738 Days: A Novel (27 page)

I rise up on my tiptoes, looking for him. But all the faces around me keep blurring together, making it impossible to tell who’s who. Choking back terror, I turn …

“Amanda?” Chase asks again. “You awake?”

I open my mouth to call his name, but before I can speak, there’s the lurch and spin of a new reality settling into place.

Suddenly I’m awake in the dark, lying down, staring up at the ceiling. My body aches with the heaviness of sleep, both the recent exit from it and the lack of enough.

“Amanda?”

It’s a familiar scenario. Chase waking me up after one of Jakes’s visits, wanting to talk, trying to convince me to fight, to keep hoping.

But no, something is different. The pillow behind me smells strongly of a pleasant detergent, and … Jakes is dead. I’m not in the basement. Not anymore. Never again.

Struggling to orient myself, I blink a few times and my hand automatically moves to my wrist, confirming the presence of the scar, before I recognize that I’m in a hotel. In a big double bed, lying on crisp white sheets.

You’re okay.
The confirmation rushes relief over me in a wave.

The Chase Henry talking to me is real, the one staying next door, not residing in my head. The same one who made a stunning and still unbelievable promise to me last night, a promise that kept me awake for hours from equal parts anticipation and anxiety.

He’s in the doorway to his room, backlit into shadow.

“Chase?” I ask, my voice croaky.

“I’m sorry; I knocked. A few times,” he says, hovering behind the door.

I sit up and fumble to turn on the bedside lamp. Only the faintest hint of gray light emerges from beneath the curtains. “What’s wrong? What time is it? I…” I squint at him. “What are you wearing?”

He grins at me from beneath a baseball hat and aviators. “Standard celebrity disguise.”

I grab the glass I filled with water before bed and take a swallow. My throat is dry from the nightmare or dream, whatever it was.

“I don’t think you’re disguising much,” I point out. If anything, he’s calling attention to the fact that he’s trying to hide, and besides which, that jawline is kind of unmistakable. Strong, a little stubbly at the moment, and kind of delicious, like maybe you want to bite it a little. Not hard, just a nibble …

Or maybe that’s just me.

Chase shrugs, taking off his sunglasses and hooking them in the collar of his gray T-shirt. “Doesn’t matter. It’s mostly a precaution. We’re going out the kitchen exit anyway.” He’s filled with an excited energy I’ve never seen from him before. Though I would never have described him as slow, exactly—weighed down, maybe—there’s a spark to him this morning, a new urgency that I don’t …

Crap.
“Did I oversleep?” I shove my hair out of my face and throw back the covers, scrambling out of bed and barely noticing his appreciative look in my haste.

“Go to the set without me,” I say, searching for my jeans. They have to be around here somewhere. “You can’t be late.” I finally locate my jeans on the back of the rolling leather chair and grab them.

“No, no.” Chase holds his hands up in a placating gesture. “It’s still early. Do you have anything to cover your hair?”

“My fleece has a hood,” I say, confused. “What is this about?” I’m never my best in the mornings, but that is especially true after two successive nights with little sleep.

“It’s a surprise,” he says, rocking back on his heels with a very self-satisfied grin.

I stop, with one leg in my jeans. “You do realize why that might not be reassuring to someone like me.”

He frowns. “It’s a good surprise,” he offers.

“Uh-huh,” I say, unconvinced. “Good” is a matter of opinion.

“Do you like bagels?” he asks.

“What?” I blink at him, not sure if this conversation is really this all over the place or if it’s just me. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Good. Come on.” He waves me forward. “I have food.”

I fold my arms over my chest. “No,” I say flatly. I’m a ridiculous figure, I’m sure, with bedhead, sleep lines on my face, and, knowing my luck, that white crusty stuff from toothpaste dried on my lips. So attractive, he’ll be revoking any and all promises made in my direction. “Not until you tell me what’s going on.”

Chase pauses. “You trust me with your body but not in general.” It’s not a critical statement, but a statement nonetheless. Like he’s still trying to figure me out.

My face burns like it’s on fire, and I’m not sure whether it’s the idea of trusting him with my body, which sends another surge of heat through me, or being caught in the loophole I was kind of hoping he wouldn’t notice.

