Up for the Chase (8 page)

l am brought back to the present as I hear
SpongeBob singing his theme song and I reach over and turn the channel, I hate it when she watching that crap, I truly believe that it makes people stupid, but she never minds as I turn on another network and she smiles to me.

That night in Vegas I knew that I loved Chase, hell I still love him, and he has been the only man that I have ever loved, watching him walk away from me tonight, it broke my heart more than waking up to find him gone.

But he is right; I am a coward.

Chapter Fourteen

Chase

I have a child. Fuck. I think as I walk into a restaurant, up to the bar, and sit at the counter. A perky brunette walks up to me and asks if she can get me anything, I order another shot of tequila.

“Bad day?” she asks. And I nod my head, “You have no idea.”

“Well, what happened?” I look up to her thinking at first that she is trying to hit on me as Sandra did the other night, but I see that she is actually concerned, she reminds me a lot of Ariana, FUCK I don’t want to think about her.

“I just found out I have a kid.” I smirk as I look up to her, “
A five year old.” And her face hardens.

“Chase?” she asks me and I am taken a back for a moment when she calls me by
my name.

“How did you know my name?”
I question her, but I’m pretty sure that I already know.

“I’m Hannah,” she says and then we both in unison say, “Ariana’s, best friend.” she smiles, “Ah I see that she talked about me when
she was MIA with you touring the country,”

“Yeah, well
we talked about a lot of things.” I tell her waiting for my shot. She smiles as she holds up a finger and asking me to hold on as she approaches the other bartender and he nods as he looks over to me. She walks back over and I look at her questioning.

“I’m going to take a break, we need to talk.” She says and ushers me to one of the table at the side of the building.

“Talk about what?” I ask her, she doesn’t know anything about me what is she going to talk to me about.

“I look, I know that I don’t know you, but I know R, and I know Avery. I love Avery more than you could know, she is really a terrific kid, smart as hell, and she reminds me of R sometimes, but most of the time I don’t know where this tiny little person came from. 'That’s when R tells me that she reminds her every day of you of the times that the two of you spent together. She really did plan to tell you. Hell, she looked for you for a year. She called Will and he had no idea how to find you. She finally had to change her number because her dad, as much as I love Mr. McCree, well he started harassing her. When he would drink, after he kicked her out of the house when he found out that she was pregnant, she thought that it would be the last time that she ever spoke to him, but it wasn’t he would call her and tell her how much of a disgrace she was to him.” l really have no idea what to say. “I remember asking her
when she changed it, what would happen if you tried to find her, and she took this heart breaking sigh, and told me that you clearly didn’t want to be found. When you left in California, it broke her heart. When she found out she was pregnant, it terrified her and The Major kicked her out gave her some cash for an abortion and told her that she could come back when she was no longer pregnant, but she couldn’t do that. She came and stayed with me for a few weeks, and we started looking for you. She wanted to talk to you about the decision together, but when that failed she decided to make the decision by herself. I came home from classes one night and she wasn’t there I was terrified. I called her a dozen times and she finally called me back telling me that she was out at the beach. I went down there to see her, she was broken, she had been crying all day. I tended, hell I still do, to forget how truly fragile she is because she always seems to tough. She told me that she wanted to go home, that she wanted to pretend this never happened, that you never happened. She wanted to pretend that she wasn’t completely broken, but she couldn’t. She needed the security of having a place to live; she wanted to be normal, to go to college. She called the next day and scheduled the procedure.” I’m not sure where she is going with this statement. “I went with her that day; she had an ultrasound they showed her Avery. And she cried, she cancelled the appointment and she moved here.”

“Why are you telling me this, Hannah?”
I ask her, I want to be pissed not feel bad for her.

“Because you need to know, you need to know the difficulty that she has been going through.”

“Because, all of this, it’s my fault, right?” I ask harsher than I want to.

“Chase, you ran away, you took off and left her all alone. Fuck, you came back to find her. Too bad she’s not exactly what you were expecting. It happens, but guess what that extra, no matter how much you don’t want to admit it
; she’s apart of you, and she will always be. How do you think I knew it was you?”

