Up for the Chase (9 page)

Chapter sixteen

Ariana

Since Chase came back into my life all I have been able to recall about my life are parts that include him.

When we left Vegas I was sad. I had never had more fun than when we were there. Chase had convinced me to do so many interesting things, jumping off of a building just happened to be one of them. We were finally headed for California and the summer was growing old by then. We knew that soon we would have to go our separate ways, but neither one of us would talk about it. l am watching the desert at our side slide past us when Chase finally speaks up, the first time that either one of us has talked in over an hour, we had this great relationship where we could go hours without speaking. The darkness is starring to close in around us.

“So, Carolina?” he asks me and I can hear the slight sadness in his voice.

“Yeah,” neither one of us had talked about what we were going to do when the summer ended, “It’s where my dad graduated from so-,” I trail off knowing that he will put the pieces together without me saying them out loud.

“You got forced to go there?”
he says.

“Something
like that.” I tell him.

“Have you thought about Florida State?” I hear the hesitation in his voice as he asks me.
It is actually pretty fucking adorable.

“Well I hadn’t,” I don’t want to tell him that when I got there. ..
with him. . . then I wondered.

“Well, I’m just brain storming over here, but what about transferring there in the spring?” I smile and look over to him.

“Do you want me at the same school with you?” I tease him, smiling.

“Well it’s a really good school,” he pauses
, looking slightly embarrassed, and my grin widens. “And yes, I want you at the same school as me.” And then as life decides to ruin the moment I hear a noise and when I look up to the front of the car I see smoke billowing out of the engine.

“Um, Chase,” I say pointing to the front of the car as he slows down and jumps out. I watch as he pries open the hood and looks inside.

“SHIT,” he shouts fanning smoke away.

“What’s wrong?” I ask him slowly opening the door and walking around the front of the car.

“Fucking blown head gasket.” He says as he slams the hood back down causing me to jump.

“Well, can you fix it?” I ask him wondering.

“Sure, if there was an auto parts store any fucking where around us.” He snaps at me. I cut my eyes at him before I walk over to the door and open it again.

“So
, what are we going to do until then?” I asked him curiously.

“Well, I
don’t fucking know, just wait until the morning.” He’s still snapping at me as if I caused this.

“We can’t call a cab?”
I ask him.

“Ariana,” my name cuts me, “look around do you think that there are any cab companies out here?
Plus we both thought that it was an ingenious idea to leave both of our cellphones so I can’t call one to come and get us.” he bites our at me, I then decide that instead of taking anymore shit I’m just going to sit in the car and not talk to him. I swing open the door and slide inside quickly. I rummage in the backseat only momentarily, to find my IPOD and ear buds, and slip them into my ears, quickly turning on the music to drain him out. I watch him in the mirrors for moment as he paces the car and kicks the wheels. I sigh leaning the seat back and propping my feet on the dashboard. I turn up my music as I begin to hear him cursing at the car. I think I fall asleep some point shortly after because I wake up to Chase shaking me as my eyes flutter open he seems calmer. I see his mouth move but I cannot understand what he is saying.

“What?” I ask him. I see him laughs
but it sounds like a hollow laugh and then he reaches over and pulls out my ear bud that I had forgotten I had put in.

“I’m sorry I’m an ass
hole, come here.” He says smiling and holding out his hand. I reluctantly take a hold of it and let him pull me out of the car. He smiles and then leans over and kisses me on the cheek.

He lead
s me through the emptiness and I feel the chill starting to sink into my skin. When he stops I look around confused until I look down and see the blankets that he has spread out on the ground before us. Like Dr. Jekyll and fucking Mr. Hyde.

“I figured since we are in a bad situation we could make the best out of it.” I smile to him and nod my head. “Lay down with me?” he asks me and he sits down at me feet. I move to the blankets with him. He pulls up one of the blankets and wraps us in them.

“I’m sorry I overreacted like that.” He whispers into my ear and I nod my head. “No, Ariana, look I really am sorry. That car is the only thing that I really have.”

“Chase,” I finally speak placing my hand on his arm, “It’s not the only thing
that you have, you have me as well. I know that we just met but I’m here for you.” He looks over at me and I watch his eyes heat and then simmer. I feel my body reacting to watching his eyes.

He doesn’t say anything back to me but he leans over and kisses me, hard, on the mouth. We
kiss for moments that don’t last long enough and then we begin to lean back. I open my eyes and I realize that I am lying on my back with him over top of me, and I cannot stop smiling. He kisses down my neck and I can begin to feel him nudging my shirt out of the way.

