Wild Chase (29 page)

Tilting my head to the side, “Me? How did I have anything to do with that? Avery you’re not making any sen—”

He steps up to me, water still dripping from his hair, and softly places a finger to my lips. They are more obedient to him than my brain because while they instantly silence, my head is still screaming out for answers.

“I wasn’t in Texas for vacation when we met, Chase. My father sent me down there because I’d dropped out of college to pursue music. He and my Uncle were trying to convince me to take up a job with my family’s company. After a week, I’d decided that maybe the old man was right. Where in the hell was my small town garage band going to get me? My dad had played the scene out for me so many times that it was ingrained into the backs of my eyelids. Washed up, living paycheck to paycheck in a dead-end job, in a small town somewhere, playing out of date music with my equally washed up old friends. Then I’d go home to an empty house and do it all over again every single day,” he says, his voice thick with emotion as he stares into my tear filled eyes, “but then on the night we went out to celebrate Luke and I’s job offers, I ran into you.”

I almost stop breathing.

Avery licks his lips and brings his other hand up to my shoulder, “You were my game changer, Chase. I thought I’d accepted a new job and a new life, and then I watched you up on that stage and you reminded me of every single reason why I shouldn’t be anything other than exactly who I am. Your passion for music… for me, it brought the real me back to the surface, the one that didn’t give a damn if I lived the rest of my life in a dump as long as I had a guitar in my hand.” His voice trails off as he runs a hand over his face. I blink back tears and look down at the floor, trying to take everything in that he’s just said to me.

I saved him? All this time I always thought of him as the one that pulled me out of the dark. I never had a clue that he’d been just as lost as I was. Avery—who pushed me to be exactly who I should be and ingrained in me to never let anything hold me back…

My eyes fly back up to his and I study every inch of his face as if I’m looking at him for the first time. The tears start to rain down from my eyes.

“Then why did you leave?” I whisper through my silent crying.

Avery cradles my face in his hands, brushing a thumb across my cheek, and brings his face to mine, “Because, Chase, what in the hell did I have to offer you? I’d just turned down the only steady job a tattooed, college dropout like me would have a once in a lifetime chance at having! And for what? For a shot at a penniless future with nothing to offer anyone. You had your whole life ahead of you, and I knew that if you just saw that—that you could be so much more; that you would have a full and happy life and not be weighed down by some… could-have-been failure,” he chokes out, his hands shaking against my skin. There was no holding back between us anymore. I’ve never felt more alive in my life, or angry.

“You think that mattered to me? You ruined me, Avery. I fell head over heels in love with you! Did you realize that? Huh? Did you? I would have followed you anywhere and been right alongside you, penniless and so beyond fucking happy it would have made everyone sick just to look at us!” I shout, gripping onto his shirt and tugging at him, wanting him to feel the same fire that I’m feeling. Wanting him to see the wreckage that I’ve sat with all this time. He should know; he should finally see it—feel it. I realize I’m not even close to being done.

“I fought for so long, telling myself that I didn’t love you, that I was too young to know what that even meant. You know what it means, Avery? It means meeting someone and instantly knowing that you want to spend every single day looking into their eyes for the rest of your life. It means that you spend every day thinking about them… even when you try not to. It means never feeling anything for anyone else no matter how hard you try. It means having your heart smashed when you realize that they moved on and never felt any of the shit you’ve held onto for four damn years!” By this time I’m shouting and sobbing, and I don’t give a damn.

His fingers sink into my skin, pulling me in closer to him as he starts to speak.

“You think I don’t feel exactly what you’re feeling right now?” his voice is harsh as he tears my hands from his shirt and places one on his chest, pressing his own hand over top so I can feel the way his heart is racing.

A lump rises in my throat, but I swallow it down as his voice cuts through me again.

“I would tell you that Olivia is the biggest mistake that I ever made, but that would be a lie.”

My heart feels as though it crashes to the floor and shatters into a million pieces. My lip trembles as I try to rip my hand from his chest but he holds it there.

“The biggest mistake I ever made, Chase, was leaving you.”

In an instant, my body reacts. My hand slides around his neck and I pull him in, kissing him with everything I have in me. Avery’s hand slips around my waist and the other up into my hair, reigniting the craving I have for him with his simple, desperate touches. We stumble back a few steps, completely lost in the way our tongues and lips caress the others, until we hit the door. I claw at the wet fabric that clings to his tight muscles, using my other hand to pull at the chain around his neck. A deep growl rolls off his tongue and vibrates through my body, causing me to rock my hips against him. He nips at my bottom lip, and I whimper, tugging even harder at his chain. Avery pulls the fabric of my shirt down off my shoulder with one fast, fierce movement. I groan against his kiss, until a loud beeping sound starts to echo from his pocket, cutting our moment to a screeching halt. Pulling back from each other, both of us panting, he fumbles to grab his phone. Glaring at the screen, he presses a button and looks back up at me.

My breath is ragged as I watch him. Licking my lips, I can’t seem to concentrate on anything except for one thing.

Wanting. To. Rip. His. Clothes. Off.

I step forward at the same second he steps forward and his phone goes off again.

“FUCK!” he shouts, yanking his phone to his ear.

“HELLO?” barks Avery, keeping his fiery grays on me.

