Chase was sulking and he knew it. So did Marcus, although that wasn't saying much. Chase was being way too obvious about it.
In the past month, he had started to greet Lucy's "Hey, handsome!" welcomes with nothing more than a grunt. His Project Lyonheart playlist had become dour with a bunch of sad and depressing hair band power ballads. And last week, Marcus drove them home from set without reminding Chase to change out of his costume before they left. Marcus said he figured Chase was going through some things and didn't want to bug him about it.
To be fair, Chase looked very cool in his white Miami Vice suit. Emma would've loved it.
This morning, he downed that disgusting green shake that Marcus always made him drink and dropped down on the stool at the kitchen bar poking away at the granola he was eating to stay healthy. The stuff already didn't have much of a taste but it was even worse without Emma around.
He took another glance out of the sliding glass door, past the pool, to the guest house at the edge of the grass. The shades were closed so he couldn't see in, but he still knew exactly what he would findif he had a good view.
Nothing.
It had been a month since Emma had packed up her bags and moved out. She didn't even say goodbye.
After the disastrous trip to Vegas, they came home and he asked if she wanted to get some dinner to celebrate. Maybe even order in.
"I'm OK, but thanks," she had told him with a forced smile.
Then she went to the guest house and closed the door.
Chase didn't want to push or pry after that. It had been a rough few days for both of them even if they had finally achieved Nana's challenge — together.
He had a tedious day-long shoot the next day, but he thought he would at least be able to talk to Emma when he got home, maybe they could clear some things up. He could make her feel better. They could come up with a plan to go to that lawyer's office together and get everything over with. They could continue the relationship they started without the extra baggage anymore, figuratively at least. He didn't mind having her baggage in his guest house.
But by the time he got home, she was gone. Marcus told him that she had left around noon. Emma had loaded everything in her car, thanked Marcus for all his help, and asked if he could tell Chase that she said goodbye.
That was it.
So Chase now sat at the kitchen counter every morning, eating his stupid granola from a spot where he could see the guest house to just make sure she was really gone. Sometimes he would look at his phone sitting next to him and think about calling Emma. Sometimes he would get as far as actually picking it up, his thumb hovering over his contact list. Other times, he just stared.
He wondered what she was up to now and where she was. He hoped she was somewhere nice now that she could afford an apartment with her inheritance. On Thursdays, he would think about what she looked like in that gorgeous dress from their first dinner together and how the kids at Thursday Story Time loved seeing Emma as a princess in that dress.
"Are you staring at the guest house again?"
Marcus was standing at the kitchen counter staring at him again.
"No," he mumbled as he went back to poking at his granola.
Marcus gave him a look that told Chase there was no way his assistant believed that lie.
"You can admit you miss her," Marcus said quietly. "I miss her too."
Chase just shrugged his shoulders and stared down at his bowl. He hadn't realized just how much having Emma around had changed the whole place. There was something about her that made his house less of a bachelor pad and morelike a home. It was quiet too often now. Instead of hearing her voice at breakfast or listening to her and Marcus gang up to tease Chase about his gross green shakes, it was just silence.
Well, there was also the sound of Marcus tapping away at his laptop that held Chase's life on it. It felt so superficial to hear about the interviews he had to do or the parties he had to go to because some movie exec "requested" his presence, which was a nice way of saying he had to show up. But for some reason, Marcus clacking away on his laptop next to Chase this morning was even more infuriating than usual.
"You writing a novel over there or something?" Marcus gave him a scathing look and turned back to the screen. "Sorry, I've just been..."
His voice trailed off, trying to explain how he felt while also knowing he didn't need to explain anything because Marcus knew.
"I'm just finishing up your schedule for today. You'll have a car here at six o'clock to pick you up for the night shoot."
Right. The night shoot. This was the last week of filming for the latest Project Lyonheart movie. Tonight included two big cameos for the movie that had everyone buzzing on set so that would make it an even better distraction from everything that had been going on with Emma.
"So nap around two like usual and then head out, right?"
Marcus looked at him intently. "Not today."
Well, this was a new development. Chase always took a nap in before a night shoot. Yeah, it made him feel like a toddler having to put his nap time on the actual schedule, but such was the life of an actor. Marcus knew throwing off his schedule like this would be a big deal, and Marcus wouldn't do it for just anyone or anything.