“Chase,” l say in a panicked voice as I hear the noise in the distance, “Chase,” I say again trying to break him out of his sex trance
and then I result to smacking him in the shoulder. “What was that?” I ask and he sits up looking around for the howl.

“That would be coyotes.”
He states, coolly. I will never understand how he manages to keep his cool so well at times.

“Coyotes?”
I ask louder than I should.

“Shh, yeah.”

“What should we go?” I ask him, panicking.

“Get back to the car, fast.” I jump up and
help him grab the blankets as we race back to the car. I swing open the door and dive into the floor board of the backseat as he slides onto the backseat. He is laughing when he looks down to me. “Ariana, you don’t have to hide in the floor board.” He tells me but I look around and shake my head no.

“Come up here with me.”
He pats the seat.

“No w
ay, what if they see us?” he laughs again at me.

“Their animals, R, calm down,
they don’t have thumbs they can’t open the doors. Come here.” He tells me again.

“You called me R?”
my attention is now completely off of the coyotes. And I’m not sure if I like him using my nickname.

“I figured that I would try it out.”
He shrugs

“And w
hat do you think?"

“Still don’t like it?”
he shakes his head and I smile, secretly glad that he doesn’t like it because I don’t want him calling me that… only he can call me Ariana.

“Why not?”
I laugh and push his knees still sitting in the floorboard.

“Because, Ariana is a beautiful name, it fits you.
R is just a letter. You deserve to have more than a letter,”

“Awe, is that your pick up line?”
I playfully ask him.

“Only with you,
” he makes me smile as he pulls me up to sit on the seat with him. He wraps us up in a blanket again as he lays me back on the seat and he smiles. “Calm down, here.” He kisses me again on the lips and I feel his hand slide up my leg and stop between them. I feel him stroke me as I sigh slightly and I feel a smile spread across his lips. His hand skirts up to the button on my pants and undoes it as his hand snakes its way inside and I feel the warmth of his flesh touch me and the fire explodes throughout my body. Our kiss intensifies. I feel my insides beginning to tighten as he continues to stroke me and I begin to pant as his lips and teeth land on my neck.

“Come on, baby, let go.” He w
hispers into my ear as I feel the waves begin to rock my body and I let the moans escape my lips. He smiles, kissing me again and then slides his hand out and buttons up my jeans again he kisses me lightly a few more times. I try to regain my composure as I heat a tapping on the window and when I open my eyes I see the blue and red lights flashing from the outside of the windows. I watch as Chase slides into the front seat and rolls down the window.

“Good night, officer.” He smiles at the man standing on the other side of the window and all I can I wonder
is if the car smells of sex.

“Good night, you kids have any problems.” I see the flashlight shine into my eyes.
I hold up my hand trying to save my vision.

“Yes, sir, I managed to blow
a head gasket, and we don’t have the number for triple A.” I listen as Chase tells him.

The cop offers to take us to the motel nearby and get the number for triple A for us, and an hour later the car is towed to the only mechanic in town and we are laughing as we walk into the motel room. Chase explains to me that as I stumbled out of the car and towards the police cruiser that the cop told him nice job and winked to him. Apparently he was proud of himself.
I just rolled my eyes at him.

The airport seems more packed than I could ever remember it
being before; I wondered if I was just extremely nervous as I walked through with Avery holding onto my hand. Thanksgiving was in a few days and I felt as though my entire body was shaking as I walked; every step brought me closer to Chase, closer to figuring out what this was all going to be. I feel like I’m going to throw up. “Mommy, are you alright?” I hear Avery ask at my side, she is smiling from ear to ear and I just laugh.

“Yes, sweetheart.”
I tell her.

“We’re going to go see Daddy, right?” l foun
d it slightly strange that she was so caviler about calling him dad, maybe it was simply because she felt that connection, plus seeing them together there was no doubt that she was his child.

The plane ride to Orlando lasted almost no time at all. I was there entirely before I wanted to be. We step off of the plane and begin to walk toward the baggage
claim.

I tug at the bag on the belt and stumble as I try and hold onto Avery and tug at the bag. I see a hand come across me and grab at me.

“Let me get that,” Chase says to me as he lifts it up and I hear Avery squeal as he picks her up as well. “I’m excited that you guys are here.” He tells me and I smile. “Are you alright?”

