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He nearly chokes on his shot of bourbon. He coughs, turning his head away from me.
“Sorry. Sore spot, I guess.”
“No, no,” he says through tense breaths. One more clear of his throat and he’s mostly back to normal. “Um, just didn’t know if you’d remember.”
I smile softly. “Of course, I remember. I was going to marry you, after all.”
Chase runs his hand over his chest. “Yeah. You were.” He hands the bottle back to me, unwilling to look me in the eye.
“Yeesh, was trying to make a joke.”Kind of.
“Oh. Then ha, ha.”
“That’s better.” I take another sip and sigh.
Chase jerks his head over to the porch steps. “Want to sit?”
“Sure.”
We sit on the dry top step, at least a foot apart, and stare out at what was supposed to be. The hole in the ground creates a brown splotch right where I was standing when my heart was shattered to pieces.
“I want to say I owe you an apology. But I feel like that’s not good enough,” Chase says, elbows leaning on his knees.
“Well, an anonymous endowment is a good start,” I say, swigging the bottle once more before holding it out to him.
He blushes. “You…”
“Don’t act like you didn’t want to be found out.”
“I didn’t. Swear to God I didn’t.”
“You’ve sworn a lot of things.”
Chase looks me dead in the eye, takes the bottle, and then shakes his head. “I don’t remember swearing anything.”
Another drink, another bit of warmth blooming through my chest.
“Listen, I have my reasons. I just don’t think you’ll like them,” he says.
“Try me. I’ve already been rejected at the altar. Not a lot can hurt me these days.”
Chase sighs. “Another joke?”
“Something like that.”
He puts the bottle down between us. “I was prepared to marry you. We had a contract laid out. It detailed everything in the event of anything. At least, that’s what I thought.” Chase laughs softly to himself. “The one thing I couldn’t have accounted for was the event of love.”
I suck my lower lip into my mouth and fiddle with a ring on my right hand.
“I meant what I said, Jude. Or, I guess, Imeanit.” The whites of his eyes look strained. Was he crying before I got here? “I love you. But I… I wasn’t prepared for that.”
“So you broke my heart instead,” I say softly.
“I told you that you might not like the reason.”
I feel so conflicted. On one hand, it feels so nice to be next to him again. On the other… this feels like the old Chase. The one whose coldness tried to push me away for years.
“I hurt you. I fucked up. I’m sorry. I couldn’t marry you that way. I couldn’t… I couldn’t compartmentalize anymore.” He looks up at the sky, mushy with sunset and clouds. “I just couldn’t do it that way. If I’m going to have you, I want you slow and steady. I want to be sure that we can make it on the other side of a wedding. Like really make it because…” Chase runs his hand over his chin, stubble running up against his hand. “You have had years to have those fantasies of me. Of us. Daydreams. The way you planned out our life in your head. The way you got to live that story for so long. I…” He swallows and I can tell it hurts. “I just got here. And it all happened at once. It’s so powerful. And it’s so fucking scary.”
