Nothing happened last night other than we ended up dancing. And kissing. It was more than our typical friend kissing. But I could tell Chase was holding back.
And I get why.
Because Mimi was right. I don’t know what I want.
But the last few days have been eye-opening.
In fact, this morning at breakfast, I offered to take care of Weston today so that Jennifer and my dad could just relax.
I’m sitting in a chaise on the screened porch with her on my lap, attempting to teach her how to do patty-cake. I know that she won’t be able to clap on her own for months still, but she’s enjoying me moving her all around with the song’s motions, giggling about it.
Basically, she thinks I’m hilarious right now. Which is awesome. Happy baby means no scream-crying.
“There’s my baby girl,” Damon says, giving Weston’s chubby cheek a little pinch when he comes out onto the porch, followed by Haley and Chase.
“Don’t piss her off,” I warn.
He takes her out of my hands and dangles her out in front of him. Her T-shirt rides up over her belly, and he blows on it, making a funny noise and tickling her. It causes her to screech, but it’s a happy sound. She loves it.
“We’re heading up to the resort. Wanna come with us?” Haley asks.
“What are you planning to do?” I ask.
“Well, there’s this boy I met last night—he’s so cute. Anyway, he wants to play mini golf and then go to the beach.”
“And I invited myself and my new favorite hottie to join them. To chaperone, of course,” Damon says with a laugh. “You know though, I’ve heard there’s no better way to attract women than by carrying around a baby. What do you think, Westie? Do you wanna come to the resort with Day-Day?”
I roll my eyes.
“It would be hard to golf with a baby,” Chase says seriously.
“I’ll just strap her onto my chest with that backpack thing Jennifer has.”
“Sorry,” I say to my brother. “You’re too late. Weston—not Westie—is spending the day with me. I gave Dad and Jennifer the day off.”
“Really?” Chase says, tilting his head at me in surprise.
“Yes,” I reiterate.
“That’s really nice of you,” he says.
“Whatever,” Damon says, handing the baby back to me. “Hay Girl, we should head out. Chase, you coming or not?”
“Nah. Don’t want to be a third wheel,” he says.
“Ha. All we’d have to do is parade you by the pool, and we’d have a taker in minutes,” Damon says. “But do what you want. We’ll see you tonight. I don’t know about you, but I’m stoked about the fish fry!”
They take off and leave Chase and me on the porch.
“Have you seen my parents this morning?” he asks me.
“Yeah, I had breakfast with them. Your mom had some work to do up at the resort, so your dad has Emersyn. I think they are up with the boys in the playroom.”
“Hmm. Maybe I’ll follow your example, offer to watch Emersyn today. Give them a little time off.”
I watch as he goes inside and heads up the stairs.
A few minutes later, Ryder, Madden, and his dad come down the stairs.
“Woohoo!” Madden yells. “I’m gonna crush the wakeboard today!”
“Only until Mom gets back,” Phillip says.
“We know,” Ryder says. “Then, you and Mom get some alone time.”
“That’s right,” Phillip says. “And you two can help the grandpas with the fish.”
“Will we get to see fish guts?” Madden asks.
“Nah, Crusher,” his dad says to him. “I think that would make Ryder puke.”
Madden laughs as they run out the door and down to the dock.
Phillip stops and says to me, “Chase told me to tell you that Emersyn is happy where she is if you want to take Weston up to play with her. There’s a whole closet full of baby toys.”
“Okay, thanks. Have fun on the boat.”
“No, thank you. Chase said watching the babies was your idea.”
“It was.”
“You seem like you’re finally having fun. You know, being here. I’m glad.”
I smile at him. “I’m glad, too.”
Chase and I manage to keep the babies fed, dry, and happy for the morning and well into the afternoon. I wanted to keep Weston up, but she is miserably tired, and I don’t want to completely mess up her schedule.
Once she’s settled in her crib, I meet Chase outside in the driveway. He’s got Emersyn stripped down to just her diaper and sitting on a towel while he shows her how to dip her hands in a bowl of paint and then put it on the paper in front of her. She’s happy, babbling, and going to make a mess.
“If you want to finger-paint,” Chase says, sidling up to me, “I’m going to have to strip you down to your underwear, too. You know, so you don’t get your clothes all messy.”
I flip his bangs off his forehead and say, “Aren’t you the little tease? Kind of funny since, last night, when I was kissing you, you didn’t seem to want any part of me naked.”