“I just figured that Ariana
told you that I was in town,” I shrug.

“She did, but Avery looks identical to you, minus R’s eyes.” I knew that she was right and I’m not sure how at first glance I didn’t realize that she was mine. “Take it for you what you want, but Ariana, she still loves you, I can see the heartbreak every time she looks at Avery. Don’t hate her just because she couldn’t find you.” she frowns when she looks up to me and walks away. I get up walking out of the restaurant and just wander around the city. I think to myself the entire time, and I can’t help but see her walking next to me like she did in Vegas so many nights in a row, walking all around the city, she seemed amazed by all the lights. I can see why now walking through Savannah.

I find myself at her front door again as I walk up the steps and knock. The door swings up and I am face to face with my mini-me. Two things happen at that moment; it almost knocks my breath away, and I at that second want to run away without looking back but I don’t, I stay with my feet planted.

“Avery, I told you not to open the door to just anyone.” Ariana says walking over to the open door and stopping in her tracks as she sees me.

“Mommy it’s your old friend,” mini-me says to her. I’m not sure why, but her explaining me like that kind of hurts me.

“I see that, baby.” Ariana says and then Avery turns back to me and frowns.

“I don’t think I like you very much.” I stand confused by her.

“Why is that?”
I wonder.

“You made my Mommy cry.” And now officially my five year old daughter has broken my heart for the first time.

“Avery, go upstairs and play.” Ariana demands.

“Mooooom.”
She whines.

“Avery, now.”
She stands firm, and I smile at her and turn to watch Avery run up the stairs I can only guess to her room. “What are you doing here Chase? Didn’t you say enough earlier?”

“I’m sorry
, Ariana.” I say still standing on the outside of the house. “I reacted poorly." She sighs loudly.

“Honestly, no you didn’t had I been in your shoes I probably would have flipped out as well.” She walks over to the door. “Come in, we should probably talk.” I have to resist the urge to kiss her. “So, what made you come back?”

“Well, honestly I probably would have come back tomorrow once I realized what an ass I was,” I notice her look to the stairs, “But I stopped some place to have a drink, and well I met Hannah,” she laughs at me and smiles, “I understand why you two have been friends for so long.” She laughs. “But she told me about everything since you have been back.”

“She shouldn’t have done that.” She hardens.

“Stop it,” I tell her, “I told you before you don’t always have to be so tough.” She shrugs as we walk into the living room and sit down. “This place is amazing.” I tell her and she laughs.

“Yeah,
with a help to my mother’s money. It’s the only thing I have bought with it, I wanted to make sure that Avery and I would have a place to live.”

“Well, that’s very adult of you,” I laugh to myself.

“Well, I have to be now.” She shrugs, causing me some guilt.

“Sorry,”

“No, that wasn’t meant to come across like that. It was ultimately my decision to have her. They just showed her to me and I couldn’t do that to her.” she looks back over to the stairs and smiles.

“Honestly, I’m glad you didn’t. I know that I don’t really know her, yet, but I want to. So, I’m just curious but did they give you like an estimated date?” she laughs out and I said it because I knew she would laugh at it.

“The first week of July.” She tells me and I now can’t help but laugh.

“Ah, Vegas,” I say to her remembering that Weekend all too Well.

“Vegas,” she nods along with me laughing.

“That was good weekend
.” She laughs at me again.

“It was a good summer.” She smiles to me and I Wonder if she has been reminiscing about it as much as I have.

“Mommy,” we hear sound from upstairs and she smiles at me getting up off the couch and walking over to the stairs.

“You can come up with me if you want.” She tells me and I stand up walking over to the stairs with her.

“Ariana, how are we going to explain to her?” I ask.

“I’m not sure yet.”

“Does she ever ask?” I can’t help but wonder.

“
Yeah, but she doesn’t really understand, she just knows that her friends have dads and she has asked why she doesn’t have one.” she shrugs and I walk up with her to Avery’s bedroom at the top of the stairs. I can’t help but watch her ass as we walk up the steps.

