The Rush (32 page)

             
“Hey,” Chase murmured against my hair before he pressed a kiss to my temple.

             
“Hey,” I sighed right back, leaning into him. Instant relief settled over me and I felt myself take my first full breath of the morning.

             
That is until I lifted my eyes and accidentally met Ryder’s disapproving stare from across the table. His granite eyes were back and colder than ever. He shook his head slowly as if I didn’t feel bad enough from just the look he sent me. His eyes shifted to Chase for just a second before coming back to me. His message was clear.

             
Just last night Nix gave me a direct order to date him for two more weeks. But Ryder was right. I couldn’t keep stringing Chase along. I couldn’t treat him like this. Not when he had been so great to me. A shaky breath vibrated through me and I pulled my courage together.

             
Knowing Nix was out of the country might have helped too.

             
“Hey, can we go somewhere?” I asked in a subdued voice so only Chase could hear.

             
“Sure,” he smiled down at me until he noticed my expression. “Everything ok?”

             
“Let’s just go somewhere,” I stood up quickly and fled from the cafeteria with all of its prying eyes. I felt Chase close behind me but didn’t turn around until we had slipped out a west side door that faced the art museum. The drizzle had stopped for now, but the gray October sky promised more rain to follow. The grass between the school and marbled art museum was brown with the threat of winter and soggy and slick with mud.

             
“Ivy?” Chase asked when I kept my space from him outside and crossed my arms.

             
“Chase,” my voice faltered before I even started with the hard stuff. “You’re really great-“

             
“Oh, no,” he sighed. He ran his hands over his face roughly and then had to push his dirty blonde hair out of his eyes. “I’m not going to like this am I?”

             
“I jumped into this too soon, I think,” it felt weird being truthful with him. But this
was
the truth. I was breaking up with Chase for all the right reasons, even if I would have done the same thing for the wrong ones. “I’m just not ready for any kind of relationship. Not even a slow one.”

             
“You’re breaking up with me before we were really ever together?” Chase turned his back on me and pressed two palms against the rough stone of the building like he could push through it.

             
“I just don’t want you to think that this was you or anything you did,” I rushed to offer promises. “This is all me. I ‘m just still…. broken,” I admitted lamely. My voice filled with emotion and my lungs felt closed off and drowning with dread, but between the two of us there was nothing. I didn’t know Chase enough to really be upset about it. The only emotions I felt were selfish and shallow. I felt bad for letting him down and guilty for letting the curse pull him in only to push him right back out.

             
“What is that? A it’s not you, it’s me speech?” He looked over his shoulder at me. His cheeks red with frustration and his eyes shifted to hard blue orbs of anger, but he was a good enough man to treat me gently.

             
“No,” I swore. And then hated the lie. “Ok, maybe?”

             
That earned me a small crack in his surely demeanor and he smiled at me. “I really like you Ivy.” His words were a harsh whisper of declaration.

             
“No you don’t,” I whispered back. “You think you do. But you deserve someone who can give you everything. Who can give you a complete version of a relationship.” The truth hurt as it came out of my mouth, like it was barbed and prickly and ripped from my throat. It settled into the air like weights pressing against my chest, oppressive and suffocating.

             
“What if I would rather have you?” Chase turned around so he could face me again. He brushed away the leftover gravel on his hands against his pants. His gaze was piercing, demanding.

             
“You can’t have me, Chase.”

             
We stared at each other for a few moments while he accepted this truth. There was no real connection between us; our interest in each other had barely been two weeks long. Still, the curse was hard to walk away from. That was the whole point.

             
Sailors to their graves and all.

             
“Does anyone get to have you, Ivy?” he asked somberly. His blue eyes were the deepest I’d seen them, dark rises of ocean waves.

             
I shook my head and looked away.

             
Nope, no one got me. And I planned to save all mankind by keeping that true.

             
“When you’re, um, not broken anymore?” I lifted my eyes to meet his very serious ones. “Think of me?”

             
“When I’m not broken anymore, Chase, you will be the first person I think of.” My throat was thick and coated with emotion and not even because of Chase.

             
Because I knew there wouldn’t be a time when I wasn’t broken.

             
Only a time when I would be free.

             
Chase shot me one more of his adorable grins and seemed to accept his defeat with grace. “Ivy,” he nodded as way of goodbye.

             
“Goodbye Chase,” I forced a smile back and then watched him slip back into the building.

             
I stood outside in the damp air, the chilly wind coasting across my arms and face. I had no energy to face the halls of high school again after that. I felt emotionally drained and empty. Another breakup was just a reminder in the long list of reasons my life would never be what it should be. Born into this world, I was already a slave. And unless I worked out my own freedom, I would remain a slave until the day I died.

             
My phone chimed with a new text message. I pulled it out of my jeans pocket and didn’t recognize the number although it was local.

             
Thank you for that.

             
For what? Who is this?

