Emancipating Andie (28 page)

“No, no,” she protested, officially transitioning from embarrassed to mortified. “I just…God, I’m sorry…I shouldn’t have said anything.”

He laughed again, leaning down and kissing the top of her head. “It’s okay,” he said. “And he’s right. I do have the means to live in a nicer place than this.”

Andie licked her lips, her embarrassment ebbing slightly as he continued to run his fingertips up and down her back.

“And you wanted to know why I choose to stay here?” he asked against the crown of her head.

She nodded softly, and she felt him take a deep breath.

“Because that money isn’t mine. I didn’t earn any of it. It was my mother’s, and it’s only mine now because she’s gone. To take that money,
her
money, and use it to keep myself comfortable while I play around, pretending to be a photographer—”

Andie lifted her head off his chest. “Stop it,” she cut him off. “Don’t belittle yourself like that.”

He smiled up at her. “Put it this way; I couldn’t support myself any better than this off of my photography right now. And until I can, I consider myself to be just playing around. It’s not self-deprecating. It’s just fact.”

Andie frowned, and he twined their fingers together before he brought her hand to his lips and kissed it softly. “Anyway,” he exhaled. “I won’t use that money unless it’s going toward something…I don’t know…
worthy
. Something she’d be proud of. And I just don’t feel like I’ve earned it yet.”

Andie looked down at him, completely humbled by his words. It seemed like every time she thought she had him figured out, he did or said something that revealed him to be even more complex, more amazing than she initially gave him credit for.

“Well I love this apartment,” Andie said as she leaned down and kissed him softly. “In fact, when you make it big as a photographer, I think you should keep it.”

He laughed again, pulling her down onto his chest. “We’ll see,” he sighed, and Andie began to trace shapeless patterns on his chest with her fingertips.

Chase lifted his head, looking down at what she was doing. “Are there bruises there?”

“Bruises?” she asked, lifting her head.

“Yeah. In the shape of your hands?”

Andie rolled her eyes as she saw the smirk lift the corner of his mouth. “Shut up. I didn’t push you that hard.”

“Didn’t push me that hard?” He laughed in disbelief. “You almost put me through the wall!” Andie pressed her lips together, fighting laughter as he added, “I mean, shit, remind me never to piss you off again.”

Her composure finally broke as she laughed, dropping her forehead to his chest. “You’re lucky that’s all you got.”

“That’s true,” he said, his hand finding its way to her hair again. “I thought you were gonna deck me for a second.”

“I was thinking about it,” Andie said, “but I don’t really know how to throw a punch. It would have taken away from my point if I was making it from the back of an ambulance on my way to get x-rays.”

She felt his chest bounce with laughter again. “Plus,” he added, “how could you have lived with yourself if you messed up all this pretty?”

It was quiet for a beat before Andie sighed. “You are such a smug bastard.”

He laughed outright then, pulling her body up the length of his until they were face to face, and he brought his mouth to hers, kissing her with an expertise that made Andie feel like they had been kissing for years instead of just a few hours, almost as if she’d never kissed anyone but him.

He rolled them onto their sides as he ended the kiss, smiling softly as he brushed the hair away from her face. As he lifted his arm, Andie’s eyes were immediately drawn to the side of his torso. In the heat of the moment, she had vaguely noticed the ink there, but now that she was lucid, she lifted her head to get a better look. She brought her fingertips to his skin, and he moved his arm, giving her better access as she dragged them over the words written up the length of his side.

KNOW REGRETS.

Andie lifted her eyes to his. “Isn’t it supposed to be
no
regrets? Like, n-o?”

“What! It is?” he said, jumping up in fabricated alarm. “You mean it’s been spelled wrong this entire time?”

He looked up at Andie with mock incredulity, and Andie laughed, playfully pushing him back down onto the bed.

He reached up and pulled her down next to him, and she immediately crawled back into the nook of his body that seemed to be made just for her.

“It actually did say
no
regrets when I first got it. I was sixteen. Me and my friend went to this shady tattoo parlor that didn’t card. I’m lucky I made it out of that place without hepatitis,” he said, and Andie smiled against his chest. “I added the
k
and the w a few months after my mom died.”

Andie trailed her finger over the ripples in his stomach. “I don’t get it,” she said softly.

“Because when I got it, I was this headstrong, self-important teenager. I was gonna grab life by the balls and not care about what I left in my path.” He laughed softly before he looked down at her. “But as it turns out, I grabbed life by the balls, and it turned around and shoved a huge piece of humble pie down my throat.”

Andie pressed her lips to his chest, thinking of everything he had endured that he shouldn’t have had to: the pressure from his overly critical father, the divorce, the loss of his mother.

“A lot of shit happened to me after that and, I don’t know, I guess I just realized I didn’t want to be the kind of guy who had no regrets. Honestly, I wouldn’t trust someone who had no regrets. It means that they’ve never learned from their mistakes, or they’re too arrogant to realize they’ve made them in the first place.” He shifted onto his side, facing her fully.

“I think having regrets makes us better people,” he said. “So…instead of having no regrets, we should
know
our regrets.” He lifted his arm and looked down at his side. “Wear them like a badge of lessons learned.”

He brought his eyes back to hers, and the intensity behind them caused a flood of butterflies in Andie’s stomach. “If we can’t recognize when we’ve messed up, then how will we know when we’ve gotten it right?”

Andie bit her lower lip, fighting the words that were on the tip of her tongue. She had told him earlier that she was going to fall in love with him.

But she knew then, with absolute certainty, that she already had.