“Yea,” I say as I tug at the hem of my shirt.

“Heights?” he asks me.

“No, l got over that a long time ago.” He laughs and looks to me.

“Ah, Vegas,” I can’t help but laugh with him.

“What happened to w
hat happens in Vegas stays in Vegas?” I joke with him and he smiles as he nods over to Avery and I know what he is thinking. “Yeah, I guess we didn’t have much of a choice with that.” He leans over and kisses me on the cheek and I listen to Avery giggling.

The hotel outside of Barstow was a complete shithole, as Chase called it, and we left four days later as soon as the car was fixed quickly making our way to Laguna Beach.

Chase

Watching Ariana and Avery walk off the plane and to me I knew that I never wanted them to leave but knew that they would have to, much too soon for me. Ariana stole my breath away with the way she would interact with Avery. It is still surreal to me that I have a child, but I am trying my best with making myself worthy of her. I love her, more than I ever thought I could. I also am planning on telling Ariana more than I thought I ever would.

Chapter Seventeen

Ariana

We pull up into Chase’s driveway and I am speechless.

“Chase this is stunning.”
I’m pretty sure that I shout it.

“Thanks,” he smiles, “I just bought it.” I am stunned
; the Chase that I knew years ago would never have bought a house I wasn’t sure if he was who I remembered him to be. It worried me that I was getting myself worked up over something that wasn’t at all what I thought it was going to be to begin with. We get out of the car and he grabs our bags out of the car and shows us inside the house. it’s bigger than it looks from the outside. I’m even a little sad and relieved at the same time when he sits my things in the room with Avery and turns to me.

“I wasn’t sure if you wanted to be in the same room, but there’s another spare
room if you want that one.” I shrug and look back up to him almost confused; I’m not sure but I think that I almost hoped for us to be in the same room.

“In here is fine.” I say looking to the floor and he steps up to me and I see Avery scamper out of the room.

“Are you alright?” I nod my head still not looking at him. “Look, Ariana, I know what you are thinking, I know that we don’t understand what this is and we are trying to figure it out, I don’t want to rush you. I don’t want to rush us; honestly there is nothing I want more than to wake up with you wrapped up in my arms, again.” I melt, damn him.

“You would?” I ask him and he smiles.

“Why else would I be looking for you for two years?” I don’t know what to say to that so I just shrug my shoulders. He sighs and he wraps his arms around my body and pulls me into him and I feel my body relaxes in his tight embrace. I inhale him and I feel myself being taking back in time six years into a time where he filled my life.

“How did you know that something was wrong?”

“Because, once upon a time in a faraway land,” he smirks and I know that he is referencing the story that I made up and would tell Avery, “I spent every waking moment with you for almost three months, sometimes as creepy as it sounds I would watch you sleep, hell Ariana I was in love with you. I can tell exactly how you are feeling by the look on your face.”

“What am I feeling now?” I ask him.

“That you want to kiss me.” he grins, and I am shocked that he really can read me like an open book, but before I can say anything to him I feel his lips against mine and he steals all the air that I am capable of breathing. The passion between us ignites and I can hardly control myself that is until I hear giggling at our feet and we break apart. Chase smiles to me and leans in whispering,

“That was exactly how I remember it
six years ago, and it was damn worth the wait.” And he pulls away and walks into the other room with Avery leaving me to sit on the bed and fall deep into my thoughts.

I let myself emerge from the bedroom to find Chase standing in the living room with
, I can only imagine every blanket in the house draped around the furniture. “What are you guys doing?” I ask him and he laughs placing the last one up.

“Building a fort, w
hat does it look like?” he jokes sarcastically with me, “Come join us.” He and Avery say in unison. Half an hour later I find myself underneath blankets with a flashlight as the doorbell and Chase and I scurry out of it to pay for the pizza and crawl back under to eat. Avery thought it was amazing and that it was almost like eating in bed.

The night got difficult when Avery went to bed and we both tucked her in, reading some to her, and telling her goodnight, it melted my heart again when she leaned up and told Chase that she loved him.

When we walk out of the bedroom minutes later Chase looks to me and smiles at the mess that is scattered across the living room.

“We should probably put this up.” I tell him.

“Leave it for now,” he laughs as we walk and sit on the couch, he sits farther away from me than I think I want him to as he flips on the T.V. and searches for a movie.

