Outcome (Aftermath #2) (13 page)

It was messy, hot, and sticky. Fucking glorious. Intoxicating.

Spent and drained in the best ways, Chase collapsed on top of Remy and tried to catch his breath. He made a half-assed attempt at easing off to give Remy space, but he was pulled down again.
Thank you
.

"Don’t move," Remy whispered. Quick puffs of air hit Chase's shoulder. "Not yet."

Chase didn’t need to be asked twice.

Chapter 15

Remy closed his eyes and could practically see two imaginary roads opening up before him. Which one was he going to take, though? One would take him back to what he'd gotten used to, and he'd die there. The other one… It was the risks he feared, but the outcome could give him everything.

Life
.

He fiddled absently with the lighter in the pocket of another pair of basketball shorts.

It was the middle of the night. Chase was asleep in the bed, and Remy stood in the small clearing outside the cabin smoking a cigarette.

The rain had stopped, but the black sky was filled with clouds, the moon only a faint blur behind the gray.

Remy felt…both heavy and light. Well-rested after several hours of uninterrupted sleep without nightmares, sexually sated after the mind-blowing fuck with Chase, refreshed after another icy shower to get rid of the mud that had dried on his legs and feet from earlier, and content in the peaceful night. But torn because of the hope that mingled with the ever-present guilt, exposed because it had been a lot more than just a fuck with Chase, and vulnerable because he couldn’t do this alone.

He tilted up his face and blew out some smoke, his stomach clenching in anticipation. The mere thought of doing this, trying one last time, going all in… He knew if he failed, it'd be the end of him. He wouldn’t be able to take another person rejecting him or dying. Not when he could barely stand on his own.

When he'd turned to Clarissa and Fred for support, they'd made it abundantly clear that the only reason Remy was—at that time—invited to Sunday dinners was because he paid for Bill's assisted living. In the late stages of Alzheimer's, dear old Dad didn’t remember any of the Stahls; he was always mumbling about a baseball game his grandfather had taken him to when he was a kid.

It had been expensive to make sure he had the best care, but Remy'd done it without hesitation. Until…well, until Clarissa and Fred decided to flee the embarrassment of the kidnapping, move to Milwaukee, and give Bill whatever treatment they could afford there.

Now they were only a blemish on the Bakersfield news archive.

Me included.

Remy had told his mom he wanted to go back to her last name once. He remembered; it was the first time he'd turned to her after Chase and the others had returned to freedom. Clarissa and Fred had abandoned him, after all those years Remy had spent trying to please them, so he had stupidly held out hope for Mom.
Mom would care
. She'd been sober and clean at the time, strengthening his resolve to trust her.

"Of course you should change your name, kiddo."
She'd given him a loud smooch on the forehead, leaving traces of sticky, pink lip gloss behind.
"You wanna be a Coleman like Mommy again, huh?"

Two weeks later, she'd been too drugged up to form words.

Remy sighed and hung his head, taking another drag from his smoke.

Gullible, that’s what he was. Every time Mom had sobered, he'd come crawling back to her.
"I need your help. I can't do this on my own, and I'm not sure therapy's working out."

"Well, of course it ain't,"
she'd exclaimed, inspecting her too-long fingernails. He'd given her money for rent and groceries, and she looked like she'd just gotten back from the salon.
"Therapy's for rich folks who need more to spend their money on. I'm telling you, kiddo. This time's gonna be different. I'll help you. To hell with those damn head doctors."
She'd hugged him and patted his cheek.
"They don’t know you. I do. And like you helped me with rehab, I'll help you with this. I swear—it's gonna be different. It's gonna be different."

Except, it hadn't been different at all, and it had taken a long fucking time before Remy had ventured back. Only to find her dead.

Stubbing out the smoke, Remy rubbed his chest and grimaced at the constriction his nervousness caused.
One last time
. He glanced back at the cabin and imagined Chase's peaceful expression as he slept.

I can trust him.

Remy realized the option of leaving, walking out into the night and disappearing, wasn’t even there. No cuffs held him back, but something else did.

