yeah?”

“Me and David make enough money off that so I don’t need to sell drugs or do most of the crap ass shit my dad wants me to do for Atlas.” My mind fixates on the word
most
. Most. He does
some
, though.

Which leaves me wondering as my big mouth opens up and I say, “What do you do for Atlas, then?” 

His face closes up. “I deliver money. Not drugs.”

“Who do you deliver it to?”

As the sunlight mutes a little, the smooth skin of Chase’s face takes on a really burnished look. He’s sun-battered from being on his bike and exposed to nature so much. I’ve never been around a guy close in age to me who is such a man. David’s still mostly boy, and even though Chase is just a few years older than me, he feels like he’s so mature.

As he struggles to answer me, someone on a motorcycle shoots past so fast my eardrums rattle inside my head. It feels like someone put a guitar string in my ear and twanged it. I hold my palms over my ears and Chase looks down the road after the bike, perplexed.

“That’s a Mephist, and he’s gotta be doing a hundred and ten or more. Damn,” he says with a low whistle.

A cop car shoots past just then. I’m glad my ears are already covered.

“A Mephist? The rival motorcycle gang?” 

Chase nods, eyes still on the back of the cop car. “Wonder what’s up.” His phone buzzes just then.

He ignores it.

“Are you going to answer that?” I ask.

His lips twist into a sneer. “Nope.”

“Is it your dad?” I finish my coffee and pitch the cup in the trash can next to the guardrail.

Chase ignores my question. His eyes are dark and while he’s not angry, I can tell he’s different. More shut down. “You ready to go?” he asks gruffly.

“Yes.” I climb on the bike behind him and reach for the helmet. His hand stops mine.

“Look, Allie,” he says, his breath coming out in a rush. “There’s a lot about me you’re not gonna like when you learn it.” He turns around and gives me a hard look. “So be really careful about what kind of questions you ask me. Be prepared for answers that might make you leave.” 

“Leave
what
? You? No. Never,” I say, staring back. My heart twists in my chest, but my eyes stay in place, right on his. “There is nothing you could tell me about yourself that would make me leave you.”

He guns the engine and turns around, knees rising as he eases the bike forward. “You know what, Allie? Be really careful about making absolute statements like that.”

“Absolute?” I shout over the engine as we gain speed.

“The only absolute in life is that there aren’t any,” he shouts just as we take off and I can’t speak or hear.

The problem with being on the back of a bike for a long ride with a guy you’re falling in love with but barely know is that all your private parts are jammed up against his ass and back.

Plus, you can’t talk. At all. For the next ninety minutes I loop through everything Chase just said to me. Over and over. And over. My poor mind can’t take it. What does he mean? I already know he murdered a man to try to save his mom. I know Atlas deals drugs and Chase is part of it all. I’m sure he’s done awful things, and I watched him physically fight Frenchie and his own dad.  

And he put a shotgun in Jeff’s face.

That one didn’t actually bother me, though.

Whatever secrets he has, he needs to know I won’t shame him. I won’t judge. He’s lived a hard life in an outlaw motorcycle gang. It’s not like I expect him to be perfect. The guy watched his mom get shot, was made to live a life on the road with his dad, and yet he’s smart, doesn’t seem to be an addict, he has his paramedic’s certificate—and he’s awesome. He takes care of me. We have a connection I don’t understand, but I don’t need to understand it. 

I need to
feel
it.

Some aspect of the air changes as the landscape turns more green. More hilly. My skin starts to feel fuzzy, and not just from the vibration of the motorcycle. It’s not yet dusk, but it’s getting there.

At a stoplight on a long, two-way highway Chase turns and asks, “You okay? We’re an hour or two away. About to hit the major highways.”

I grin. “Better than okay.” I squeeze him in a big hug from behind. “I can’t believe we’re almost at the ocean.”

“I can’t believe you’ve never seen the ocean.”

I can’t believe you really like me.

C
HAPTER
S
IX

So many houses. So many. As we get closer to L.A. the houses get closer together, the hills rolling out before us like a welcome mat. I’ve never seen roads this wide, or so many traffic lights. The houses are tight together and soon I see green. So much green. 

The lawns are like something out of a movie. Do people really have green, thick lawns like this? I see sprinklers watering the lawns. Jeff never grows anything at our house. Says it’s a waste of water. Here on the edge of L.A. people seem to have plenty of water. It must be so expensive.

And the houses are built into hills. Not small hills, either. The driveways are twisty and tipped up, and the homes are beautiful. Some are Spanish looking. Others are made of beautiful wood. Plenty have stucco on the outside. The yards are lush and manicured.

I feel like such a hick. Like all I’ve known is my tiny little town. Heck, I’ve never seen a traffic light with a left turn arrow before. I can’t stop staring at it as Chase waits at a stoplight.

The arrow comes on. Chase turns left. It’s as exciting as a traveling carnival in town and riding on the Ferris wheel.

I need to get out more, don’t I? I know I’ve lived a weird, sheltered life. Mom and Jeff didn’t make much money, and then after Mom died Jeff clamped down even harder. There’s so much for me to learn.

Getting away from Jeff is just the beginning. I thought that was all I needed. Break away from home and then I’d be fine. Now, though, I see it’s just the first in a long series of steps.

Breaking away takes a lot of effort, but this is a marathon. This is the rest of my life.