“She has some imagination.” He smiles to me.

“Yeah,” I laugh thinking to some of the things that we have done when I realize that this is the first time since he has come back into my life that we are alone together. “She gets that from you.” I tell him and he laughs shrugging.

“Ariana, my mother changed her plans and she is coming tomorrow.” He frowns looking down at the ground.

“Then we really should clean this up.”

“Nah, leave it.”
He mutters again pulling me into his side.

He lands on a movie and turns to me
, “You want some popcorn?” he grins and I nod my head as he gets up off of the couch and walks into the kitchen, I follow after him not wanting to be alone. I lean against the counter and turn away from him looking out the sliding glass door at the huge backyard. I hear him punch in the numbers for the popcorn to begin to heat up.

“Chase,” I say to him without turning around. “Why?
did you leave. . . back in California.” He doesn’t answer for longer than I was expecting but I feel him walk behind me.

“Ariana,” he finally says and places a hand on my arm which causes me to look back at him, but when I do, we are closer than l realized and neither one of us
can control the motions or the emotions that come over us. His lips crash down to mine again but this time more forceful than they were in the bedroom earlier. I quickly turn my body around and lace my fingers through his dark hair and I hear him growl into my mouth. His arms reach around me and his hands grasp onto my ass as he lifts me up onto the counter and I wrap my legs around his body. He lifts me up and presses my body against his as I intensify our kiss and he leads me up the stairs to the bedroom. I hear his door open and he kicks it close behind us as he lays me down on the bed and climbs over top of me. I hastily pull his shirt up over his head and he tugs at mine until it is off as well practically ripping it in half.

His hand snakes down to my jeans as he unbuttons them and pulls them down as I lay underneath him in nothing but my bra and panties he sucks a breath in.

“Ariana, my memory doesn’t even do you justice. You are excellent.” I smile as I pull him back down to me and turn him onto his back, kneeling over him, as I slide his pants down as well.

We finish undressing one another as he leans up to kiss me and then flips me back over I can’t help but let a laugh escape my lips that is until I feel his hand touch me and I let a moan escape my lips. As his teeth slide down my neck I pull at his legs with my feet telling him that I need him now. I feel the pressure as he enters and I cry out. He smiles down to me, and I think that for a second I can see the love in his eyes but I push the thought far from my mind and just let myself get lost in the sex.

Laguna Beach was something that I couldn’t have even begun to imagine. When we drove down to the coast I was in complete shock at how beautiful the pacific was. I’m not sure if it was because l just had never seen it or simply because I did think that it was spectacular. My hand sat in Chase’s hand as he squeezed it and we pulled into the nicest hotel on the strip.

“Chase this is too expensive.”
I mutter, shocked.

“Ariana, like you I also have a ridiculous amount of money set aside, my parents are well off and I ended up with the majority of that.” I could tell that he hated the fact that he still lived off his parents, although I don’t remember him seeming that way when I first met him, that was when I started to realize the changes that he had been going through since we started on this journey. Yet, here we were in California, our destination, with
only a few weeks left, and for some reason l wasn’t excited. Instead I was extremely upset about making it to California I knew that I never really wanted to make it here, I just wanted to continue to be on the road with him.

I knew somewhere that that would never happen, but I liked to pretend most of the time that we could.

It took me longer than I needed to get out of the car and walk with him into the hotel, our final hotel, our final destination. I could see the sadness in his eyes as well as we walked inside.

Our first day there we spent on the beach, soaking in the sun.

I ended up sunburned so Chase rubbed my body down continuously with aloe being gentle all over my body due to my red, angry skin.

It took my skin a week to heal and every day, several times a day Chase would soothe my skin and then lay down next to me, being careful not to touch my reddened skin.

A few days later, when my lizard-like skin was back to normal he laughed at me as I came out of the bathroom.

“I’m sorry to say this baby, but I thought that you would have some color when the burn finally went away but you are still just the same white as you were before.”

“I told you, I’m convinced that I don’t have any pigment in my skin.” He laughed louder at me.

“Well, you make up for it everywhere else.” He said smiling, “Come here,” he patted the bed next to hi
m as I slid up into the sheets with him. It was now August and I knew that it just a few short weeks that he had to go back to school. I also figured that on our way back to the east coast we would go through South Carolina and he would drop me off, he simply hinted it to me as well.

“Let’s go get some food.” He smiled to me a few hours later as I lay draped, naked over top of him.