“It’s outside, no one knows we’re going, we’ll have it entirely to ourselves,” he adds, his eyes softening.

From anyone else that might have sounded like a threat of the no-one-can-hear-you-scream variety, but it’s the reassurance I need. Fewer people means fewer variables to try to predict, fewer surprises of the negative variety. Plus, I want to trust him, which makes it easier.

“Okay,” I say slowly. “Do I have time to actually get dressed? As in, not wearing my pajamas under my clothes?”

He nods. “Yeah, we have a few minutes before the cab gets here. Can’t take the car or the photographers will follow us.”

“But why?” I can’t be more coherent than that.

Fortunately, he seems to understand what I’m asking. “I’m working this whole week. If we want any time together, we have to be creative with timing.”

“You know you don’t have to…” I pause, flustered. He said he liked me last night, but this is different. I don’t want him pretending to feel more than he does.

“I mean, the courting”—I roll my eyes at myself and the old-fashioned word that popped out of my mouth—“that part is not what I was asking for last night.” I squirm inwardly at the mention of the previous evening. My bravery at the time now feels like brazen stupidity.

Chase cocks his head to the side, his eyebrows rising. “So maybe you should ask for more.”

“I don’t—”

“Amanda, it’ll be fun. And I want to have fun with you, if that’s okay,” he says patiently.

I open my mouth.

He holds up his hands in surrender. “If you need a reason to justify it, then think about it this way: spending time together helps us get more comfortable with each other.” He gives me a heated look that suggests he would like to be very, very comfortable with me. I can almost feel his hands on my skin again, and it sends an instant bolt of lust through me.

With that, he leaves my room, closing the door after him.

I kick my one leg out of my jeans and stand there for a second, just trying to collect myself.

Then, scrubbing my hands over my face, I head to the bathroom.

Five minutes later, after I’m dressed and my teeth are brushed, I stick my head in his room and find he’s busy packing up food from a room service tray on his dining table.

When he sees me, he holds out a plastic-wrapped bagel, a tiny cup of cream cheese, and a plastic knife. “To go,” he says.

I step deeper into the room and take them, stuffing the sealed cream cheese and knife in the pocket of my fleece and holding on to the bagel, for lack of anywhere else to put it. It’s too big for my other pocket.

“You know this is alarming,” I say in a grumpy voice, picking at the edge of the plastic wrap. I think the bagel is a blueberry one. He was paying attention at dinner last night.

When he doesn’t respond, I look up to see him stopped in the process of stuffing napkins in his coat pocket, wearing a stricken expression.

“I mean,” I say quickly, “you’re entirely too peppy for oh-God-thirty in the morning.”

He relaxes. “Morning person,” he says with an unapologetic smile. “Rancher DNA, I guess.”

I grunt in response.

He wraps my free hand around a paper to-go cup of coffee. “Do you need cream or sugar? Or ketchup?” He waggles the packet at me. “I wanted to be prepared.”

I glare at him. “I wish I knew
what
you’re prepared for.”

“You,” he says simply, and warmth spreads through my chest. “But beyond that, you’ll have to see.”

He grabs his cup of coffee and then scoops up his key card and phone, putting them both in the pocket of his jeans.

“Ready?” he asks, putting his sunglasses on and gesturing for me to lead the way to the hall door.

“I don’t know, am I?” I ask pointedly. I’m not scared, exactly, but I can feel that nervous ball of tension in my stomach, the one that always forms when I’m not sure what’s going to happen.

He pauses. “Is this really okay, Amanda?”

I swallow the impulse to answer automatically and make myself really think about it. Right now, it’s just the sensation of mild anxiety. The potential for panic is there—it’s always there—but it’s actually manageable right now. “Yeah,” I say, a little surprised.

Chase grins at me. “Good.” Then he reaches around me and pulls open the door with his free hand, which is good because I don’t have one to spare. “Are you always this grumpy in the morning?” he teases.

I stick my tongue out at him. “Only when someone wakes me from a dead sleep to be annoyingly vague,” I say.

“Noted.”

Out in the hall, it’s a little brighter, the window at the far end letting in the dull gray pre-dawn light.

