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“Sorry, just ignore me.”
Chase considers me a long moment before whispering, “Kind of hard to.”
“I know,” I reply, sinking my head into my hands and dropping my phone into my lap. “I’m a little nutty these days. Even more so than usual. Thanks for putting up with it.”
“It’s my pleasure,” Chase responds with a smile. “Really.”
I shake my head. “You’re clearly too nice, and perhaps, worked at Chick-fil-A at some point in your life. I promise I won’t hold it against you if you tell me the truth. Or if you want to tell me to stop talking or whatever. Or even if you want to go back to the campsite and just rest instead of getting dragged around Chic—”
“Brooke?”
“Yeah?”
“You can shut up now.”
“See!” I shriek through a giggle. “That’s totally cool of you to tell me that.”
I wrap an arm around Benji and look out the window with a stupid smile on my face as the Chicago skyline approaches. I’ve always had a thing for skylines, even when I was growing up in rural Ohio on my family’s farm. I had several framed watercolors of New York and Chicago and Nashville and London, and if I know my parents at all, I imagine they’re still in their places on the paisley pink wall in my childhood room—that is, if my nephews haven’t torn them to shreds yet.
And now, I’m a grown woman touring these cities as my books are turned into a series on Netflix. If I could tell it all to little-girl me—after I’d have to explain what Netflix is and how Blockbuster went under ages ago—I know she’d be so excited.
I watch the skyscrapers pass by through the window and note how stunning Chicago looks in the spring. The city puts out an unbelievable effort to landscape the urban streets with beautiful flowers and blooming trees.
I spot a sign for Millennium Park, noting that it’s only a few blocks away. During my Uber request, I asked to be dropped off there because it’s the only place I’ve heard of in Chicago.
Ha. Wow. That sounds…crazy.
Holy crapola. I don’t actually know anything about this city that I’ve just convinced Chase to explore…
Benji starts nudging me as I begin to get nervous, and I nudge him back. I know he’s doing his job and all, but yeah…not now. I’m going to fight the faint with sheer willpower, even if it kills me.
I will not pass out and piss myself in the back of an Uber on the way to downtown Chicago. I will not pass out and piss myself in the back of an Uber on the way to downtown Chicago. I will not pass out and piss myself in the back of an Uber on the way to downtown Chicago…and repeat until infinity.
My best buddy maintains the stare but stops the bumping, and for the consideration, I’ll be forever grateful.
After several minutes of silence, the Uber pulls to a stop on Michigan Avenue with a view of the famous Bean, and without much of a choice, I grab Benji’s leash and climb out of the passenger door on the driver’s side while Chase climbs out of the opposite one.
As the car pulls away, Chase approaches Benji and me with a warm smile and wide arms. “So…what’s first on your ‘explore Chicago’ agenda?”
It’s at that exact moment that the wave of everything I’d been fighting in the car crashes over me, and I freak the hell out, dropping to the ground, sitting on my ass, and putting my head in my hands. Benji and Chase both swarm me, although I think Benji is mostly confused because my vitals aren’t doing the things they normally do in these situations. I’m light-headed, but it’s different. It’s, like, emotional or something.
“Oh my God, Brooke? Are you okay?”
I shake my head and try to get my voice back, but Chase is too busy running his hands over my limbs looking for injury to realize that every time his flesh touches mine, the silencing lump in my throat grows a little bit larger.
“Brooke, are you okay?” he asks again.
Finally, I find a hole in my shame big enough to explain through. “I-I-I …shit… I don’t know what to do. It just hit me…just now, that I don’t have a plan at all.” My face scrunches in absolute horror. Chase stares at me for a long moment, and then he breaks out in the kind of laugh I’ve never heard from him. Huge, crowing, completely unreserved. It’s beyond hot and makes his perfect black hair bounce. Like, boing-boing, those strands are jumping.
How can one man have so many good physical attributes and a good personality? I don’t get it. I thought God tried to spread it all around just a little bit.
Any other man I’ve ever known would be scowling their ass off right now if they’d just found out I’d dragged them down to one of the busiest cities in the country, when they were supposed to be doing something else, without even having a specific reason or a plan.
