He takes a swig of his tea and then sucks on his top lip, staring into the flames once more. “I truly am sorry, Addie. I wasa huge fucking asshole. I betrayed you and even worse, I made you feel worthless, and I will never forgive myself for that. But that was a long time ago, and I promise you I’ve changed.”
The image of him with her, touching another girl while his cum was still inside me, is burned into my conscious for all eternity. I’ve tried so hard and so many times to erase it, but it’s always there, like the image of an x-ray seared into my brain.
“Why did you do it, Chase?” All these years and I realize I’ve never actually asked him why.
He blows out a breath and then he just stares at me for what feels like an eternity. “For the longest time I convinced myself that it was because I wasn’t thinking straight. It was my second Christmas without my mom and I was…” He scrubs a hand over his face. “I was an asshole, Addie. I was drinking a lot. Screwing any girl who smiled at me. But none of it even touched taking the edge off that pain. And then there was you…” His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows hard. “And I felt something for the first time since my mom died, and it scared the hell out of me. When Hayley came to my place, I told her we were done for good. And then she asked if we could have one more…she took off her clothes and I…”
I watch the range of emotions flickering over his face like the reflection of the flames in the hearth.
“There’s no excuse. I like to think I’d have come to my senses and told her to leave before things got too far, but I honestly don’t fucking know if that’s true. She asked me to fuck her and I … I guess a fucked-up part of me wanted to feel that same connection to her that I had to you, even though I knew it was impossible.”
He stops looking into the flames and turns to me, his eyes so dark they no longer look blue at all. “I have no excuse for acting like such an insensitive fuck-knuckle.”
I sit with the information, and if I’m honest, it’s what I always expected he would say if I ever got the chance to ask. I’ve known Chase for so long, and I’m aware of how conflicted he must have felt after our night together. I was Brax’s little sister, and our history together was a complicated one. “I almost forgave you, you know,” I croak out the words as the memories come rushing back to the surface.
He blinks.
“I knew that you were hurting over your mom, and I knew that Hayley was desperate to win you back after she’d come all the way to Juniper Ridge to see you, so I went back to your place later that afternoon.”
His eyes grow wider and he swallows hard.
“I wanted to talk to you and see what was going on in your head. I was stupid enough to want to give you a chance to explain, even after what you did.”
“Addie!” His voice is as raw as the memories assaulting me.
“You were with Freddie. I heard you talking…” I leave that hanging in the air.
His face crumples. “Addie, no.”
I nod. “I heard it all, Chase.”
Chapter 16
Chase
EIGHT YEARS AGO
I’m sure I should be feeling guilty right now. I mean I just had sex with my best friend’s little sister, and if that didn’t make me enough of a jackass, it was also her first fucking time. Not that I had any idea Addie was a virgin, and not because I have any particular reason to think she’s not—other than she’s smart and beautiful and there must be hundreds of guys at her college who’ve asked her out. And it’s easy not to think about her dating other guys when she’s in Boston and I’m in LA, but whenever I’m back home and I see her talking to other guys, I get this crazy jealous feeling that I try to pass off as being her concerned older brother’s best friend, but I know it hasn’t been that for at least a year now. And lately, whenever I spend any time in her company, I’m increasingly finding myself thinking about what it would be like to kiss her, touch her. Fuck her.
And now I know.
And now my head is racing with questions and what ifs, and how the fuck I’m going to tell Brax I’m dating his sister. Because we will be dating. What happened last night wasn’t a casual hookup. I knew that going into it, and now, now that I’ve felt her nails scraping down my back, kissed her perfect mouth, now I know I’m doomed.
But what if she doesn’t want more? She said she didn’t want things to be awkward, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she wants to take this thing between us further. Maybe she just wanted her first time to be with someone she trusted. Fuck, what if I read it all wrong!
And then there’s Hayley. We’re over and we have been for months, but she gave up Christmas with her family to follow me here to Juniper Ridge—a place she’s previously referred to as the “ass end of nowhere”—to try and make us work. And even though I contemplated giving us another shot, I already knew it was pointless. Being with Hayley is easy—but it’s also fucking boring. Being with Addie—it feels like racing headfirst into a volcano on a motorcycle and not knowing if you’ll brake on time. It’s exhilarating like that, but it’s also familiar and comfortable in a way things never were with anyone else. Addie is the first person to have made me feel anything remotely close to real since my mom died. I’ve always loved her and last night made me realize that those feelings are definitely not just platonic.
And what the fuck does that mean? I’m twenty-two years old and I just left college to start my dream job as an architect. Addie’s only nineteen and in her sophomore year. We’re both way too young to be thinking about forever…
“Chase,” Hayley’s voice cuts through the swirling vortex of thoughts currently racing around my head.
Immediately, I feel guilty. She obviously stayed at my house last night and knows I wasn’t there.
“Hey.”
“Where have you been?’ she asks softly.
“I stayed with a friend.”