“A
v, What is it?” she says and I walk in behind her and Avery looks to me questioning me.

“Mommy, who is he.”
She says as if she doesn’t believe I’m an old friend.

“I told you Av, he’s an old friend.”
She says again.

“But I’ve never seen you get upset after talking to an old friend, not like you were today.” I frown a bit and I look to her hating that I made her upset.

“Well his name is Chase, does that help at all?” Ariana asks her.

“Is he the prince?” she asks and I look from them confused.

“Yes, sweetheart he’s the prince.” She grins widely, not meeting my eyes, and I’m pretty sure I see some blush… the prince?

“Prince?”
I can’t help but ask trying to laugh and I can see Ariana glare at me a bit telling me to let it drop.

“Yes, prince.
Mommy tells this story, about a prince with strange hair and a pink haired princess and how they lived a storybook romance, but one day the prince had to leave unexpected,” I wonder how her vocabulary is so good, “but he leaves the princess with a gift, and I already know that I am the gift, so that would make you my daddy, right?” I grin to her, and she has managed to break my heart and then mend in within twenty minutes.

“Yes,” I tell her and I hear Ariana let out a deep breath and I wasn’t aware she was holding.

“Well, where have you been, crazy?” she asks me which causes me to laugh.

“I haven’t been able to make it, but I’m here now, and I don’t plan on leaving for that long ever again.” She smiles at me and nods her head as we exit the room Ariana looks over to me.

“Well, that was mortifying.” And I can’t help but laugh as we walk down the stairs.

“So, prince and princess.”
I’m making fun of her now.

“Shut
it,” she says to me as she swats at my stomach, “It was my of explaining to her what happened, and I was hoping that one day she would figure it out, didn’t realize that she would so soon, I’m going to blame that on you because I definitely wasn’t that smart at her age, and you have the smart mouth.”

“I will beg to differ on that one.” I tell her smiling at her.

Chapter Fifteen

Ariana

We stayed in Vegas for another week, seeing the sights, doing all of the tourist things, and with Chase at my side I had never had more fun than I was at that moment. He lightened my life, and I knew that I would never forget this summer; it had
only been over a month since l had left South Carolina, and over a month that I had been on the road with Chase. He made me feel complete and at times that feeling was so incredibly overwhelming that I didn’t know to compete with the emotions sometimes I would pull back from him, not talking to him for hours just sitting next to him with whatever we were doing and completely staying in my own little world. I was lying on the bed reading a book that I had bought from a store around the corner when he bounded in the door,

“I have a surprise, get dressed,” he was grinning from ear to ear. I had gotten used to his outbursts
; he did them frequently and he loved surprising me, I quickly got off of the bed and started getting dressed.

“Where are we going?” I asked him as I pull on a shirt over my head.

“I told you it’s a surprise.” I was constantly doing things with Chase that l never even thought of doing without him, case and point was the swimming in the bay, I would have never stripped my clothing off and jumped in for just anyone, there was just this special gift that he managed to have that could get me to do anything.

“Fine,” I grumbled as
I pulled on my shorts and he is grinning the whole time, he walks up to me and cups my face in his hands, pulling me in to him and letting his mouth fall to mine, when he pulls back at first I think that he is going to say something, something that I think I want to hear from him I can see the words dancing around in his head but instead he smiles and shakes his head.

Minutes later he is dragging me by the hand out of the hotel and down the road. “Chase, where are we going?” I ask him as we make our way through the strip.

“There” he tells me pointing up to one of the tallest hotels on the strip.

“Why are we going there?”
I question him.

“You’ve never seen how they have the ride
s on top?” I shake my head as we enter and ride up to the top of the hotel. When we walk out onto the top I feel the thin air; it seems too high up for me. My knees begin to wobble and I think that I’m going to pass out. Then I feel his grip tighten around my hand and I know that I am safe.

“Chase, I can’t.” I say on wobbly knees.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

“I’m afraid of heights.” I tell him as
place my hand on his arm trying to stabilize myself.