The grin falls off his face, his expression turning serious. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying, when a girl invites you to basically go parking. Alone. At night …” I watch as Chase’s chest rises and falls. His eyes are searching mine, but the rest of him is motionless. “I want to kiss you as more than a friend, Chase,” I say, clarifying. “I wanted that last night.”
“I want that, too, but you know how I feel about you, Dani. I’ve been really careful not to cross that line. And it’s driving me crazy. You’re so hot and cold with me. My best friend one minute and my worst nightmare the next.” He glances over at Emersyn, who is actually showing some real artistic talent and has already filled her page with swirls of colors.
Chase walks away from me, moves her masterpiece away, and places three more sheets of paper around her. Then, he picks up a container of sidewalk chalk and says to me, “Lie down.”
And although he’s holding a bucket of colorful kids chalk, his face looks anything but childish. His jawline is tight, the muscles in his neck tense, and his body is tall and rigid as he comes toward me.
I do as he asked. Lie on my back in the driveway.
And I will admit, my mind goes places. Sexy places, where he strips my clothes off and we paint each other’s bodies before coming together as one, right here in the front lawn. Of course, no children would be present.
Chase’s shadow washes over me from above, and I can feel my heart beating harder as he bends over, chalk in hand, and starts tracing the outline of the right side of my head. The chalk moves slowly because his hand is grazing across my body with every motion—down the side of my neck, across my collarbone, and out to my shoulder. One long, sweeping line down the side of my arm. Slowly and meticulously, up and down, between each one of my fingers, and then sweeping back up the other side of my arm, causing goose bumps to rise and a shiver to run through me even though I’m lying on hot concrete on a scorching summer day. If I were an egg, I’d be fried by now. And I’m feeling slightly fried already, my nerves firing, his touch alone raising heat from within me.
When he gets to my armpit and starts down my body, his palm fully moves across the top of my boob, up and over it and then down my side. I react by sucking in and holding my breath as his hand glides over my waist and outlines the form of my hip. I let out the breath I was holding and feel myself relax a bit when he works his way down the side of my leg.
And while it still feels sensual, it isn’t all that big of a deal until—
Until I realize that he’s rounding my foot and moving up to my knee, and now, his hand has slowed way down again and is brushing gently across my inner thigh.
I let out a whoosh of air and am prepping my mind for how I’m going to handle when he gets to where my legs meet—
“Chase!” I think I hear.
Chase stops what he’s doing, his hand currently resting heavily on the side of my inner thigh. I tilt my head up slightly and see his parents coming out the front door.
Kill me now.
“Oh, how cute,” his mom says, coming to stand over me. “You’re doing sidewalk-chalk outlines, just like when you were kids.”
I want to tell her that this—whatever this was that just happened—feels nothing like it did when we were kids.
I don’t know what all Chase has been doing without me, but it’s not just swagger that he has. He’s downright alluring. And he seems to have me eating out of the palm of his hand. No wonder so many girls like him. Especially if he’s been pulling out the sidewalk-chalk trickery with them.
Chase pops up off the ground, leaving me feeling stranded and alone.
“Oh, you don’t have to stop,” his mom says. “Go ahead and finish. I just wanted to see how Emers was doing.”
“She’s doing great,” Chase replies. He leans over me and quickly finishes tracing my body, going way too fast across the good parts and leaving the left half of me feeling like it got completely gypped.
Chase moves over to where Emersyn is still happily playing in the paint. “I’m pretty sure she got her artistic talent from me,” Chase quips.
He jokes that he doesn’t have a creative bone in his body. All I know is that, right now, I’d like to find out exactly how creative he can get with one specific bone, if ya catch my drift.
A shadow falls across my face, and Phillip holds out his hand to me.
For a second, I don’t know what to do.
But then I toss my hand out toward him and let him pull me up off the ground. I need to not just lie here, looking like a lovesick idiot.
“Your face is flush,” Phillip says to me. “Be sure you don’t get overheated out here.”
“Tell that to your son,” I blurt out and then realize what I just said. “I, uh, mean, it was his idea to paint outside. Probably a good one now that I see the mess the grass is and am glad it’s not the living room rug.”
“Chase always uses his head,” his dad comments, cuffing him proudly on the shoulder.
His dad is talking about Chase being smart, but all I can think about is a different head.
I guess it’s time for me to get off this one-track brain ride.
Because Chase is right. If we cross the line between friends and lovers, we won’t ever be able to go back to just being friends.
But then I look at Jadyn and realize that’s not true. She and my dad crossed all sorts of lines. I know they didn’t actually have sex, but I’m pretty sure they did everything but. And if they could do it and stay friends forever, so could Chase and me.
