Pieces of Summer (A stand-alone novel) (12 page)

Chapter 22

CHASE

Her shoulders go stiff, and her eyes widen. Apparently she didn’t want me to find out.

“You knew?” she whispers, her voice breaking.

“Found out today. Blake saw some old pictures of us and said he saw you one night. Even chased you.”

She groans while putting her head in her hands.

“It was him. That’s where I knew him from,” she mutters.

When she looks back up, I fight with myself to stay in place.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask again.

Her eyes turn into angry slits as she takes a step forward. “Why do you insist on knowing how much you hurt me, Chase? You wanted to know why I came back. You wanted to know why I bought the bowling alley. Why this. Why that. You know the fucking answers. Stop asking the rhetorical questions unless you get off on my pain!”

I wince, wishing I had just kept my damn mouth shut. She’s still hurting even all these years later. It’s like the wound is fresh. And I just keep pouring salt on it.

What she doesn’t realize, is that it’s just as fresh for me.

“She didn’t mean anything to me,” I lamely blurt out, sounding like a cliché from hell.

Her look changes from furious to sad in that instant, and it’s like a punch to gut.

“She meant something to me,” she whispers softly.

“Damn it, Mika! I was trying to get you out of my head by any means necessary. We were fucking kids planning a future we were never going to have. Even if I’d saved up every dime I had working as a busboy in that stupid diner, I would have only had a total of five thousand dollars at most. It wouldn’t have even been a down payment, for fuck’s sake.”

She stares, but remains silent as I go on.

“What then, Mika? Let you move out here with me and live in that shithole house I grew up in while helping me keep my mother from choking on her own vomit or overdosing? Maybe help me drive her to the doctor a few times a year to see what new VD she’d contracted? Possibly help me clean her up when she pissed or shit herself? Pray like I did that one day it would all just be over… that there was nothing you could have done differently on the day she finally died so you weren’t wracked with guilt? Does that sound like a fairytale ending for you? Does that sound anything close to what you fucking deserved?”

My chest is heaving by the time I finish yelling, and the knot in my throat has doubled in size. Tears are in her eyes, her lips are quivering, and my pulse is beating faster with every breath.

I should shut up. I shouldn’t be telling her any of this. It’s just going to complicate shit even more.

“You were it for me,” I tell her quietly. “All there was, Mika. You were the only good thing in my entire fucking life. And I gave you up because I didn’t want you to live through the same shit that made my life so dark. I gave you up because it was the right thing to do. It killed me.” I point to my chest as my voice grows strained. “Killed me,” I repeat, barely keeping myself from losing it. “But I did what I had to. I let you go because I’d never be the same light for you that you were for me, and it wasn’t fair.”

I sag down to a chair behind me, and I put my head in my hands while touching my elbows to my knees. It feels good to get it all out there, but at the same time, it fucking hurts to feel anything at all.

My breaths are choppy and heavy, and my chest feels like a weight is pressed against it. I startle when something touches my head, and my head snaps up as Mika steps closer, keeping her fingers in my hair as she moves in between my legs.

Her left hand joins her right one, slowly stroking my hair, and I wrap my arms around her waist while touching my forehead against her stomach, resting it there. I hug her closer, seeking that light she always gave me, feeling that comfort rise just from the simple action of her touching me and letting me touch her.

“You were always my light too,” she whispers softly. “More so than you realize, Chase.”

I close my eyes, keeping her against me, and we stay like that for several long minutes… possibly hours.

“I came to the ranch to find you,” I admit softly. She tenses and her hands still in my hair. “They told me you and Aidan had moved to New York. I just wanted you to know that I did come for you, even though I realized I couldn’t ever offer you anything.”

“That’s all they told you?” she asks, focusing on that part and that part alone.

“Yeah. Why?” I ask, still clinging to her.

She relaxes against me, and her hands go back to their ministrations.

“You were enough, Chase. You were more than enough.” Her voice is quiet and sad, and I keep my eyes closed, just letting her touch me and absorbing the way it all feels.

“Let’s get something to eat,” she finally says after a long break of silence. “Otherwise, my stomach is going to start talking to you, and it won’t sound pretty.”

When I smile against her, I remember exactly why she was everything good in my life.

She was the only one who ever made me smile when there was nothing to smile about.

Chapter 23

MIKA

Chase walks through the restaurant, garnering attention from everyone in there as he waits for me to sit down first. I expect him to slide in the seat across from me, but he sits down right beside me instead.

Seeing him so broken today… He loved me enough to want more for me than his life would offer. I loved him enough to endure his hell and I would have found a way to enjoy it. However, life doesn’t give you what you want. It gives you lemons and hides the sugar so that you can’t make lemonade.