She brought her lips to his, and his kiss once again took her breath away.
I love you
, she thought as she laid her head back on his chest.
I love you, Chase McGuire
.

“So,” Chase said softly, “do you have any secret tattoos?” He lifted the sheet, peeking underneath, and she squealed as she tugged it back around herself.

“No,” she laughed.

He pulled her body against his beneath the sheet. “I figured. I think it’s safe to say I’ve thoroughly acquainted myself with your body tonight,” he said, running his hand down her side and making her shiver. “If you had one, it would have to be pretty well hidden.”

“No, no tattoos,” she sighed, a soft smile on her lips as her eyes fell closed.

He shifted beneath her, and then she felt his lips in her hair. “Tell me your biggest regret,” he whispered.

Andie looked up at him. “My biggest regret?” she asked softly.

“Mm-hm,” he murmured.

And as soon as he said it, she knew what she would tell him. She wanted him to know her,
really
know her, so that when he finally told her he loved her, she’d know he meant all of her. Everything. Even her worst mistakes.

Know your regrets. Wear them like a badge of lessons learned
.

“I was almost raped,” she said, wishing her voice didn’t sound so pathetic as she uttered the words.

She felt his chest still beneath her for a moment, and suddenly he shifted, lifting her off his body so he could see her face.

But she couldn’t look him in the eyes yet.

“When?”

Andie licked her lips nervously, her eyes on the sheet as her fingers plucked at the seam. “When I was fourteen.”

The room grew silent, and Andie glanced up at him uneasily. He opened his mouth but closed it before he said anything, shaking his head slightly. His expression was more disturbed than confused, and Andie could tell he was torn between asking her to explain and not wanting to upset her.

“I didn’t really know him,” she offered, lowering her eyes again. “I mean, I knew
of
him. We went to the same school.”

Chase’s hand found hers on the bed, his thumb making one soft pass over the back of it.

“He was older than me. Really popular. I had a huge crush on him,” she said with a sad smile before she shook her head softly. “He invited me to a party, and I convinced my friend to sneak out and go with me. At some point I went to the bathroom, and he followed me up there. He came in and locked the door…” Andie glanced up at Chase again. The muscles of his jaw were flexing over and over, but his eyes were still soft.

She took a deep breath, and much to her embarrassment, it trembled. It had been years since she had said any of this out loud, and she was underprepared for the power the words still held for her.

He clasped her hand then, intertwining their fingers, and she held it as she found her voice again.

“Anyway, he tried, but…I was fighting…and I guess I was so scared that I…that my body…” She looked down and shook her head. “He just…he couldn’t manage it…and then he just got fed up with me and left,” she said with a tiny shrug, chewing on her lower lip. “I’ve never told anyone that,” she added, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Nobody?” he said softly. “Your parents? Colin?”

Andie shook her head. “The only one who knows is my friend Tracey, and that’s only because she was there that night. As soon as she saw me, she knew something had happened, and she wouldn’t give up until I told her. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have said anything to her either.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” he asked, his voice almost desperate. “Why didn’t you have him arrested?”

“Because I was young, and scared, and he told me no one would believe me, and I believed him. And plus, when we got back to school, he walked right past me like I didn’t exist, like I was completely invisible, and in a way, I was relieved. I
wanted
to be invisible to him. I didn’t want to do anything that would force me to interact with him ever again.”

“Jesus, Andie,” he said, and his voice was so sad that she scooted toward him, pressing her face against the side of his neck. His arms immediately wrapped around her, holding her firmly against his chest.

“You asked me once if I’d ever done something without worrying about consequences. Something just for me, because it was what I wanted. Well…there you have it,” she said softly. “And I’m not trying to make excuses. But that’s why I am the way I am, I think…like you said, always playing by the rules, always doing the right thing. Because I know there are consequences for doing the wrong thing.”

He released her then, pulling back from her slightly with his face full of concern. “You can’t possibly think that was your fault.”

She licked her lips and looked down. “I don’t know. I mean, I know I didn’t
deserve
it, but I put myself in that situation. I barely knew him, and I went to that party because I was naïve enough to think he was interested in me. My mom said it was wrong, my friend said it was wrong, but I did it anyway. And I paid the price.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said firmly, shaking his head. “So you made a decision for yourself. So you didn’t do what someone else expected of you. That’s not a crime, and you certainly didn’t deserve to pay a price for it. The only reason that happened was because he was a cowardly piece of shit. A fucking lowlife. It had nothing to do with your choice to go to a party, regardless of who didn’t want you to go.”

Andie nodded, chewing on the inside of her lip. “The thing is, though, on some level, even in my own heart I knew I shouldn’t be going.”

Chase leaned over, sweeping her hair behind her ear. “It’s still not your fault. But now you know better. You should never ignore your instincts. You don’t have to do what other people tell you to do, but you should always do what your heart tells you.”

Andie nodded as she looked down. It was so different from what she’d always been told. Use your head. Love with your head. Everything always logical, sensible, careful.

She thought back on everything that had happened that night: declining Colin’s proposal, going to see Chase, returning to his house a second time to confront him, baring herself to him, mind, body, and soul. None of that was sensible. None of it was careful. Yet it all felt right.

She looked at him then, lying next to her and looking up at her with a sentiment so pure that it made her eyes well with tears.

You should always do what your heart tells you.

She took Chase’s hand and pressed her lips against his palm.

“I finally did,” she whispered.

.

C
HAPTER
S
IXTEEN

“O
k a y, now I
really
have to go to bed,” Andie said after she yawned heavily into the phone.