The Debt 9 (Club Alpha) (12 page)

“I’m waiting,” Chase replied.

“I can talk now,” Faith told him,
breathing a sigh of relief.
 
The
common area of her building was shared by a few different businesses, so she
wasn’t likely to get in trouble for being on the phone.

“Come outside,” he said.

“Wait--outside where?”

“I’m waiting for you outside your work.”

She stopped dead still.
 
“How could you know where I work?
 
I never told you that.”

There was a long silence.
 
“I needed to see you, so I looked you up
and found your LinkedIn profile.”

Chase Winters was online stalking her.
 
She shook her head in complete disbelief
at this new turn of events.
 
Her
heart was pounding with excitement, and she found herself wanting to shout for
joy.
 

He
came all the way here just to find me.
 
He’s been thinking about me, too
.

But her naturally cautious nature
reasserted itself.
 
“You haven’t
tried to talk to me in a week,” she said.

“Just come outside and I’ll explain
everything.”

Faith knew she wasn’t going to refuse to
see him.
 
Although she wished she
would’ve known he might show up—she’d have dressed nicer and made sure
her hair and makeup were perfect.

Still, she walked toward the front
door.
 
“Okay, I’m coming out,” she
said.
 

“Cool.”
 
He hung up.

Faith approached the door, oblivious to
the other people coming and going.
 
There was a gym in their building, too, so there were people in suits
and ties, and also people in workout clothes loitering about.

She opened the door and walked outside,
her eyes scanning the parking lot.
 
That’s when she saw him, standing towards the back of the lot wearing
faded jeans and a red sweatshirt, the hood over his head to make it harder to
notice him.

He stood out anyway, because of his
height and build, but with the hood over his head it would have been nearly
impossible to know who he was.

She took a deep breath, her legs shaking
a little beneath her.
 
In the
stillness of that moment, seeing him there in the lot waiting for her, Faith
understood that she was falling for him in a major way.

It was a heart-stopping realization, and
there was the strongest sensation of sinking, of being lost in a limitless
ocean.

And then she started walking towards him,
knowing she could never in a million years resist anything Chase Winters asked
of her.

A few feet away, she stopped again, this
time shocked by seeing what had happened to Chase’s perfect face.
 
His bottom lip was split, the cut
healing, scabbed over but still painful in appearance.
 
And he had bruises under both of his
eyes that were deep, black and blue and shades of yellow.

“Oh my God,” Faith said, putting a hand
up to her chest.
 
“You’re hurt.”

Chase smiled bitterly.
 
“I wish it was worse,” he said.
 
“They told me I might have gotten a mild
concussion, but if it had been a serious head injury than my memory of the game
would be erased.”

“Don’t even joke about that,” she said.

“The tradeoff would be worth it, if you
ask me.”
 
He wasn’t even smiling as
he said this.

“I wanted to talk to you,” she said,
hanging back.

Now it was his turn to approach her, and
as he came closer, her entire body tingled with anticipation.
 
“I haven’t been able to stop thinking
about you,” he said.

“I don’t believe that.”

“It’s true, though.”
 
His dark eyes bored into hers.

“Why haven’t you texted or called me,
then?”

He laughed.
 
“I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but
I’ve been kind of busy lately, Faith.”

She looked down, embarrassed at seeming
needy.
 
“I just wish you didn’t kick
me out of your house the other day.”

He reached out and grabbed her hand in
his, encircling her entire hand easily, but gently.
 
“I’m fucked up,” he said.
 
“You get that?”

She continued to stare at the
cement.
 
“Everyone has problems.”

“Not like mine,” he said.
 
“Look at me, Faith.”

She looked up, and their eye
connected.
 

I
love you, Chase
.

She thought the words but knew she could
never, in a million years, say them.

“I’m glad you came to see me,” she
finally said, feeling lame at how it sounded in her own ears.

“Let’s get out of here,” Chase said,
starting to pull her away from the building.

“I can’t just leave.”

As if on cue, someone began shouting her
name from behind.
 
“Faith!”

“Shit,” she said, spinning around and
seeing Greg running towards them.
 

“Faith!” Greg shouted, coming closer as
he continued running.

“Who’s this?” Chase asked, his voice
suspicious and growling with dislike.

“That’s my boss,” Faith said, swallowing
anxiously.

And then Greg had reached them, and he
slowed down, his chest rising and falling as he gasped for air.
 
“What…in the hell…are you doing?” Greg
huffed.
 
He glanced from Faith to
Chase and then his eyes widened as he realized who he was looking at.

Chase pulled his hood back.
 
“She’s with me,” he said with a dark
undertone to his voice.

“Hey, you’re…you’re that guy…Chase
Winters.”
 
Greg turned and looked at
Faith, his eyes narrowing.
 
“That’s
that new quarterback,” he said to her.
 

“Greg, could you please give us a
minute?” she pleaded.
 

“No, I can’t.”
 
Greg turned his attention back to
Chase.
 
“Look, she works for me,
buddy.
 
I understand you might be a
big shot and all, but—“

Chase stepped forward and Greg’s mouth
shut like a mousetrap.

“She asked you to give us a minute.
 
I think you should listen to her.”
 
Chase’s eyes were dead cold and
unflinching.
 

Greg stepped backwards and now he looked
at Faith.
 
“Either you come back
inside with me right now, or I’m going to have to let you go.
 
You’ve been slacking left and right and
this…this is the last straw.”

 
 
“You’re going to fire me because I went
outside for five minutes?” she asked.

“She quits,” Chase told him.
 
“She doesn’t need your stupid,
worthless, pathetic job.”

“Fine,” Greg sneered, his lips pulling
back from his teeth.
 
He turned and
started walking back to the building.
 
As he went, he turned and shouted.
 
“You two losers deserve each other!
 
Fucking losers!”
 
And then he
ran, sprinted, as if he thought Chase might come after him.

But when Faith glanced at him again,
Chase wasn’t angry at all.
 
In fact,
he was laughing, his shoulders shaking as his cheeks turned red.
 
“That just made my day,” he said, trying
to control his amusement.

“You realize you just got me fired,
right?”

“So what?
 
Screw that guy and his shit job.”

“Well I don’t have a multi-million dollar
contract to fall back on,” she retorted.
 
“I need that shit job.”

Chase looked at her now, his eyes
penetrating.
 
“No you don’t.”

“I don’t?”
 

“No.”
 
He stood there, staring at her with an
intensity she didn’t understand.

“I should go,” she said softly.
 
“I need to see if I can beg for my job
back.”

“Or you can come with me,” Chase said,
his hand grabbing her hand once more.
 
His thumb caressed her wrist and she broke into gooseflesh all over.

“Come with you where?” she asked.

Chase didn’t answer.
 
Instead, the corner of his mouth turned
up and he just smiled, and the smile said everything and nothing.

His smile promised that he would take her
somewhere she’d never been—someplace dangerous, dark—someplace
where she’d be completely out of control.

Faith had always, always been afraid of
the dark.
 
She’d used a nightlight
for so long that her sister and friends had often teased her about it.

And then his lips were on hers, and she
could smell him and taste him and Faith was overcome by her need for him.

Chase
, she thought.
 
His name was like a prayer, and somehow
he’d answered it, come here to kiss her, to love her, to show her something
new.

Chase,
I want you to make me scream.
 
I
want you to make me yours again and again and again.
 
No matter what it takes out of me.
 
I’ll do it.

 
I’ll do everything.

In that moment, Faith realized the most shocking
thing yet.
 

It turned out that she liked the dark
after all.

The End of The
Debt 9 (Club Alpha)

 
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