The Choice (16 page)

“Wake up, Sleepyhead,” I hear Sophie whisper hoarsely as she weakly squeezes the hand resting in hers. Raising my eyes to meet hers, I see h
er smiling over at me. “We gotta stop meeting like this, Sugar Lips.”

I can’t stop the chuckle of relief that escapes me as my eyes fill with tears. Standing up to hover over her, I press my lips to hers as gently as I can, brushing the hair from her eyes.

“I love you, Baby,” I whisper softly, my voice cracking. “Thank God you’re okay! I thought… Oh my God, Sophie. I thought you…”

I can’t finish. Pressing my lips to her neck gently, I kiss her again and cradle her head with my free hand.
Unable to stop the sob that leaves my chest when I think about what could have happened, I hold her close to me while she whispers gentle reassurances into my ear. When I pull away from her, her eyes are moist with tears, but she’s smiling.

“I’m okay, Baby,” she whispers, releasing my hand to brush the tears from my cheeks before resting her hand on my neck. “
Shh, I’m okay,” she whispers. Resting my head in the crook of her neck as gently as I can, I take in her scent, the feel of her warm skin on mine.

“Don’t
ever
do that shit to me again, Sophie,” I start, pulling away just enough to rest my head against hers. “What the hell were you thinking, Baby?”

“I would walk through fire for you, Chase Mitchell,” she says holding my eyes. “I would die a thousand deaths and not blink at any of them if it meant saving you, my Love. No apologies, no regrets.”

“Sophie,” I sigh softly against her lips before placing feather light kisses there. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she whispers against my lips and I feel a smile forming there before she opens her eyes and stuns me again with her emerald orbs. “God, I just love you so much it hurts my heart, Chase.”

After holding each other like that for a few more moments, I hit the call button and watch as the nurse comes in to check her out. She’d only been out for a few hours, but God those were the longest hours of my life.

When everything looks good to the nurse, she steps out after telling us Sophie’s doctor would be in to check on her shortly.

She’d lost a lot of blood and had needed several stitches to repair the deep gash in her arm, but luckily there wasn’t any severe damage. In fact, they don’t think she’ll have to stay in longer than one night for observation because of the blood loss.

After the nurse leaves, I send a text to Ana before Sophie asks me to lay with her and I climb in carefully beside her. Singing softly to her, she drifts off to sleep and a few minutes later, I do, too.

The next morning, I’m awoken by Drake and Ana coming into Sophie’s room. After a quick check to the beeping monitors to her left, I place a kiss on her forehead and gently rub my hand across the small of her back to wake her.

When she wakes with a start, I hold her as closely as I can without disturbing her bandages.

“Shh, Baby,” I whisper into her hair. “It’s okay, you’re okay. I’ve got you, my Sweetheart.”

Her whimpers subside almost instantly and I place kisses on her neck as I continue to reassure her she’s safe.

Her eyes finally open slowly and when she sees me looking down at her, she nuzzles into my chest, breathing a sigh of relief.

“
Chase?” she whispers brokenly. “You’re okay?”

“I’m okay,”
I tell her again, kissing her on the top of the head. “Good morning, Baby.”

“Good morning,” she sniffles
, staying put against my chest.

“Ana and Drake are here.”

Moving away from me slowly, she looks over to where they’re standing and her eyes fill with tears as she takes in Ana’s distraught appearance.

“Hey,” she whispers and Ana rushes to her side. Deciding they may want a minute alone, I kiss Sophie again
and leave in search of coffee, stopping to pull Drake into a brotherly embrace.

“How’s she doing?” he asks quietly as he watches the girls hold each other and cry.

“She’s okay now,” I tell him. “Her doctor is going to come in and check on her at around ten to check her out, but as long as everything’s still healing right, she can probably come home.”

“Good,” he says with a smile and pats me on the shoulder. “The officer that was there last night said when she’s feeling up to it, he needs to talk to her today
. They know everything was self defense, so it’s mostly paperwork, but she’ll have to do a statement and probably go to court to get it taken care of.”

