Chasing the Dream: Dream Series, Book 3 (34 page)

No sooner did I have the word TAXI thumbed into the search window, did the front door of Spotlight Sam’s slam open.

“Phoebe? Are you okay? Didn’t you like my song?” I looked up to see a worried Chase rushing over to me.

I backed up as he strode my way. “I have to go, Chase. I mean to New York. I have to go tonight,” I blurted.

“Is everything okay? Is it your mom? Of course, let’s go.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and opened it up. “Let me let my mom know, and she can catch a ride home with Brock,” he said, mirroring my frantic demeanor. Of course he would ask if my panic was about my mother. He had not a clue about what was going on with me, and he had just jumped on a plane, dragging someone, me, along with him because
his
mother wasn’t well.

“No, she’s fine, Chase. It’s me. I have to go.”

He stopped and looked at me. “Chase? Wait, it’s
you
? What is wrong with you? Lemme get Emma Sue. She works in a doctor’s office.”

I shook my head and backed away from Charlie. “I’m fine, but I have to go. I just have to go,” I pleaded.

“
What
is going on, Phoebe? I thought we had this all worked out.”

Tears sprang to my eyes. “I have to go. I have to go home,” was all I could say. Chase was only an inch in front of me now, his hands came to my shoulders and I shrugged him off, sobbing, continuing to insist that I go home. Tonight.

“Okay. I’ll take you. We’ll go tonight,” he said, finishing the message he was tapping into his cell phone.

“Alone, Chase. I want to go home—alone,” I managed, my uncontrolled, shallow breaths threatening to make me pass out.

Chase stared at me. Confusion, hurt, and anger all brewing in a perfect storm right there on his gorgeous features.

The front door opened again, Amy sticking her head out of the doors. “Hey! There you are! They want you back on stage, Char—oh. Sorry,” she said noticing that Chase and I were in a bizarre stand off. I was sure the moonlight and flashing neon lights were bouncing off of the tears dammed up in my eyes. “I’ll take care of it,” she finished and slunk back inside.

“Talk to me, Phoebe. What in the hell is going on? I’ve been nothing but open with you. What are you afraid of? What are you not telling me?” He was practically screaming. Not an ounce of violence in him, but he was radiating anger. “What did your last boyfriend do to you?”
Ouch! Um, he knocked me up like Sam did to his girlfriend?
The tears leapt from my eyes burning trails down my cheeks. I hiccuped and it was over. I was sobbing now. “Tell me, Phoebe. Trust me. I swear, if there is anything I can do about whatever happened, it’s done. I’ll fix it.”

“You can’t fix it. You’ve done nothing wrong. It’s me. I’m the fuck up,” I spat back. “Please. Just take me to the airport. I have to get out of here.”

“I’ll take you, but you have to tell me what’s going on.” His blues shone in the light, breaking my heart even more.

Here’s where it is. This is where he hates me. This is where he stops caring. This is when I’m left utterly alone.

“I’mpregnant” I rushed, quietly, rolling the words together like that would somehow make the news easier to take.

“What?” he asked.

“It doesn’t matter. I told you, now take me to the airport.” The tears continued to flow. Ugly tears. The kind that make your nose run.

“Did you…? Did you say…?” Chase stammered.

“Please. Take. Me. To. The. Airport.” I hiccuped through my tears. I turned on my heel and made a beeline for the T-bird.

I’d only just reached the car when Chase grasped me by the shoulders and turned me to face him. “Phoebe… What. Did. You. Say?”

“I’m. Pregnant!” I nearly shouted.

“It’s not… But we…”

“It’s not yours,” I groaned, my shame mounting by the second.

Charlie blew out a gigantic burst of air through puffed cheeks. He was looking at me as though he had no idea who I was. He tore his eyes from me and started to pace. Stopping in front of me, he looked me over again and crouched low on his haunches.

Shit, please! Just say something!

He started shaking his head and whispered to himself, “No, no, no, no.”

“Charlie?” I whispered. He was flipping out. He was fucking flipping out. I tried to steel myself for him to berate me, and tell me how stupid I was, and how stupid
he
was for being with me and how this could ruin his career, then drive me immediately to the airport.

“What are you going to do?” he asked, his accent entirely British.

Oh, this cannot be good.

“Well, I only just learned,” I started, my voice shakier than a cheap car on a gravel road. “I need to get back to New York and see a doctor and…and… get it taken care of.”

Charlie’s eyes grew cold. “What do you mean, ‘taken care of?’ ” The accent, now that I knew why he used it, threw me off completely and I couldn’t think straight.

“You wouldn’t understand.” I looked across the parking lot and saw a couple start across the space, eyeing us suspiciously. I ripped myself from his grip and went to open the car door. It was locked.

“Please open the door,” I begged, my voice weak and embarrassing.

His jaw clenched, and I saw him ball his fists. “
What
wouldn’t I understand?” he ground out.

“Can we have this conversation in private, please,” I said nodding my head at the couple now more interested in our argument, than getting to their car.

Charlie bit his lower lip, collected his keys and opened the door for me. He waited until I was squarely inside, then he closed the door and marched over to his side. During those brief seconds, I did what I could to calm myself.

Once he was behind the wheel, he popped on the cabin light and turned to me. “Look at me, Phoebe.” My name in a British accent sounded so strange. I sat motionless, looking out the passenger side window. “Phoebe, I mean it. If you want me to take you anywhere, you’ll look at me, and talk to me.”

