My brain was scrambling to catch up. “Chase?” I asked.
I thought I’d have time on the drive over to compose my thoughts, formulate the right things to say, and plan how to say them.
Right now, I was reeling. Like I was standing in the aftermath of a high-speed collision, surveying the damage left behind. Smoke in the air, broken glass on the ground, and horns still blaring. Learning about the video, Chase seemingly having known about it but not telling me, Luke sending it to my friends and family—and god knows who else—was giving me mental whiplash.
Protectiveness gripped me, laced with an undercurrent of sour guilt. No matter what animosity existed between the two of them before, there was no denying that it escalated sharply after Chase and I got together. Did Luke circulate that video because I provoked him in our conversation just now? Was he punishing Chase because he was angry with me? I ground my molars as a dizzying anger ignited. It was the lowest of the low, even for Luke.
Placing a hand on the counter to steady myself, I opened my mouth, but I closed it again without speaking. Words failed me. A million things both did and didn’t make sense. Siobhan stood by the door, offering me an encouraging look as she waited for my direction. Slowly, my ability to think rebooted.
“Can you let him in?” I nodded to the bathroom behind me and hobbled in that direction, trying to keep from smearing blood on the beige carpet. “I need to put a Band-Aid on this cut.”
“Sure,” she said. “We were about to head out, anyway. To get, uh, some late dinner. Right, Dal?”
His light blue eyes flicked over to her, and he nodded. “Right.”
It was a blatant lie. They’d planned to stay in to have a movie marathon with Murder Mayhem films one through five. She’d stocked up on snacks, and they were both in veg mode. Her long espresso hair was piled into a messy bun, and instead of contacts, she was wearing her tortoiseshell glasses, which she never wore outside the house. Plus, Dallas was in gray sweats. And Dallas didn’t wear sweats in public.
I was essentially evicting them with zero notice, but I appreciated the privacy, especially when I had no idea why Chase was here. We were either about to make up…or end things for good. Every fiber of my being hoped I was right and that he’d broken things off so abruptly because of the video, but I wouldn’t know until we talked.
I was scared to get my hopes up, and I refused to assume or take anything for granted.
As I shut the bathroom door behind me, the deadbolt rattled and the front door creaked open. From the front of the apartment, there was a hushed exchange between Chase and Dallas, but all I caught was one of the guys saying “fuck.”
With trembling hands, I fumbled around in the first aid kit, tearing open a new box of Band-Aids and rummaging around for the right size. My thoughts circled back to the video, and a sick feeling swirled in the pit of my stomach. I had been terrified when I thought the rumored video might have had to do with me because of Luke. Now that it was real and about Chase, I was devastated. More than anything, I wished I could make it go away for him.
By the time I stepped out of the bathroom, Dallas and Shiv were gone. Chase was leaning against the wall beside the kitchen, frowning at his phone with his jaw tightly set. He was so preoccupied that he didn’t notice me watching him.
I drank in the sight of him from head to toe, like he was water and I was dying of thirst. Tall frame, rumpled hair, perfect profile. But beneath that, when I looked a little closer, his face was drawn, his normally golden-toned skin was wan, and his posture was stiff.
A wave of heartache and longing crashed over me, bringing with it the inexplicable urge to smile and cry all at once. All I wanted was to be in his arms with my face buried in his neck. To touch him, kiss him, breathe him in.
I drew in a slow inhale to steady myself, taking a few tentative strides in his direction. “Hi.”
Chase locked his phone and slid it into his back pocket. He looked up, and when our eyes met, my heart slammed into my ribcage. The sorrow in his expression made me ache. I froze on the spot, halfway across the room from him. A handful of steps were all that separated us, but the distance was like a chasm.
He ran a hand through his coffee-brown hair, expression pained. “I tried to call you.”
I glanced down at my phone, unlocked the screen, and scrolled through the missed call log. He did. Six times.
“Sorry, my ringer was off. I wasn’t avoiding you.”
“That video,” he said. “It’s old. From before—”
“I know.”
His throat bobbed, and his dark eyes lingered on me uncertainly. We regarded one another for a few heartbeats, my pulse escalating with each second that passed, but neither of us moved. Then, finally, adrenaline surged through my veins, kickstarting me into action. Heart pounding in my chest, I took a step, followed by another, and came to stand before him.
