by Aubrey Gross
He chuckled. “Well, considering the last time we were around each other for any length of time your locker was decorated with pictures of matchbox twenty and Third Eye Blind…”
Jo laughed. “For what it’s worth, matchbox twenty is still my all-time favorite band, and I’ve been known to crank up ‘Semi-Charmed Life’ a time or two. Besides, the last time you and I spent any sort of time near each other I’m pretty sure you had ‘Smells like Teen Spirit’ on repeat.”
“Fair enough. People change.”
“Exactly. But, as for how I got into Texas country,” she paused, her brow furrowed, “I guess it was a kind of slow progression. I would listen to some stuff, the more popular stuff like Pat Green and Jack Ingram, but then I dated a guy who was in a band so any time we were together all we would listen to was Texas country. I got a little sick of it—I mean, you can only listen to ‘Boys from Oklahoma’ so many times before you feel like you might actually need a joint, even if it is rolled all wrong—and didn’t listen for a while. But then KOKE FM came back on the air, and most of the stuff on mainstream was, well, not very good, and I started listening more and more and, well, that’s that.”
“Wait, back up. First—you once dated a guy in a band?” That seemed a bit incongruous with the Jo he’d known and the Jo he’d spent the past eight and a half hours with. Not that he was counting or anything.
Jo shrugged a shoulder. “It’s the Austin thing to do.”
“So was he in Ragweed or just a fan of Ragweed?”
“Fan of Ragweed. In both senses of the word.”
Chase threw back his head and laughed. “You’re surprising me, Jo.”
“Honestly, it wasn’t my proudest moment. I’d just moved to Austin right after finishing my master’s degree. I was lonely, didn’t know anyone, and he approached me at a bar one night. I was just drunk enough to dance with him, and then got drunker enough and accidentally gave him my real phone number. That relationship lasted a whopping three weeks.”
“Is that even long enough to be considered a relationship?”
She snorted. “Who the hell knows? God knows to the teenagers I work with it is.”
“How in the world do you do it?”
She looked up at him. “Do what?”
“Counsel teenagers?” He shuddered. “I can’t think of a group of people that would be harder to deal with.”
She shifted in her seat, fiddled with her now empty wine glass before angling her body towards him. “That’s precisely why I do it—they’re difficult and emotional and desperately need someone they can talk to who won’t judge them. You remember what it was like to be a teen, right? I mean, we’re not that old.”
He thought about his teenage years. They’d been difficult, yes, but fun. He’d had a good family, a promising future in collegiate baseball, friends and plenty of girls who were willing to be his girlfriend, even if he hadn’t really been interested in any of them. Yeah, he had his scars—literally—but other than his childhood illness, the hardest thing he’d had to deal with as a teen had been the sudden loss of Jo’s friendship.
He’d actually cried over her one night, after sneaking home from a homecoming bonfire at which there may have been copious amounts of alcohol passed around among all of the underage participants.
It was the first and only time he drank until he was of a legal age.
Aside from that, though, he guessed he’d probably had it pretty easy. Some kids, he knew, weren’t so lucky.
“Being a teenager kind of sucks,” he finally said.
“Exactly. It’s just…I weirdly relate to them. My life looked great on the outside, you know? But I was a mess on the inside. My home life was a clusterfuck, to put it bluntly. There was so much pressure to be perfect. From my mom. Myself. I always thought that maybe if I was smart enough, pretty enough Dad would pay more attention and actually be a dad. I know now that there’s nothing I could have done to make him pay more attention—he was who he was, and that man was content to hide in his books and not deal with the real world, much less his cheating wife and his needy daughter. And Mom. God. There’s a great example for a teenage girl to follow. I developed an eating disorder, had it until I was halfway through my junior year of college and ended up in the hospital and started working with a therapist who specializes in EDs. I gained a lot of weight in recovery—you wouldn’t have recognized me—and lost a decent amount of it afterwards when I started treating myself right, lifting and actually feeding my body. Up until that point I’d planned on going into psychiatry and opening my own practice, but once I was out of the thick of it and could think about it without feeling crazy and out of control, I realized that I could have used a really good counselor in high school, someone to talk to who wasn’t a friend but who still got it. So I changed majors slightly and decided to be a high school counselor. And I’m rambling and saying way more than I should have and I’m out of wine. I need more wine.”
Behind Jo, Chase saw Jenn and Owen approaching the back door. He subtly shook his head and motioned for them to go back inside. He needed this conversation to continue, even if what Jo was telling him made him feel equal parts sick, angry and protective. Luckily, Jenn actually listened for once.
Chase set his beer on the table before taking the empty wine glass from Jo’s hands and setting it on the table, too. Then he did the only thing he could do—wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head, realizing that somewhere in that jumbled, rambly mess she’d accidentally poured out, was another answer.
~~*~~
Jo felt Chase’s arms wrap around her as her head swam. Whether it was from wine, emotions or embarrassment she wasn’t sure, but it was probably a combination of all three. Vaguely, she heard Imagine Dragons’ “Demons” coming from her phone’s speakers. Fitting.