Romeo and Juliette didn’t have shit on us as far as painful, tragic love goes. They made death beautiful, while we made life ugly.

Sadly, Chase doesn’t even know the half of it. If he did, he’d understand what a better option his life was for me than the life I had instead.

He came for me, but he has no idea why I was in New York. Was it after his mother died? Was it before? I’m scared to ask, because I’m not sure I want to know. If he’d come to me during the early years… I wasn’t strong then. I was weak and dangerous.

His arm goes around my shoulders as though it’s the most natural thing in the world when the waitress comes to take our order. She takes one look at us, and says, “Whiskey and vodka martini?”

Guess we made an impression the last time we were in this Italian restaurant.

“Just water for me,” I tell her, feeling a little blush creep up my cheeks.

“Coke for me,” Chase says with a small smirk.

As she walks away, he turns to face me, amusement sparkling in his eyes.

“So how else have I been killed?” he asks, causing my own smile to spread.

“You really want to know?” I ask.

“Every detail.”

So, I tell him. Halfway through telling him about the time I threw him in a vat of liquid nitrogen, I realize we’re pretty fucked up, because we’re both laughing so hard it hurts.

Long after we’ve finished eating, we’re still sitting in the booth, talking about random things, including the oddest tattoos he’s ever given. Who wants a porcupine tattoo on their vagina?

“It had an inscription on it, too,” he says, laughing lightly.

“Oh no. What was it?” I ask around a chuckle.

“No
pricks
allowed.”

I snort, and he laughs while also groaning; it’s a unique sound.

“I tried to talk her out of it,” he says, shaking his head as the waitress side eyes us for taking up her booth for so long.

It’s already getting dark because we’ve been here for hours. “Can we carry this conversation back to my place before we end up in a murder/mystery book of our own? Killed and dumped by the waitress?” I ask Chase.

He chokes on a laugh while glancing her way, and she glares daggers at us.

“Yeah,” he says, still snickering. He tosses down forty dollars before I can try to pay, and he gestures for me to follow him.

Reaching into my back pocket, I pull out twenty more dollars and toss it onto the table to make up for a few tips she might have missed. Chase doesn’t notice. As soon as I reach his side, he’s lacing our fingers together.

I stare at the connection, trying to decide if it’s an innocent gesture or more. I’m not allowed to have more. Especially not with Chase James. Physical contact with anyone is a serious no-no.

Desperately wishing I was normal, I fight off the training I’ve had for years about physical contact and allow him to hold my hand because of how much I love it. Feeling connected to someone is what I’ve missed most, and I almost feel starved just for that contact.

Brief hugs and such are allowed, even though they’re still rare. My mind understands them as greetings or farewells. Holding hands is crossing a line I’m not supposed to.

We walk to his truck, and he opens the passenger door for me. Instead of letting me climb in, he picks me up at my waist and lifts me into the seat, smiling at me when we’re almost eye-level.

“It’s been a while since I got to ride with you in the front seat.”

This truck is definitely nicer than the one his dad had when we were younger. It’s also cleaner and smells better too.

Chase leans closer, letting his breath kiss my lips, but keeping his own lips just out of reach. This is definitely not innocent.

“I’ve missed you, Mika. Tell me how long you’re staying here before I get too attached and forget you deserve more than Hayden,” he says in a sad whisper, causing my heart to clench.

No times. No dates. No schedules. Those are the rules. Vagueness is key. That’s part of the therapy. No exacts. All estimates. And only an estimate if I’m positive.

“I don’t plan on leaving,” is what I say. It’s technically vague.

His grip on my sides gets tighter, and his lips just barely brush mine. “Don’t tease me,” he says quietly.

“Chase, I can’t—”

He pulls back abruptly and clears his throat. “Right. Sorry. I’m moving way too fast. Especially after finding out what you saw. Shit. Sorry,” he rambles, shutting the door to the truck as I nurse my whiplash.

He climbs in on the opposite side, and I avoid eye contact, feeling awkward now.

“Chase, I—”

“It’s fine, Mika,” he says, smiling over at me. “I just reacted to hearing you were staying here. How about we try to be friends?”

He wipes his hands on his jeans like they’re sweating, and I blow out a breath.

“Friends sounds perfect,” I lie, hating the taste of the words on my tongue.

Chase James and I will never be just friends.

It’s just not possible for us. But logically, neither is anything else.

Chapter 24

MIKA

Chase is asleep on my couch for the third time this week. Three. I can’t let him spend the night again. It’ll be four. Four equals a habit. Habits form rapidly and become addictive.

How do I tell him that? He thinks I’m quirky. He doesn’t know I’m fucking crazy.