             
For Chase. Ryder.

             
Freaking Ryder.

             
How did you get my number?
I wasn’t exactly surprised that he had it. But still.

             
Your file.

             
You have access to my file?
What the hell…. I kind of wanted to strangle him at this point.

             
Not why I’m texting. Band practice tonight. I will pick you up. 7.

             
But I just broke up with Chase.

             
And I still need you.

             
My heart started pounding fast and hard in my chest and even though the rational part of my brain screamed he was only talking about the band, I couldn’t help but repeat that phrase over and over and over.
I still need you. I still need you. I still need you.

             
And even though I knew this was the opportunity to run, to cut ties completely with Ryder and that entire circle of friends that deserved more than knowing me…. I could take on the wrestling team. Or band geeks. Or drop out of school today and save everyone the hassle of dealing with me. My fingers were typing out my response before anything logical and sane registered. Instead the rush of those words were all that I felt.

             
I still need you.

             
That’s what sealed the deal.

             
Fine.

Chapter Twenty-Four

              “My cell number is not in my file,” I declared irritably when I climbed into Ryder’s death trap that night.

             
I had been waiting on the stairs in front of the circular drive in front of my apartment building for fifteen minutes and I was cold and a little bit damp. Even though Nix was out of the country and my mom was off on a date, I hated the idea of Ryder stepping foot in my building again. I wanted him nowhere near where the Queen of the Damned, aka my mother, resided. Nor did I want him caught on security tape entering the building. And even though I was extremely annoyed with him for making me do this stupid band thing… Ok, I was annoyed because he made me
want
to do the band thing…. I wasn’t stupid enough to draw attention to him twice in one week.

             
Did I really think Nix checked the security tape of our building whenever he was away, which was usually most of the time?

             
No.

             
Well. Maybe.

             
I wouldn’t put it past him.

             
It was a risk I was not willing to take anyway.

             
“It’s not?” Ryder asked completely innocently. He shot me a crooked smile from the driver’s seat of his Bronco, not even calling attention to the fact I didn’t say hello. I kind of liked him more for that. He wasn’t all about being polite. He could just roll with anything.

             
“No, it’s not.”

             
“Oh,” he said thoughtfully while pulling onto Farnam. He ran a hand through his wild mess of hair, making it stand up on its ends. “Huh.”

             
“Huh,” I mimicked in an exaggerated tone.

             
“Ok, Phoenix gave it to me,” he admitted without looking at me. His profile was shaded by the evening darkness, only spotlighted every once in a while by a streetlamp or stoplight. I could make out just the barest scruff along his jaw line, not enough to hide the way his neck muscles moved when he swallowed nervously. He probably had the sexiest neck alive. Which was weird of me to think. Right? How sexy could a neck be? It had to be the Adam’s apple, or the pronounced muscles…. Or the way it connected to his broad shoulders.

             
I blinked to work myself off of that bizarre thought train.

             
“And how did Phoenix get it?” He was hiding something, I could feel it. My fingers itched to get to the bottom of this, although I had no idea why he was creating so much mystery.

             
“He got it from Chase,” he breathed on a whisper like he was hiding it. I shot him a meaningful look that demanded he finish his story but he just kept his eyes on the street ahead while he turned left at the next block and then left again so that he could head east on Harney.

             
“When?”

             
Ryder didn’t answer.

             
“
Really
, after I broke up with him?” I demanded in a tone full of accusation.

             
“Ivy, you guys were never really going out,” Ryder was so carefully controlled, so condescending that I had to sit on my hands to keep from smacking his arm.

             
Granted I wouldn’t have done much damage.

             
“Fine, we weren’t really going out. That doesn’t mean rub it in the guy’s face,” I huffed.

             
“Why is that?” Suddenly Ryder was staring at me. His gray eyes piercing through the darkness, pinning me to my seat. The car was stalled at a stoplight so he just sat there, staring at me, waiting for me to answer. “Chase has known you not even two weeks and as far as I know you guys never….”

             
“We didn’t,” I rushed to explain away the doubt in his voice. At least sex would explain somewhat of an attachment to me. There wasn’t enough air in the car, not even to breathe. I reached for the hand-roll to crank the window down but stopped myself before I could follow the impulse through.

             
“Then why the devastation? Why the despair? Couldn’t you have walked away friends? What did you say to the guy to break his heart?” The light turned green, but Ryder just kept staring at me.

             
“It’s green,” I whispered.

             
“I know,” he snapped back and pushed his foot down on the accelerator too hard. The Bronco lurched and groaned but hardly picked up any real speed. “Seriously Ivy, what did you say to Chase to crush him so badly?”

             
I took three long breaths, trying to find my equilibrium. I’d never had to answer these questions before. Usually, if I stayed in the same dating circle, whoever I moved onto next was just grateful I chose them. Yes, it was sick and destroyed friendships. But I didn’t have a choice. It was what I did.