I didn’t have a plan. Didn’t have one when I’d asked Dallas to take me to see him, other than forcing a conversation. But right now, I didn’t want to talk.
I wanted him.
Strong jawline tense, Chase watched me, cautious hope mingled with fear on his face. With a final step, I stood before him, chin tipped so I could study him. Beneath his black shirt, his broad chest moved up and down with each breath. Neither of us reached out to bridge the remaining gap between us. Only then did I notice the dark circles under his eyes, which matched the ones beneath my own. It had only been a handful of days, but we both looked like we hadn’t slept in weeks.
Everything hurt.
We weren’t supposed to be apart.
I rested my hands on his muscular shoulders, and he blinked slowly, letting out a small shudder at the contact. His cologne wafted over me, soothing me while simultaneously feeding my heartache. He was solid and heavy beneath my fingertips, the warmth of his body radiating through his cotton T-shirt. Just touching him again was a gift.
I drew in a jagged breath. “Carter.” Hot tears welled in my eyes, nearly overflowing.
Now that he was here in front of me, I could breathe again, but it also made the contrast of missing him that much worse. I needed him. He was my home, my heart, my person.
“I’m sorry, James.” Chase pressed his forehead to mine. “So fucking sorry.”
He cupped my face and caressed my cheek with the pad of his thumb. I closed my eyes, fighting to hold back the gasping sobs that threatened to break through.
“I missed you,” he murmured. “I couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t eat. Couldn’t breathe without you.”
At that, my hold on him tightened. “I missed you too.”
As we soaked in the feel of one another, the apartment turned so quiet I could hear the heat kick on, warm air whirring through the floor vent beside us. The urge to cry ebbed and flowed, then finally faded away. I opened my eyes after several long moments, pulling back to look at him. Despite my appearance—messy hair, blotchy skin, pajamas—he looked back at me with such softness and reverence that I could almost forget.
His other hand found my waist with a grip so tender he barely grazed the fabric of my gray top. Every movement he made was tinged with uncertainty, like he didn’t know whether I wanted him to touch me.
I looped my arms around his neck, drawing him tighter against me, and tilted my head. He did the same, angling closer cautiously. His mouth met mine, soft and tentative. With a sigh, I parted my lips in response, letting his tongue slip inside. Tension melted from my body, replaced by the feeling of completeness.
The kiss said more than words could. Making up for tears, for lost time, for the fear that I would never kiss him like this again.
His grip on my waist dug in as he moved his mouth against mine, deepening the kiss. Heat flooded my body, and the dull ache within me exploded into desperate need. He drew in a deep breath, rough hands sliding beneath my shirt. Somehow, his fingers on my bare skin soothed us both, and the frantic, needy edge to our kissing eased. Lips still together, we slowed, lingering.
Finally, he pulled back, surveying me, his deep brown eyes full of regret. “I’m sorry,” he said, stroking my hair. “I love you more than anything in the world.”
“I love you, but I need you to tell me what’s going on.”
Chase nodded, but his apprehensive expression returned. “I will.”
Taking him by the hand, I tugged him into the living room. He shuffled to the couch at a glacial pace. For someone who was usually willing to spill anything and everything, the trepidation in every step he took was a marked departure from normal.
We sank onto the cushions, angling our bodies to face one another. Picking up my legs, he tugged them into his lap and pulled me closer to him.
He ran a hand along his jawline, shaking his head. “I don’t know where to start.”
Instead of continuing like I hoped he would, he looked away and fell silent. Seconds ticked by. Nothing. This was the first time I’d ever seen Chase look scared.
“I don’t want to fight.” I squeezed his hand, doing my best to keep my expression open and nonthreatening. “I just want to know why you didn’t tell me. Did you think I’d be mad at you? Judge you?”
Chase focused his attention on our intertwined hands and shrugged. “Yes and no. I mean, yes. But that wasn’t the main problem. I was trying to protect you.”
My stomach rolled over as a flood of conflicting feelings surged within me. In all of this, he was trying to protect me? Why? And why didn’t he talk to me?
“From what?”