“Hey, asshole! Where are you? We are all meeting up at the club in a little bit, are you coming?” Jesse says with a laugh over the phone.

As soon as that voice rings out, I remember that this was only half of the battle.

By the look in Avery’s eyes and the heat rising in my blood, I know that my pride isn’t going to be the only carnage we leave behind…

Pushing the disheveled blonde hair from his face, Avery leans forward to tune his guitar, the silver rings on his fingers clanking against the neck of the instrument. Sitting on the edge of the bed in his hotel room, with lyric scratched papers strewn all around him, his mind can’t focus on the song he’s working on. Instead, it keeps wandering to the way it felt to have Chase’s body against his, and how incredible it was to finally tell her everything. Well, almost everything.

The quiet hotel room is just the escape he needs after the hot and heavy moment at her apartment. Breaking away from her after that had been nearly impossible, but deep down he knew he had to go before it escalated. In such a short amount of time, he had created one hell of a mess; one that so many people were now tangled in and he found himself actually thankful for Jesse’s phone call interrupting them when it did. Clenching a fist around the pen in his hand, he rests his forehead against it and sighs heavily. He didn’t want to hurt anyone, especially the people he cares for most. He tried to do the right thing by Chase by leaving, and look where that got him. He’s in the midst of betraying his girlfriend and his best friend, not to mention his other band mates. Most of all, he’s been lying to himself. Seeing Chase move on had the complete opposite effect on him than what he had initially anticipated. Instead of finding happiness in fixing her up with someone he knows is a great guy, he couldn’t feel anything but raging jealously seeping out of every pore.

The loud swoosh of the door startles him since the guys are already out at the bar, but when the familiar clicking of high heels echoes across the suite, Avery finds himself cringing.
Avoiding one’s girlfriend can only go so far before she makes a surprise attack
, he thinks dryly, waiting for the beast to swoop in. Sure enough, his door swings open, revealing a highly pissed off Olivia, with arms crossed, standing just outside of his room.

“Care to tell me why you’ve been avoiding my phone calls and texts all week? Better yet, Avery, tell me why in the hell I wasn’t allowed in the recording sessions or why the room key I have a copy of suddenly stopped working? WHAT IN THE HELL IS GOING ON?” she seethes, her face almost as red as the expensive designer bag on her arm.

Taking a deep breath, Avery stands to his feet, the emotions of the day rising in his chest. This was part of his mess and he needed to cut her free of the web. It had never been fair to lead on Olivia because he was terrified that her father would drop the band from the label. Closing his eyes, a vision of soft, purple hair, and an angelic smile fills his heart.

Almost instantly, Olivia sees the shift in his eyes and panic sets in. She cues the fake tears and she searches her mind’s rolodex for a soul punching line. Sucking in a strangled sounding breath, she runs across the room and throws herself at him.

“I just don’t understand what’s wrong, Avey! I love you so much and it feels like you’re pushing me away! What did I do, Baby?” she cries softly against his chest, clinging to his clothes.

And just like that, the guilt that washes over Avery is too much for him to bear. He hesitantly wraps an arm around her and pats her back gently. There wasn’t a doubt left that he didn’t love Olivia, but he couldn’t be heartless either. He did care for the girl, hell, they’d been dating for two years. She’s clearly upset and he could almost envision her running out of there in tears and straight to her father. He wasn’t sure what would hurt worse, the shotgun he threatened him with or the band being fired. A voice in the back of his head screams DO IT, but pressure to keep the fragile situation from spinning out of control weighs heavier and heavier on his shoulders…

“SHUT THE FRONT DOOR!” Vic shouts with wide eyes. I can’t even find it in me to smile at her or say anything witty back. Shut the front door is right.

“I can’t believe they asked you to be in the band!” she squeals, pulling me over to the sofa in the lady’s room of the bar. Rolling my eyes, I cock my head over at her and stare at her with a bitter face, “Really? That’s what you take from that entire conversation?”

Pulling out her lip-gloss she turns to me with a sweet face, “Well, that’s what we are here to celebrate, isn’t it?”

“VICTORIA!”

Rolling her eyes, she swipes the mauve colored gloss across her lips before huffing and facing me again.

“What do you want me to say, Chase? I thought you had something with Jesse. You guys are cute together, not to mention y’all could blow the roof off our apartment in the bedroom department. You want answers that I don’t have. I think you’re playing with fire. You signed a contract to be in a band with a guy you’re
friends with benefits,
while you’re madly in love with another. Oh hell, that’s not fire baby girl, you’re playing with explosives.”

I stare at my friend, deadpan, and frown, “You are NO HELP! All the years I listened to your boy troubles and you can’t offer me ONE nugget of wisdom here?”

Vic gives me a flat smile as she reaches out and picks a string off my black, peasant, off-the-shoulder top, “I’ve never been in love so I’m afraid I have no nuggets to offer. What I can say is that you need to be careful. If you see anything happening with Avery at all, then you need to end things with Jesse and be honest, like yesterday.”

Groaning, I cover my eyes with my hand and nod. I don’t want to look at her while she preaches the harsh truth. She couldn’t be more right though if she tried. Jesse deserves the truth, and Avery aside, I owe him that much. My beautiful friend reaches over and hugs me quickly before grabbing my hand and pulling me out of the bathroom and back out into the bar.