At least, that’s what I’m telling myself because I don’t just want to cross a few lines. I want to obliterate them all.
“Has she had a nap yet?” Jadyn asks Phillip.
“No, she hasn’t seemed like she’s ready for one so far,” he says just as Emersyn tries rubbing her little eyes with her paint-covered hand.
Jadyn moves like lightning, grabbing it before she gets paint in her eyes. She stands her up and says to Chase, “I’ll go clean her off and put her down for a nap. Can you and Dani bring her artwork in when you’re done playing?”
“Sure, Mom,” Chase says.
After his parents go back inside, I turn to Chase, chalk in hand, and say, “Get on the ground. It’s my turn.”
He positions himself on the ground, close to my outline, just like we used to do as kids so that our chalk selves could hold hands. And I find it sweet.
“Remember how Damon would always want to be drawn, jumping across both of us, like he had tackled us?” Chase says with a laugh.
“Of course I do. Now, he’d draw some other girl and say it was a threesome.”
“He does have a hilariously dirty mind. And he’s rubbing off on my sister.”
“Does that bother you? Do you worry sometimes that they might be too close? I mean, my brother’s a horndog and a bit of a player.”
“He’s really not a player, Dani,” Chase says seriously as I start tracing him from the bottom of his foot. “Sure, he enjoys the company of different girls, but he treats them all with respect. I’m really not sure how he does it.”
“Just like his old man,” my dad says loudly and then chuckles.
I about jump out of my skin.
But then I compose myself and turn around to find him and Jennifer holding hands and practically skipping into the driveway.
“Jadyn told me that was one thing your ex-wife always hated,” Jennifer says. “That all the girls loved you, even after you dumped them.”
“Hey, I have a way with the ladies,” my dad says, pulling Jennifer a little closer, his intent quite clear.
I notice she doesn’t smack him away. She loves it.
“How’s Westie?” Jennifer asks. “She down for a nap?”
I look at my watch. “Yes, she’s been asleep for about twenty-five minutes now.” I point over to the baby monitor sitting at the edge of the driveway. “Not a peep.”
“Perfect,” my dad says, grinning widely. “Lunch wore me out. And you’re pregnant. I think we could use a nap ourselves.”
“I think we could,” Jennifer replies, smiling back at him.
“I told you I would watch her all day,” I add.
I get the feeling that sleeping is the last thing on their minds. When I told Mimi that Jennifer oozes love, I was being honest, but what I didn’t say was that their physical attraction to each other is pretty obvious as well.
“We were out here, letting Emersyn finger-paint,” Chase adds. “Mom and Dad just got back and went to put her down for a nap.”
Jennifer looks over at the paintings still on the ground. “She’s very talented,” she says as my dad gives her side a little tickle, causing her to giggle and lead him in the house.
“They’re way too obvious about it,” I tell Chase.
He sat up when my dad called out, but he lies back down, so I can continue tracing him. I was going to make it all sexy, like what he did to me, but after two interruptions, I feel like the moment has passed. So, I just drag my chalk around him.
“They’re still newlyweds,” Chase counters. “They’re supposed to be crazy about each other. My dad says when you’re in love—like, really in love—you want to do it all the time.” He rolls his eyes. “Then, of course, he realized how that sounded and added, ‘You know, after you’re married.’ ”
“Of course,” I say because this is feeling a little surreal. Drawing around Chase’s body like I did when I was a kid. Only instead of discussing what flavor popsicle we want for a snack, we’re talking about doing it all the time.
And just when I’m about to say something regarding that, possibly about his thoughts around us maybe doing something like that in the future—the near future even—I hear Damon whistle.
“Not a moment’s peace.” Chase chuckles, but before my brother and his sister get close enough to hear, he holds my gaze and says, “I really enjoyed doing your chalk outline. In fact, I liked it even more than I had when we were kids. How about you?”
“I liked it.”
“Liked what?” Haley asks me.
“Oh, the whole day with the babies, of course,” I reply.
She nods. “Cool.”
“Ready to eat some fish?” Damon says as Chase starts to get up.
I push him back down. “You guys go on inside,” I tell Damon and Haley. “I need to finish this stupid outline. You know it’s bad luck not to.”
Once they’re gone, Chase says, “Since when?”
“Since now. I can’t have me out here, holding your hand, with only half of your body next to me!”
He slides his hand into the back of my hair and kisses me.
Then, he says seriously, “Anytime you want all of me, you just let me know.”