“From me and my dumbass decision,” he muttered.
“By breaking my heart?”
His expression crumpled, and he buried his face in his palm. “No. By distancing you from this clusterfuck so you don’t get dragged down with me.”
“You’re calling the shots without me again, Carter.” The words were harsh, but my tone wasn’t.
“Look…” He trailed off. “Did you watch the video?”
“No,” I said. Queasiness swirled in my stomach at the very thought. “God, no. I don’t plan to.”
“You might feel differently once you know what’s in it.”
CHASE
James beside me, holding my hand. I didn’t deserve it, not one bit, but I was so fucking thankful she was here with me.
For now, at least.
“I doubt it.” Bailey’s brows knit together, her hazel eyes soft. “When did this happen, exactly?”
“Last April.” Not even a year ago, though it felt like a lifetime ago. Or another lifetime completely. Like someone else’s life. I wished it was.
“That was way before I met you.”
“Yeah.” I gritted my teeth, searching for the courage to spill the ugly details, but the words stuck in my throat. Would this change the way she saw me forever?
Her expression turned thoughtful. “The Sideline had a blind item a while ago about a hockey sex tape, but they said it was someone at Callingwood.” Bailey grabbed her phone and navigated to the website. She scanned the screen, her mouth twisting into a frown. “They claimed it was a girl from Callingwood. Didn’t say anything about who the other person was, I guess.”
“I knew about that, but I wasn’t sure if you did.” I rubbed her thigh with my free hand, savoring the contact I’d missed so damn much.
She kept her gaze fixed on her phone instead of meeting my eyes when she responded. “I didn’t want to bring it up because I was worried it was something Luke did without my knowledge.”
My hand froze on her leg. “Oh my god, that would be the end of his sorry life.” The very idea made me homicidal. It would have had me taking Vincent up on that hitjob immediately. Or doing it myself.
“Do you think they meant—” Bailey faltered.
Me.
“Maybe,” I said. “One of the girls goes to Callingwood.”
Her phone slipped out of her hand and landed on the cushion beside her. “One of them?” She blinked slowly, shaking her head. “Sorry. I don’t mean to sound—to judge—I’m just confused.”
“There were two girls in the video, James.” I rubbed the back of my neck.
Hearing the words from me might have been worse than watching the video herself. When Dallas said she knew, I thought she’d seen it already.
Then again, if there was a video of her, I wouldn’t have been able to stomach watching it.
“Okay.” Bailey drew in a shaky breath. “Okay…okay. Can you, um, provide a little context?” She quickly added, “I don’t want to know everything. Please don’t give me your usual blunt honesty. Can you give me a high-level idea of what happened?”
I let out a long breath. “The video doesn’t paint me in the best light. I was fucked up out of my tree, like every year on the anniversary of my dad’s death. This girl Nikki and I were fooling around and smoking a joint. And Kristen was there too.”
Her brow crinkled. “Nikki? Like Kevin Richmond’s girlfriend?”
“Yeah. I didn’t know they were together then.”
Bailey nodded, her expression neutral and her demeanor far more understanding than I deserved. She watched me silently, so I pushed through the discomfort and forced the words out.
“Then Kristen pulled out her phone and started recording without my permission. I got mad and told her to stop. She said she was just messing around and told me she would erase it. Then she pretended to, but I was too out of it to realize she didn’t.” What a fucking idiot. How could I not have known?
“So you were violated.” Bailey’s voice was skate-edge sharp.
“I mean…I guess.”
“You were, Chase. Are you hesitant to admit that because you’re a guy or because there were three people involved? Do you think you deserved it?” Her gold-flecked eyes searched mine. “You still had the right to privacy.”
“That’s what I thought. I guess Kristen had other ideas.”
“That crazy bitch,” she said under her breath. “When did you find out?”
“After our last game. Then I met with Dallas’s dad to talk through legal issues. My plan was to bury it and find the courage to tell you once it was taken care of.” I swallowed, dread surging.
“But…” she prompted me.
I swallowed hard. This was going to be like dropping a bomb on her head all over again.