“Yeah,” I say letting out a deep sigh of exhaustion
and relief.

“Good girl you got there, man.”

“Yeah,” I say looking over at her before meeting his eyes again, my throat closing with emotion.

Understanding, he pulls me in for another quick hug before releasing me.

“Call your mom,” he orders and I nod with a smirk, making my way to the coffee machine.

***

“Keep your fucking mouth shut or I’ll make sure you regret it,” Rob whispers into my neck, pointing me in the direction of where Chase is standing, unaware. “Ditch him or you’re both dead.”

As blood sweeps over Chase’s chest, his gaze finds mine and he slowly starts to fade away, crippling me.

Waking with a start, it takes me a second to find my bearings. I feel Chase’s arms around my side and take in his familiar smell as he gently rubs circles over my back reassuringly.

“Shh, Baby. It’s okay. You’re okay. I’ve got you, my Sweetheart.”

The sigh that leaves my chest at the sound of his voice is immediate.

“Chase? You’re okay?”

“I’m okay,” he whispers, kissing my hair. “Good morning, Baby.”

“Good morning,” I manage.

Unable to contain the whimper that leaves my lips, I lean into his embrace as I try my best to shake the images from my head.

“Ana and Drake are here,” he whispers. As quickly as my injury and his hold will allow, I turn to find my best friend. She looks completely exhausted with worry and
I know she hasn’t slept a wink. I can’t help the tears from filling my eyes when I see her standing next to Drake.

“Hey,” I whisper as she immediately makes her way over to me.

After a quick kiss, Chase walks over to where Drake is standing and Ana climbs in next to me, carefully hugging me as she cries.

“Sophie,” she sobs. “I thought I lost you.”

“I’m sorry,” I cry with her, holding her as tightly as I can.

“Why did you go with him in the first place?” she asks, meeting my eyes.

“I had to,” I admit. “He threatened to hurt you, Ana. Then he tried to stab Chase. What was I supposed to do?”

“What?” she says, guilt and surprise filling her eyes.

“He said if I didn’t go with him, he would hurt you and Heather so I went,” I admit through my tears.

“You did that for me?”

“Of course,” I say. “You think I’m going to let some crazy person hurt you?”

“
Soph…” she starts, but the sobs coming from her chest keep her from continuing for a moment. “Don’t do that for me!”

“Okay,” I laugh, knowing it’s a lie. I’d never let anything happen to her and we both know it.

“I mean it!” she scolds, still holding me. “I can’t keep my promise if you go and get yourself killed doing stupid shit. I’m the big sister. I get to be the hero here, damn it!”

“
Ana,” I say softly into her shoulder, still holding her closely. “You
are
the hero in this story. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have survived. You save me every day. I was just trying to return the favor. I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she whispers into my shoulder as we lay and cry together.

***

“Oh, my God, guys! Would you hurry the hell up? We’re going to be late!” Drake yells through the house.

“Baby, I’m coming!” I yell back from our bedroom. “I need help! I can’t get the suitcase shut!”

“Well, if you’d stop putting shit in there, you could shut it!” he calls back to me, irritation staining his voice.

I don’t know what he’s freaking out about, we still
have a few hours until our flight to Florida leaves.

“Sophie!” I yell. “Can you come here and sit on this?”

“That’s what he said!” Chase yells through the house.

“Good one, Baby!” I hear Sophie tell him as she walks into our room with a smirk. “Here, let me at it,” she says, plopping her small frame over the top of my bag
and cringing at the pop music I’m playing loudly.

“Déjà vu much?” I say with a smile of my own and she sighs.

“I know, right? I can’t believe less than a year ago we were doing this. Everything is so different now,” she says. Pushing the zipper with all my might, I fall back in a huff and reposition myself in front of the bag. “Some things don’t ever change though,” she laughs.

“Yeah,” I say, finally pulling it shut and giving her a fist bump.

As she stands, I take a look at her and my heart swells. She’s right, not even eight months ago our lives were completely different from what they are today. We were both shells, just floating along, but now we’re both happy and in love. We weren’t living together for the first time in years, but somehow our friendship had managed to become even stronger than ever. 