Drawn by an invisible force, he returned back inside and soundlessly got undressed before he snuck under the sheets.

He found Chase's warmth.

A few seconds later, Chase pulled Remy closer. "Told you. You wouldn’t run away from me."

Remy grinned to himself and released a nervous breath.

*

The day after, they couldn’t muster up any real anger to use on the punching bag, so they settled for a walk and some work around the cabin. After they'd cleaned out the shed in the back and washed their sheets down by the campsite, they returned inside to make lunch.

Chase could easily get hooked on this—this feeling, this sense of companionship. It offered a piece of the solid ground he'd been desperate for.

While they hadn't been particularly affectionate since waking up, it had been easy. Comfortable silences, a few touches, a couple jokes.

"An Italian who doesn’t know how to cook?" Remy smiled cockily as he poured pasta into a pot on the portable stove. "Can't believe it."

Chase let out a laugh and leaned back against a wall, folding his arms across his chest. "Do I look Italian to you?" He shook his head. "It's so watered down that I think my name is the only thing left. My folks were religious, and my ma had a thing for Italian pet names, but…" He shrugged and scratched his nose.

Remy nodded, eyes trained on the pasta. "They're dead?" He chanced a quick glance at Chase.

"Yeah. I mean, it's been ten years, so…" It wasn’t a sore topic, in other words. From Remy's expression, curiosity mingling with some caution, Chase clarified. "Wasn’t an accident or anything. Pops died of cancer, and my mother had a heart attack shortly after."

That was the short version, anyway.

"That sucks." Remy focused a little too hard on the pasta. "Any other family?"

"Baby sister. Adriana—she's in college." Chase tilted his head and smiled a little. "I didn’t take you as one for small talk."

That earned him a mock-scowl. "I'm only distracting you so you won't interfere with my cooking."

Chase chuckled and showed his palms. "Don’t worry. You're safe." He paused, wanting to say something that kept conversation going. "Do you miss working in Andreas's studio?"

Remy straightened at that. His eyes narrowed. "How much have Minna and Andy really told you?"

"A lot." Mostly Minna.

"Figured." Remy's shoulders slumped, and he pulled out a loaf of bread from a cupboard. "I guess I miss it…sometimes…a little." Sounded like an understatement. "Do you like owning a bar?"

"Yeah, definitely." Chase hid a grin he couldn’t explain. It was too genuine. "Beats being an employee. I've been a bartender since I was legal, but it's not until now I got my own place." The fact that Remy looked interested in what he was saying made him wanna smile again. Silly shit. "Would, uh…would you be able to visit?" He hadn't thought of that until now. "When you get outta here, I mean. Would visiting a bar be an issue?"

Chase's pulse picked up pace when he realized what he was implying. Seeing Remy up here was one thing, but what about when they were back in civilization? If they met up every now and then…would it still be only about helping each other move on?

If Chase were smart, he'd draw the line at friends. And friends sure as hell didn’t fuck. Being friends was a big step as it was, seeing as it wasn’t so long ago Chase had claimed he didn’t wanna get to know Remy on a personal level.

He had to draw that line.

"I don’t think so," Remy answered hesitantly. "I should probably wait a while, though."

Chase nodded and stared at his feet. "What's hardest to stay away from? You don’t gotta answer if you don’t want—"

"Alcohol."

Chase looked up in surprise, having thought it would be drugs. Admittedly, he didn’t know much about addictions. It had sucked to give up smoking, but he'd found it was more difficult to occupy his fingers than it'd been to stay away from nicotine. It was the whole routine, the habit of holding a cigarette, that had been the hardest to kill. To this day, he could still catch himself holding a pen like a smoke.

Right after he'd quit, he'd been restless and irritated. He'd be in the middle of work or doing some menial task and he'd reach for his smokes, only to remember they weren't there anymore.

At any rate, he figured that was nothing compared with what Remy was going through. No matter if it was drugs or booze.