A fresh batch of tears stung my eyes, and made my nose tingle.
Shit!
I turned my head and looked at him. His glare pushed me back into my seat, and I dropped my head. He caught my face by my chin and forced me to look at him.

“What did you mean ‘see a doctor and get it taken care of’ ”? His eyes carefully searched my face.

If I felt full of shame before, I was overflowing with it now. The game was over. I could feel it. I swallowed hard, and mustered up all of my remaining strength.

“I can’t be a mother now, Chase. And it’s not just because this is my ex’s, Dickwad Danny’s, baby. I don’t even know if I want to be a mother—
ever.
I…” I started to breathe heavier, hyperventilating through the panic washing over me at the thought of being pregnant.

“But ‘taken care of’? What do you mean?”

“Don’t make me say it, Chase,” I pleaded.

“IT’S CHARLIE!” he shouted. He panted several times, attempting to calm himself. “Look,” he said, quieter, and running his hand over his shaven head where he would normally have gripped those gorgeous blonde locks. “I’m tired. You’re tired. No one is flying to New York tonight. We’ll go home. Get a good night sleep and we’ll talk in the morning,” he barked with the efficiency that came with his British accent.

Chase, because that’s who he was now, drove me to house in silence. No music on the radio. No stories about when he was growing up here. No talk about work and the filming left to do as Detective Young. No mention of the premiere.

I was exhausted, and not feeling well, at least that’s what Chase texted his mom, explaining our sudden departure. Truthfully, I
was
exhausted, and other than oppressive shame and dread about my ‘condition,’ I was fine. Thankfully, I wasn’t puking. When we got to Chase’s I went to my room, and closed the door. I changed into my pajamas and looked out the window. I saw Chase standing on the pier. The pier we’d had sex on just last night. For fuck’s sake, that seemed a lifetime ago. Suddenly, he screamed into the air. A flock of birds flew out of the trees, their night slumber interrupted by the anger I’d triggered in Chase.

A new batch of tears finding their ways to my eyes, I went to the bathroom to wash my face, and brush my teeth.

I figured it was best to pack tonight instead of rushing things in the morning, so I grabbed my things and repacked to go home. Home. New York? Was that my home? That’s where my apartment was and my mom. Napa Valley? No, my parents were divorced and although I loved my dad, we didn’t have the same relationship my mom and I had. And once he learned of the baby, he would go through the roof and probably ship my ass back to New York. I dunno, maybe he wouldn’t. And Charlie… or Chase… What were we? Nothing really. Right? Tears again welled in my eyes.
Damn hormones.

Falling into bed, my brain was running a million miles an hour. Chase’s comments:
“What are you going to…” “What did you mean ‘see a doctor and get it taken care of?’ ”
Charlie-Chase’s clear disappointment, accent, and cold attitude looping in my head.

I was also really pissed at
him
. What gave him the ‘right’ to even start to think that my situation had anything to do with him? Not to mention that I didn’t want a boyfriend this summer—period. And I had no illusion that Charlie and I would be only a quick fling. After all, this was Chase Smythe…even if he was Charlie here on his mother’s sunflower farm. As soon as we got back to New York, I was certain he’d fall back into his cocky, lazy, schmoozing, Chase Smythe ways.

I
tried to sort my head as I stood on the pier. The pier that Phoebe and I had made love on just last night. What had I gotten myself in to? Phoebe,
my
Phoebe, was pregnant. With some other guy’s baby? And she was thinking of getting it “taken care of.” And Phoebe had gone back to calling me …
Chase!

“FUUUUCK!!!!” I screamed as loudly as I could to no one in particular.

Pregnant. But I couldn’t walk out on her. I mean, any upstanding guy would stand by her side, and where I’d never been “known” as an upstanding guy in the tabloids, I would be—if it were my baby. But this wasn’t.

Regardless, this was about Phoebe. She’d become the rest of my heart. I couldn’t walk away from her under any circumstances. Even if she wanted to go back to—what did she call him? Dickwad Danny?—and be a mother, with him as the father. I couldn’t allow it. I would fight with everything that I had. Phoebe and I were a perfect match. She was strong enough for me, stood up to me, and didn’t take my shit. She was genuine, and caring, and honest. She really and truly made me a better person.

But a
baby??
How could I handle that? And that she wanted to get “it taken care of.”
What the fuck??

I didn’t sleep at all that night. In the morning I messaged Michael, and asked him to called his sister/Phoebe’s boss, Valerie, and extend our stay a day. Then, as the morning glories started to open, I woke my mom, took her to the gazebo to make wishes. She and I sat and talked. And talked. And talked some more. I loved that I could talk to her about anything. She didn’t seem surprised by Phoebe’s ‘condition,’ but maybe women just know when other women are pregnant. Maybe it was Phoebe’s puking? Who knows?

My mom helped me see things in a whole new light. She explained how Phoebe might feel completely trapped and that all of this was fresh news to her.
“She’s probably still trying to process,”
my mom said.

It was my mom’s idea for me to bring Phoebe in on the family secret. Get her to see another option. I had a job to do, and I was going to do it.

S
omehow, I fell asleep, but when I woke up, the room was dark. But artificially dark. No moonlight that had flooded the room in the past nights. I glanced at the windows and noticed that the pull shades, ones I hadn’t noticed, had been drawn. I idly wondered who pulled them down when I caught a glimpse of the time. It was 11:18a, and our flight was at 12:30p!
Shit!
And it was at least an hour drive to the airport!
Fuck!
And TSA wants you to be at the airport an hour and half before the flight is supposed to take off!
Fuck! Shit! Fuck!
We were so screwed!