We’d been through hell and
back together, especially Sophie. Taking in the bandages on her shoulder, I thank God for the tenth time today that she is here with me this morning. She’d scared the hell out of me that night. If I’d ever had a doubt in my mind about how much I needed Sophie, it was erased as soon as I saw her lying in Chase’s arms.

Since she’d had everything registered properly and everything was caug
ht on the security tapes at Logan’s, getting everything cleared was much faster than we’d thought it would be. We’d had to push our trip back a week, but it looked like for the most part, everything was behind her now.

Chase said she’d been waking up in the night with nightmares every night, but unfortunately that wasn’t anything new for her. When I tried to talk to her about it, her reaction wasn’t what I thought it would be.

“If I’d done it to save myself, I may have a little bit of guilt,” she’d stated. “But he tried to hurt Chase so I’m just glad I had my gun. Thanks for bringing it back to me.”

I’d accidentally left with her 9mm in my safe when I moved in with Drake. By coincidence and pure luck, I’d brought it with me that night to return it to her. Thank God I’d been able to slip it into her purse at the bar.

“Weren’t you terrified?” I ask her. Immediately, her eyes settle across the room on him and she shakes her head slightly, a dreamy expression replacing the serious one she’d just had.

“No,” she whispers
. “Fear was the last thing in my mind, Ana.”

“Seriously?”

“There’s nothing I wouldn’t risk for him,” she smiles. “Nothing.”

“Baby,” Drake says as he walks into the room and breaks me from my thoughts. “What are you doing? We have to go.”

“Sorry,” I say
, shaking my head. Seeing my misty eyed expression, he comes to a stop in front of me and takes my face in his hands.

“Are you okay?” he asks and I nod, giving him a small but genuine smile.

“Yes,” I answer. “I was just caught up in my head. I’m okay.”

“I love you,” he says leaning down to kiss me chastely on the lips.

“I love you, too, Baby.”

“Okay,
grab your coat so we can get the hell out of here,” he says, playfully smacking me on the ass as I walk toward the door.

“Yes, Sir,” I answer as I make my way out to meet the others, startled when I run into Sophie.

“Hey, I just came to let you know we’re ready and see if you need help grabbing anything,” she says. “Did you just call Drake ‘Sir’?”

“No, I think we got everything.”

When I don’t answer her second question, she searches my face curiously.

“Ana?”

“Yeah?” I answer. I trust Sophie with everything, but I’ve avoided discussing the intimacy of my relationship with Drake. Not because I’m ashamed, quite the opposite actually. The reason I’ve avoided discussing the most fulfilling relationship I’d ever had with Sophie is simply that I don’t think she’ll understand. I didn’t want her to get any false pretenses about Drake. Sensing my hesitation, she didn’t push and simply proved once again why she’s my best friend.

“Are you happy?”

“Yes,” I beam. “Disgustingly so!”

“Okay,” she smiles back and pulls me in for a hug. “Then the other part doesn’t matter. See you at the airport. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Watching her walk out the door, I feel Drake behind me, knowing he heard the entire exchange between Sophie
and I. Walking up behind me Drake grips my hair in his hand and tugs gently so that my eyes meet his.

“Disgustingly so, huh?” he whispers against my mouth.

“Yes Sir.”

“Hmm good,” he hums as he kisses me, sucking on my lower lip before pulling away and leading me out with a small smile forming. After placing the last of our luggage into the trunk of the car, Drake opens the door for me and watches me as I get situated. “
Are you wearing what I set out for you this morning?”

“Yes Sir.”

“Good girl,” he smirks as he closes the door behind me and makes his way around the front of the car before climbing into the driver’s seat.

“May I ask why you chose that specific set?” I ask thinking of the
crotchless panties and matching cutout bra I’d woken to find next to the outfit I’d chosen on our dresser this morning.

“Because I’m going to fuck you on the plane,
Analise,” he says in a matter of fact tone as he reaches over and pinches my nipple through the thin fabric of my shirt before backing out of the driveway. “Buckle up, Baby.”

***