It’s late, almost two in the morning, and I move through the living room to the kitchen to grab a drink of water. We’ve spent two days getting to know each other like old friends who haven’t caught up in years. We’ve stopped talking about the past, and only talk about the good things.

I haven’t told him anything about my life other than what I do for a living. He knows nothing about me. Somehow, I’ve reconciled him sleeping on my couch instead of asking him to go home. But tomorrow he can’t stay. In fact, I don’t need to see him at all tomorrow, because that means I will have seen him four days in a row. Four is not allowed.

Stepping out onto the back deck, I stare out over the lake, watching as the moonlight dances on the water. The sound of the door creaking open has me jumping, and I turn to see Chase as he cocks an eyebrow at me.

“Am I interrupting your midnight rendezvous?” he jokes, coming to take the seat much too close to me.

“Um… No. Just thought you were sleeping.”

“I was. Then someone opened a door and I woke up.”

“Sorry,” I mumble.

“Don’t be. I’m a light sleeper. Happens after spending years being alert for a door opening.”

He’s not fishing for pity, so I don’t offer any. Chase has always been able to speak honestly with me, and not worry about it changing the way I treated him. Apparently he still thinks that’s okay to do, and I don’t want to say any differently.

It hurts a little deeper now to hear his pain though. I think that comes with age and experience with my own pain.

“Why can’t you sleep?” he asks, brushing my hair off my shoulder and leaving his fingertips lingering on my skin like he’s testing how close I’ll let him get.

Swallowing the instant knot in my throat, I shrug.

“Bad dreams.”

He frowns while leaning closer, and my breath freezes in my lungs when he runs his lips across my shoulder, watching me for my reaction.

“What kind of dreams? Maybe I can help you get rid of them,” he says softly as his breath whispers across my skin. “You used to help chase mine away,” he adds.

Warmth blooms across my skin, moving down to my core, and my thighs tighten as I squirm in my seat. Four… Three… How many years? Maybe I could be ready? I haven’t spoken to my therapist in too long, but she might consider me ready… I haven’t had an episode in at least seven years. At least not a bad one. I’ve had smaller episodes since then, but the major ones are behind me. Right?

And here I am willing to risk absolutely everything because it’s Chase James. Shit. I’m doing that internal rambling thing again.

“Just random dreams,” I lie, but the words are nothing more than a hoarse whisper when he continues to run his lips over my skin.

“I was thinking… Maybe tomorrow I could pick you up after I close the shop, and we could go to the bowling alley together. Have you even bowled at all since you bought the place?”

I shake my head, but my mind drifts back to the days when we used to drive for an hour just to bowl at the nearest spot. Dad would go out of his way to take us before I had my license. He loved seeing us have fun out there, and he’d let us stay until it closed. We’d go at least ten times a summer.

“I remember what we did that last summer in that bowling alley you’re thinking about right now,” he says, grinning against my shoulder.

How does he know I’m thinking about it?

As if he plucked the memory from my mind and put it in a video reel, it starts playing out in my head. It was the summer I finally got to drive, and I drove us out there in Dad’s BMW. We’d stayed until closing, and the owner was in the back, smoking pot like he did every weekend. It was just us, and Chase was more desperate to have me than usual that night.

From the second I took his virginity, we spent almost every waking moment that summer doing insanely stupid things like having sex on a bowling alley floor with no condom. It was a miracle I never got pregnant.

“I was crazy about you,” he tells me, kissing lower on my shoulder and making me regret this slinky shirt with straps instead of sleeves. “Wish I could say that wasn’t the case anymore, but you’re like a drug that won’t let me go, Mika. But tell me to go away, and I promise I’ll leave you alone.”

My breaths grow heavier as I turn to face him, and I contemplate my options. No fours. Never four. Don’t let four get in the way. Four is a trigger. Four days and four nights can’t happen.

“I’ll go bowling with you tomorrow,” I tell him, watching the way his boyish grin appears and makes it worth the possible trigger I’m pulling.

“Good.”

He remembers me as the fun, quirky, tough girl. The light at the end of his dark tunnel. It makes me miss the girl I once was, and desperate to feel like she did once again.

Strong. Fearless. In control. I want to be her so bad that it hurts.

Maybe I can write her into my story again. Maybe I can control it.

Instead of saying anything else, I get up and head inside, letting him kiss my hand on the way by. The feel of his lips lingers on my hand, and I close my eyes and take deep breaths.

Maybe I can be the girl I used to be if there’s a reason for me to try.

He stands abruptly, and his arms come around my waist, pulling my back to his front. “I’ll pick you up at six tomorrow.”

Shit. Why did he have to give me a time? Damn it.

“Exactly six,” I say quietly.

“Exactly,” he promises.