But there’s a strange smoky smell, covering the scent of new carpet and cleaning supplies that I’ve come to expect over the last day and a half.

I wrinkle my nose. It’s not cigarettes, which is good, because that smell sends me over the edge sometimes, but it’s definitely something charred. And it’s close. I turn, looking for the source.

As Chase exits behind me, pulling the door closed, I find what I’m looking for.

A blackened square of something rests on the carpeting in front of his door, between Chase and me. I must have narrowly avoided stepping on it when I walked out.

I point at it. “What is that? Did room service really screw up your toast?”

He frowns, nudging it with the edge of his boot to flip it over, then kneeling down for a closer look. “No,” he says flatly. “It’s a picture. What’s left of one, anyway.”

When I bend down to see for myself, I pick out my own features first, then his, though there’s not much left of either. It has to be from yesterday.

That is seriously creepy. I shiver. “Someone wanted you to see this?”

He sighs and stands. “Yeah. Elise is big on symbols. I burned her, she…” He lifts his shoulders. “You get the idea.”

“Elise. The publicist you fired?” I ask.

“Yeah.” He steps over the burned picture and leads the way down the hall toward the service elevators.

I follow, taking an extra step to stay at his side. “She’s still hanging around?” I ask. “That’s kind of stalker-y, isn’t it?”

“You’d think,” he says grimly.

I wait for him to expand on that, but he’s silent as we take the elevator down. It’s hard to read his expression behind his sunglasses, but his enthusiastic spark seems to have dimmed slightly.

Oookay, definitely something strange there, but considering the end of their relationship likely consisted of a personal element as well, maybe it’s not that weird.

I mean, probably not any weirder than burning pictures of them together or driving by his house at night or any of the other slightly crazy ex behaviors you hear about on
Jerry Springer,
right? As usual, my experience is limited to what I’ve witnessed thirdhand.

And if Chase isn’t worried, or at least not talking about calling the police, then it must not be that big of a deal.

Besides which, it’s not really my business. He’s
not
my boyfriend.

The reminder of that grates unexpectedly, surprising me. I don’t want that from him. I just explained that to him, and I meant it, too.

But …

It’s too early to be thinking about this stuff. I push thoughts of Chase, his ex, and her weirdo behavior out of mind and concentrate on keeping my worry about where we’re going and why in check.

True to Chase’s word, a cab is waiting for us at the back entrance of the hotel.

The ball of tension in my stomach grows bigger, reaching out tentacles into my arms and legs and dragging them into slow motion as we exit the hotel into the parking lot, where the taxi waits.

“Come on,” Chase says. He opens the back door of the cab, but seeing my hesitation, slides in first.

I follow him, and the driver bobs his head at me in greeting as I close the door. He looks normal. No hint of sociopathy in his wrinkled face. Not that that is so easy to see, as I know too well.

Chase’s leg brushes against mine as we turn out of the parking lot onto the street, and I find I’m distracted, at least temporarily, by the feel of him against me, and as ridiculous as it sounds, the way his legs look in his faded jeans.

He’s toned beneath the velvety-looking fabric. No skinny chicken legs for him. Does he lift weights? Go running? Definitely something because I saw workout clothes yesterday.

The noticeable cut of his thigh muscle beneath the denim sends a greedy surge of desire through me. I kind of want to run my hand over it.

Chase takes my coffee and tips his head toward the wrapped bagel I’m still clutching tightly in my now sweaty hand.

“You should eat,” he says. “We won’t have time once we’re there.”

“Wherever there is,” I say, in one last attempt to elicit details.

But he just nods.

Gah.

I do my best in the moving vehicle, juggling the open bagel, the cream cheese, and the plastic knife.

But the blueberry bagel sticks in my throat, despite my clumsy slathering of topping, and I’m struggling to swallow.

Chase takes the plastic knife from me and gives me back my coffee.

But as I take a sip, I watch him, momentarily stumped by the messy utensil and the lack of a place to discard it. A small flaw in his otherwise perfectly thought-out plan.

He looks around for a second, as if searching for a handy receptacle that he somehow previously missed. Then he shrugs and sticks the knife in his mouth to clean the cream cheese from both sides before sticking the knife in his pocket.