According to the texts Vincent sent while I waited for Bailey, it didn’t look like Luke had dragged her into things the way he’d threatened to. So far, he’d sent the clip to people she knew simply to make me look bad—and, presumably, to put the final nail in the coffin of our relationship. But that didn’t make telling her about how her world nearly got destroyed because of me any easier.
“Luke got a hold of a copy. Told me if I didn’t end things with you, he’d send it to your advisors and the scholarship committee and tell them you were the other girl on the tape. Kristen is offscreen in the clip he has. She’s just a voice on camera.”
Bailey’s body turned bolt stiff. “Luke did what?” Her eyes widened and her hands balled into fists. “Oh my god, I’m going to kill him and Kristen.”
I’d never heard Bailey threaten bodily harm to someone else. That probably meant she’d spent too much time with me.
“I finally tracked down the second half of the clip today,” I said. “In it, I call Kristen by her name, so everyone would know it wasn’t you. There’s a time and date stamp in the metadata too, along with the geolocation. That should take the teeth out of his threats regarding you.”
She shifted her weight, scooting closer to me, and stroked my face.
“But why didn’t you tell me? We could have faked a breakup. We could have figured it out.” Her eyes were so wide and full of sadness, expressions so earnest, that another fresh shot of regret hit me. Maybe she was right. But I wasn’t thinking clearly, and my only priority was shielding her. The stakes were astronomically high, and I didn’t want to gamble with her future.
“I panicked, James. I was afraid Luke would know. I didn’t want him to derail everything you’d worked so hard for. Turns out, he had a PI tailing me, so he probably would have found out if we faked it. Plus…” I trailed off and cleared my throat, forcing out the words. “Honestly, I wasn’t sure you’d want to be with me once you found out. I thought you would be better off without me and this mess I created.” The last part was the hardest to admit, but I wanted to give her the honesty she’d asked for.
“Chase,” she said. “You have to know that isn’t true. There is no scenario where I am better off without you. Ever.”
“Are you sure? Whether or not I agreed to being recorded, there’s a video circulating of me getting high while having a threesome. That would be a deal breaker for a lot of people. I would understand if that’s how you feel.”
It would kill me inside. But I wouldn’t blame her. One bit.
“Kristen took advantage of you,” Bailey said firmly. “You didn’t consent to that. Imagine how you’d react to this situation if I were in your shoes.”
I huffed. “I wouldn’t be here. I’d be sitting in jail. Literally.” I’d have been cuffed and placed in a holding cell within hours of finding out, and the guy would be six feet under.
With her fingers on my jaw, she turned my face to hers and fixed me with a loving gaze, her eyes serious.
“I don’t understand how you can see that side of it and not extend the same sympathy to yourself. I love you,” she said. “This doesn’t change that. You’re the same person you were yesterday. Or five minutes ago, for that matter.”
The more understanding she was, the worse I felt. “I hope you know I was only trying to protect you.”
Bailey nodded slowly. “I see that now, even if I don’t agree with your tactics.”
“I couldn’t live with myself if you lost out on that scholarship because you were connected to me.”
“I don’t want that scholarship if it means I can’t have you. I’ll take out student loans. I don’t care. That’s fixable. Losing you isn’t.” Her voice wavered, breaking something inside me with it.
“What about the internship? You said it was the kind of thing that could make or break the start of your career.”
“There would be others.”
“It would still be my fault if you lost this one.”
Her brows knit. “First of all, it wouldn’t be your fault. And if anyone blames you after what Kristen did, I don’t want to be associated with them.” Bailey’s bottom lip trembled, and she skimmed her fingertips along my cheek. My heart swelled at the love brimming in her eyes. “Those other things are replaceable, Chase. There’s only one you. I need you.”
“What if this blows up?” I asked. “There’s a good chance it’ll get even more ugly now. Lawsuits, criminal charges, bad publicity. You know Luke is going to come out swinging. If I get dragged through the mud, I don’t want to bring you down with me.”
Who knew what other skeletons Luke might unearth. Nothing else would be as damaging as this, but I was sure the laundry list of girls I’d slept with was a bad enough look in and of itself. I wouldn’t put it past him to hire people to straight up lie, either.
“Loyal to a fault, remember?” She kissed my cheek. “You’re not the only one who’s stubborn. If it comes down to it, I’ll jump into that mud myself.”
