Page 74 of Chasin’s Surrender

“I was gonna ask you the same thing,” she returned.

“You done playing?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Clean off the bed, I’ll be right back.”

Chasin moved to his dresser, scanning the room as he went. No suitcases in sight, he opened a drawer where his shorts normally were and found folded tees instead. Smiling to himself, he closed it and opened a few more until he found what he was looking for.

“I…um…had to rearrange—”

“Told you to unpack, sweetness. Figured you’d have to move stuff around.”

He took his shorts into the bathroom, did his thing, and a few minutes later, he turned off the light and made his way back into the bedroom. First, he went to his nightstand and flicked on the table lamp, then to the door where he flipped the lock. He hit the light switch, turning off the recessed lights, and moved to the bed now devoid of the clutter.

Once he was settled in bed, he tagged Genevieve’s hand and pulled her close.

“Settle in, Evie.”

It took Genevieve a few moments to relax, her head on his shoulder, torso pressed against his side, long legs resting next to his. She was close, but Chasin wanted her closer. He reached down and hooked her thigh over his, forcing her to turn and cuddle in. Then he found her hand and pulled it to his chest, holding her palm over his heart. He knew it was jackhammering in his rib cage. Had been since he’d walked into the house.

“It was a shit thing for me to do,” he launched right in. “I was angry and didn’t want you to see.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t’ve—”

“You should always feel free to be you,” he interrupted. “And I wasn’t angry with you. I was pissed at them. It’s no secret I hate her. I’m thirty-four years old, I’ve been out of their house for sixteen years. I’ve been back to visit maybe fifteen times, and those times were so I could see my dad. And this is fucked-up, but every time I went for a visit, I hoped I’d walk in the door and either my dad would’ve kicked that bitch out of his house or he’d tell me he was leaving her. Instead, I’d show up and everything was the same. It was like a bad movie playing on repeat. She’d bitch at him about one thing or another and he’d take it. It’s bad enough knowing that she fucks around on him, but to watch that woman boss him around turns my stomach. I don’t get why he stays, never did, but I wanted a dad so badly I kept going back to see if he was ready to be a man.”

Lost in his thoughts, Chasin grew silent. Genevieve filled that silence.

“I’m sorry. I know what it feels like to have the people who gave you life let you down. I don’t think it matters how old you are or how long you’ve been out of their house, that pain is still there. It might not be the constant nagging it once was, but parts of it still linger.”

She was not wrong, and it was the parts that lingered he wanted gone.

“I saw Holden when I came in. He said you were worried I was upset that you called Nancy a whore. I need you to understand this, that woman means nothing to me. There is nothing you could ever say to her or about her that would bother me. I was pissed at them, but I was more pissed at myself for wasting so many years thinking my dad would come around.”

Chasin tightened his grip on her hand. “But he proved today, not only will he never be the dad I need, but he’s just as bad as she is. The shit he said, the way he looked at you, looked at me when you were in my arms, broke something inside of me. That small sliver of hope I had that one day I’d have a dad, died. He killed it. So I need time to get over my embarrassment, my anger, and the pain of losing him.”

Chasin felt his heartbeat kick up a notch. “Once I got that settled, I need to sort out my feelings about us.”

“Us?” Genevieve stiffened and started to pull away.

Chasin put pressure on her hand and didn’t allow her to move. “I need you right where you are.” She stopped struggling but remained stiff. “We started out good. Then I fucked us up. And ever since, we’ve been playing hide and seek. I don’t mind playing games with you, baby, as long as in the process no one’s getting hurt. I haven’t hidden what I want from you. I haven’t hidden how I feel. And, babe, you haven’t either. I know I cut you deep when I pulled my shit—”

“I’m done playing games, too,” she blurted out, and relief washed over Chasin.

Thank fuck.

Finally.

“I saw it. Earlier when your parents were here, I saw it, what they did to you. But I want you to know that before that happened, I’d already decided to stop being stupid. Obviously, I was still struggling with trying to figure out how to let my shit go. But even without witnessing it firsthand and just hearing you talk about her, I understood what happened the night you left. It hurt, I was crushed, but I don’t blame you. I keep doing the same thing to you and I know it’s not fair. I react before I think. I keep forgetting you’re not all the other assholes who’ve screwed me over.”

She grinned up at him. “So, I’ll make you a deal.”

“What kind of deal?”

“I promise to work on being defensive and shutting down, if you stop apologizing for that night. In a way, I’m kinda glad it happened.”

“What?”