“Don’t worry, I won’t make you do anything you don’t
want to, but look there’s people already out here, it means it must be safe.” I nod my head, terrified, agreeing with him as he smiles and kisses my cheek. “Now, I’m going to show you something that I am going to do later, you have time to decide but I won’t make you do it alright?” I nod my head again. He moves me over to the side of the building. We walk inside of a room and he smiles at me, it’s a nervous smile, “I had no idea you were afraid of heights.”

“What is that?” I ask him as we walk into a room.

“Well, I’m going to jump from the side of the building.” He says it as if it’s a normal sentence to say.

“You’re going to do what?” I nearly shout at him. He laughs at me.

“Not by myself, they are going to strap me in and it’s a free fall but you have a harness that will slow you down fifteen feet from the ground.” He explains, but his explanation doesn’t make me feel any better.

“Oh,
” is the only word that I can think of to say as he leans over and places a kiss on my cheek and then leads me back up to the top. We ride the rides, as terrified as I am. I’m hoping that today takes time because I don’t know if I can do the free fall jump, but before I know it I am again standing in the room feeling my knees shake underneath me.

“Do you want to do it?” I stare at him for what seems like hours before I nod my head and he looks at me stunned. “Are you sure, because you don’t have to?”

“Yeah, you jump, l jump.” I smiled to him and he laughs again, “Plus, why not conquer my fear.” The paperwork takes no time and before I know it I see Chase walking over to the room, he smiles at me and kisses me so gently I can’t help but wonder if it’s the last time that I will ever see him. I sit in the room and watch the door, waiting for a panic stricken attendant to come running out, but he doesn’t Moments later I am ushered back to where Chase disappeared from and I can feel my stomach in my throat. The attendant looks to me and smiles.

“Are you alright?”
he asks

“Yeah,”
I squeak out.

“Are you sure because you look really pale,”
he looks at me concerned.

“Yeah, I just
might throw up on the way down.” I admit and he laughs.

“You’re not going to throw up; it’s not as bad as you think it is.” He smiles to me and his smile somewhat calms
me I want to ask about Chase’s jump but I can’t think once he lets me step out onto the platform, I can feel the wind rushing around me; it terrifies me even more. He tells me to step up to the ledge and I think my legs are going to buckle. I’m not sure how I am going to jump at all; I just may end up falling over the edge of this platform. When I look over I think that I am going to pass out, but I look to my sides and how secure the harness is and silently I know that I can do this.

“Are you ready?” I shake my head no and he laughs, “Take a few more deep breaths, and let me know.”

Deep breath, I can’t do this, look how high up I am, I’m going to die. I can’t I can’t….

Deep breath, Well I am strapped in, I’m sure they would have this up here if people actually died on it.

Deep breath, I can do this. Chase is down there and I just want to get back to him and never leave his side.

“Alright,” I tell him after three breaths.

“3… 2… 1…” he says and I feel my feet leave the platform, I feel an instant rush, and I feel completely free. This is everything I have been looking for in my life, this summer, this jump, Chase, all of the these things have come to show me how to live again, to show me what it feels like to be whole. Chase makes me whole and I love him for it. Falling 108 stories will do that to a person, make them think about everything, with only wind passing your ears you tend to clear your mind, if only for the thirty seconds that it takes me to fall to the ground I finally let myself feel for the first time since I was fifteen.

I feel myself slow and when I look up I see Chase standing there smiling, and my legs don’t give out  like I think that they would want to instead I smile at him, a wider smile than I have had in
a long time. He has taught me how to live again. When I’m unbuckled I run into his arms and kiss him.

“I’m guessing that you liked it?” he asked pulling me into his embrace and I quickly nod my head. “Good, we could go actually bungee jumping.”

“One step at a time,” I tell him which causes him to laugh out.

It has been six weeks since Chase has come back knocking at my door, two weeks he stuck around coming by everyday watching Av when I had to work, unfortunately he has to actually go back to work, which I found out that he moved to Orlando, we never talk about us, but we talk about Av all the time, and I can’t help but to notice how great he is with her. He tells us that we have to come down for Thanksgiving next month, and I tell him that we will. Thanksgiving every year for us has not been great, since my father isn’t around it’s usually just Av an I. Hannah goes home to see her family, and we are stuck Watching really bad cartoons and having to tolerate my awful cooking.