She felt like she should warn Chase that she had demons hiding inside. Danger. Stay away. Don’t get too close.
“Well, that’s not Texas country.”
She snorted into his shirt before taking a deep breath. He smelled like sun and skin and everything she’d ever wanted but couldn’t have. She’d noticed it earlier on the boat, when he’d kissed her.
His scent made her mouth water.
“I told you, I listen to a little bit of everything, just mostly Texas country.”
“Who is this?”
“Imagine Dragons.” She shrugged. “I like their sound.”
“It’s interesting.”
She pulled away from him. “You don’t like it.”
“I didn’t say that.”
His voice was slightly teasing, and she finally chanced a look up at him. Their gazes met, and Jo felt like she’d been punched in the gut.
“Don’t feel sorry for me, Chase.”
He twirled a lock of her hair around his index finger, his brow furrowed in thought, before he met her gaze again. “I don’t feel sorry for you, Jo. I feel bad for the girl you were, and I wish you would have just told me that stuff was going on instead of pushing me away.”
She drew a deep breath, and had apparently drunk just enough wine to loosen her tongue, because the next thing out of her mouth was an unplanned, “That wasn’t what did it. Not really. I overheard my mom on the phone one day. She was hitting on someone—very explicitly telling whoever it was what she wanted to do to him. I’d suspected she cheated on my dad, and when I heard her…I was disgusted and embarrassed, and thought I might be sick because that was my mom saying those things, but I couldn’t move. It was like I was frozen in the hallway. And then she said your dad’s name, and I really did almost get sick then. She got kind of mad, and then sweet again, and hung up. I knew your dad loved your mom and wouldn’t ever cheat on her, but at the time I felt like it was somehow my fault, that if you and I hadn’t been friends maybe she never would have hit on him. I was embarrassed and sick and disgusted with my mom and ver
y, very stupidly pushed you away in an attempt to protect you and your family from my mother.”
She chanced a glance up at Chase’s face, only to find his expression incredibly difficult to read. Wine. She needed more wine. There was none. She blindly groped for his beer.
“I’m not sure which one of us needs that more right now.”
Jo almost choked in relief. He was speaking. Thank God, he was speaking.
“All this time, I thought it was me.”
“You?” she asked stupidly.
“The scars. You saw the scars. Not long after that you stopped talking to me.”
She reached up and cupped his cheek. “Oh, Chase. No. It was my stupid mom and me being a dumb, scared teenager. That day I saw the scars? I wanted you to kiss me so bad my teeth hurt. It was my stupid, stupid mother.”
~~*~~
Jo’s words, her hand on his cheek, the tears glistening in her eyes and answers—thank God finally, some more answers—gripped Chase and had his brain spinning.
He ached. Ached for the girl she’d been and the boy he’d been, caught up in and victims of stupid adult decisions and teenage angst. Ached for what they could have been and the time they’d lost. Ached for her.
He just…ached.
So he did the only thing he could think to do, the only thing that made any sense in the swirling morass in his head. He kissed her.
For the second time that day.
It was meant as comfort. For him. For her. He really wasn’t sure.
Just…comfort.
He’d meant to gently brush her lips with his own, just once or twice.
For comfort.
But he ached.
And comfort quickly turned into something more than comfort as her tongue tangled with his and he could feel her shuddered breath beneath his palms. He’d purposely kept distance between them in the boat earlier, needing to know and yet not ready to fully know just how deep his attraction still ran. Now, though, there was no distance. Their bodies were pressed against each other on the small glider, and he could feel the skin of her calf brushing against his knee.
He ached.
She sighed. A breathy, ragged sound as her fingers dug into his shoulders. He could feel her breasts pressing against his chest. The softness of her hair between his fingers on one hand, and softness of the curve of her thigh under his other hand.
He ached dammit.
Chase vaguely heard the sound of voices inside the house. Jo apparently did too, as she slowly backed away. Not wanting to lose her just yet, he chased her mouth again with his, caught her lips in one more far too brief kiss.
Jenn and Owen’s voices intruded again, closer now. Chase shifted in the seat, and he noticed that Jo did, too, and that her cheeks were slightly flushed. But she didn’t look like she was going to cry anymore. Thank God for that.
Sensing they were on borrowed time, he dropped a quick kiss on Jo’s forehead. She looked up at him, and he could see the relief, embarrassment and confusion mingling together on her face, knew she probably saw similar emotions on his.
And he ached.
~~*~~
Chapter Five
Jo woke the next morning with a pounding headache and a slightly queasy stomach. She shielded her eyes against the bright sunlight filtering in from her bedroom window and groaned.
How much wine had she had to drink last night?
She started to count, ended up at three glasses. God, she was a lightweight.
Then she remembered her conversation with Chase.
And almost threw up.
She breathed in through her nose. In. Out.
In.
Out.
Slow and steady like she advised her teens when they came to her panicky about test results. Of all kinds. Didn’t seem to matter if it was a math test or a pregnancy test—that simple four-letter word seemed to invoke panic like no other.