"I cave easily," Remy admitted. "As long as I'm here in the middle of nowhere, it's sort of like 'out of sight, out of mind,' because I've quit so many times. I…" He sighed and turned to distract himself by dicing a couple tomatoes. "I want drugs for what they made me forget, but I haven't done enough to need them. If that makes sense." He furrowed his brows at nothing, and Chase studied him intently, wanting to understand. "I guess I was kind of a weekend warrior?" Chase had heard that term; people who worked during the week and partied—hard—during the weekends. "At least when it comes to drugs. I mixed a lot of shit, thinking I wouldn’t get hooked. And maybe it worked to an extent, but—" a humorless chuckle slipped out "—my body took a hit when Minna got to me. I'm used to chemicals in my system, that’s for sure." He shifted uncomfortably. "I get mood swings and headaches."

Chase closed the distance and nudged Remy's arm, a wry smirk on his lips. "Mood swings—really?" He wanted to lighten the tension, and it seemed to work.

Remy smirked back and huffed. "Believe it or not, but I've actually held back with you. Andy…? Not so much." His frown returned. "I have a lot of making up to do."

"You getting better will make everything worth it," Chase murmured. "They'll see it as a victory as much as you will."

"Getting better," Remy repeated quietly. "Yeah…"

It looked like he didn’t believe it yet—that he could move on from this.

Chase was determined, though. For the both of them. But for now, he got back to the previous topic. "So you crave alcohol more?"

"Huh? Oh. Yeah." Remy nodded once and busied himself with the pasta again. "That’s the thing. The drugs were a weekend thing or when I was desperate for a whole night's sleep, and it was only after Mom died. But with the family I have?" Bitterness seeped into his tone. "I've had my fair share of benders since I was fifteen. Alcohol has always helped."

Helped
. What a fucked-up word to use. While Chase couldn’t fathom what Remy had gone through, the fact he used that word to describe alcohol and getting drunk…that said a lot.

"I think once I get back home…" Pain flitted across Remy's features, though he did his best to hide it. "Temptation is a cunt."

"You're banned from my bar," Chase blurted.

Shit.

Remy's eyebrows rose.

Chase cleared his throat. "I didn’t mean it like that, but yeah, you're not allowed to go there." Fuck if he was gonna be responsible for Remy failing. It was nothing Chase wanted on his conscience, but mainly, he wanted Remy to succeed. "I wanna be helpful, not drag you down."

Remy didn’t reply; he appeared to be lost in his own little world while he finished preparing their lunch. He worked on autopilot, from what Chase could tell, and Chase got outta the way to give Remy some room.

Chase's thoughts were all over the place. He wanted to help to the point where he was afraid he'd push Remy too far. He also worried that turning Remy into a mission would only force his own shit aside for the moment, not actually eliminate the issues.

Having a purpose in life had to be a positive thing, but he couldn’t let it take over.

It wasn’t until they sat down to eat—in Remy's bed, much like yesterday—that Remy spoke again.

He stared at his plate, absentmindedly dragging a piece of bread through the tomato sauce. "I'm probably going to fail, you know."

Chase eyed him as he twirled his fork in the pasta. "You settin' yourself up for it?"

"No." Remy glanced up at Chase, a blank expression on his face. "I'm just warning you. I can't promise you I won't—"

"You don’t have to promise
me
shit." Chase pointed to himself. "This is about you, and like Minna and Andreas, I plan on sticking around no matter what."

Remy swallowed hard and tested a small smile. "Does that make us friends, Gallardo?" He was going for teasing.

Chase smirked, shoveling some food into his mouth. "Never saw that coming, but yeah, I guess so."

"Did anyone ever tell you that you have horrible taste in friends?"

I never had friends until recently, so no
. Chase didn’t say that; instead, he observed how similar he and Remy could be. How often did Chase view himself as a less important person than others? The minute he failed at something, he was a champ at beating himself up. Whether it was about helping someone else or himself, and regardless of how high he set the bar, he found a way to blame himself.

It took hearing the same kinda talk from Remy for Chase to realize he had to stop doing that. At the very least, he had to fucking try. He wasn’t God; he couldn’t do everything—especially not on his own—which…which meant his pops was wrong about yet another thing. The pity Chase had for his old man grew tenfold, and it was starting to get pathetic.