I am good at many things... cooking does not seem to be one of them. My phone rings as I am driving home from school,
getting ready to stop to pick up Av, and looking down I see that it is Chase.

“Hello,”
I say pressing the Bluetooth button on my steering wheel.

“Good afternoon, baby momma.” He makes me laugh with his good mood. I’m not sure why he feels the need to call me that

“What are you doing?” I ask, laughing.

“Well, I just got off the phone with my mother,” he pauses but he doesn’t continue.

“Alright, I’ll bite and. . . wait, when did you start talking to your mother again?” I ask sounding shocked.

“Well after California, I went home, I actually stayed home for some time before I headed back to Florida,
and we have been working on our relationship since, it isn’t an easy fix, but we are trying.” He tells me and then starts again, “Anyways, she says that it’s too cold to stay in Tennessee for Thanksgiving, that they are expecting a foot of snow.”

“Okay,” I say
out loud in the emptiness of my car as I pull into the parking lot, “I’m confused.”

“What is really happening is she doesn’t want to ask if she can come to my house for Thanksgiving,”

“I’m still lost.” I admit to him.

“I’m not going to lie; she already knew about you, she knew that I was trying to find you that I was going out of my mind to find you, well when I got back here I had called her telling her that I fou
nd you, she was through the roof excited, in my mother’s weird sort of excitement, but she asked a lot of questions, I tried to explain to her that the situation was now complicated. When she asked how I had to tell her about Av, that’s why she wants to come to Thanksgiving, because I told her that the two of you were coming.”

“Oh, well that’s great, I guess.” I could hear his amusement through the phone.

“I can tell her no, if you guys want me too.” I think that he sounds hopeful that I don’t want her there.

“No, I mean, well it’s just awkward, but she has a right to meet Avery.”
I shrug to no one in particular.

“I’m just going to warn you now that she is interesting.”

The only thing I ever remember Chase telling me about his mother was how he thought she secretly hated him for killing Matt.

Chase

My mother, Avery, and Ariana, in the same room; GREAT this is going to interesting.

After I hang up with Ariana I dial
my mother’s number.

“Chase,” she answers
coldly. Although we were working on our relationship it was still slightly estranged.

“Hey mom; if you want to come here for Thanksgiving you is more than welcome.”

“I don’t want to intrude.” She infuriates me.

“No, I just called and talked with Ariana
, you know just so it wouldn’t be a shock and all to her. Plus, she is bringing Avery all the way here."

“Alright, if you insist, she is alright with me coming,” she as
ks me.

“Yes, mom she is.”
I tell her knowing that she is just really trying to get me to beg her to come.

“Alright well when should I fly in.”
there isn’t the slightest bit of excitement in her voice.

“What about the 21st?”
I offer.

“But that’s the day before Thanksgiving,”
she scoffs.

“Yeah mom,
they are getting here on the 18
th
, so they have some time to get settled in and comfortable.” I know that she doesn’t care if I’m annoyed.

“Well, fine I’ll just be the last relative to come in.”
she’s trying to guilt trip me.

“Mom, it’s only going to be the four of us. I just want to make sure that they are comfortable.” I try to explain to her.

“Well what are the sleeping arrangements going to he?” she is interested by this. She’s fishing to see if we are together.

“Well first
mom,” I’m sure that I sound cold, but I don’t care, “I’m not sure how that’s any of your business seeing as it is my house, but if you must know l am not sure, We still haven’t talked about us.”

“Well why not?”
She asks.

“Because
life got into the way,” l raise my voice slightly at her.

“There is no need
to yell at me Chase.” And she hangs up. I switch my screens over to text Ariana and send. . .

Reconsidering the invite to my mother… warning in advance she can be a handful

Ariana- Ha, I understand frustrating parents

I
t made me remember that she did understand. I’m not sure that anyone else understands how I feel about her.