Had she really drunkenly spilled her guts to Chase last night? Her stomach churned in a resounding yes.
Fuck.
Jo sat up slowly and reached for the bottle of water on her night stand, opened it and drank slowly. Thinking back, she realized that part of the problem was that she probably hadn’t had enough water yesterday prior to drinking that favorite red moscato. Normally, three glasses spaced decently far apart would maybe make her tipsy, but not drunk.
Well, in all fairness she hadn’t really been drunk. Rather, she’d been in that place between tipsy and drunk where she was fully aware of everything she was saying but her tongue was just a little too loose to stop. Her thoughts had jumbled and jostled and pushed to get out, and they had.
She’d been tired of holding all that in, and Chase deserved the truth. Hell, she deserved the telling of the truth.
Jo finished the water and crawled out of bed, padded to the bathroom and took a long, hot shower before getting dressed. She joined Gran in the kitchen.
“There’s a plate warming for you in the oven.”
Jo glanced at the time. Eight-thirty. Her grandmother hadn’t been up and out of bed too long either, then. She bussed a kiss on the older woman’s cheek.
“You didn’t have to do that, Gran.”
Gran shook out her newspaper. “Eggs, bacon and biscuits with gravy. I put a few bottles of Gatorade in the fridge for you, too. Might be cool by now.”
Jo turned slowly, carefully placing her breakfast plate on the small eat-in breakfast table. “I’m not sure if I should be embarrassed or thankful.” No use beating around the bush.
A hearty chuckle shook her grandmother’s body. “Just be thankful, young lady. I was young once, too. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying yourself every now and then.”
Jo opened the Gatorade she’d snagged from the fridge, deciding to be thankful to her grandmother as the cool liquid wet her parched mouth. She sat, chewed thoughtfully on her eggs and swallowed. “You do know it’s only every now and then, right, Gran?”
Gran didn’t even bother looking up from her newspaper this time. “Of course I do, Jolene Dolly. You’re a good girl, always have been. A couple drinks every now and then ain’t gonna hurt nobody.”
Jo groaned. “Please don’t call me that, Gran.”
“It’s your name.”
“It’s awful is what it is. And it’s not my name anymore.”
Gran dropped the newspaper to the table. “It’s not?”
“I thought I’d told you? When I changed my last name to yours, I changed my middle name to Sommers. I didn’t really want their last name anymore, but, I don’t know, I couldn’t quite let go of it completely I guess.”
Gran picked her paper back up. “Like I said, you’re a good girl, Jolene. Now eat up and get hydrated. It’ll help the headache.”
“How do you know I have a headache, Gran?” Jo teased.
“Because you’re my granddaughter, that’s how.”
Jo smiled and ate up.
~~*~~
Later that afternoon, while Gran was doing her PT homework in the living room, Jo changed into workout clothes, popped her earbuds in, and headed out to the garage for her own version of physical therapy.
She queued up her workout playlist and slipped her phone back into the tight pocket inside her workout shorts. She moved her kettle bells to the center of the garage before grabbing her dumb bells and setting them beside the kettle bells, wishing she’d been able to bring her entire rack with her but thankful she’d finally been able to get in a workout.
She’d been here…ugh, two weeks. Two weeks without exercising.
No wonder she was getting emotional—she needed some endorphins. Stat.
Jo warmed up, moving fluidly from stretch to stretch. She paused to drink some water before picking up her dumb bells and beginning her normal routine. Somewhere between upper body and lower body
, her earbuds started slipping out and refused to stay in. Frustrated, she ripped them out of her phone, which she sat next to her water, volume turned up all the way.
She’d just finished Russian kettle bell swings and was in the process of moving into a set of goblet squats, Eminem’s “The Monster” blaring from her phone, when she heard Chase’s voice behind her.
“You really do listen a variety of stuff, don’t you?”
She almost dropped fifty pounds of cast iron on her foot.
Almost.
Instead, she turned around, the kettle bell dangling in her hands, and asked, “Don’t you know better than to startle someone in the middle of a workout?”
“Hey, I waited until you were done with the swings. I was pretty sure Gran wouldn’t appreciate having a hole in her wall.”
“The Monster” gave way to “Gunpowder and Lead,” and Jo suddenly felt angry. “Why are you here, Chase?”
He shrugged, obviously uncomfortable. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
Determined to finish her workout, Jo dropped into a deep squat. “And why--” Up. “Wouldn’t I--” Down. “Be--” Up. “Okay?” Down.
He raked a hand through his hair and looked over her shoulder before turning his gaze back to her. She waited for him to respond.
Up.
Down.
Breathe.
Up.
Down.
Breathe.
“I got the impression you hadn’t planned on all of that coming out last night. Not like it did. And not last night.”
Up.
Down.
Breathe, Jolene.
Up.
Down.
Breathe.
“You would be correct.”
Up.
Down.
Breathe.
Why did he have to be so fucking gorgeous?
Jo’s heart was racing, and she wasn’t sure if it was from the workout or him or both.
He was ruining her workout.
Maybe.
The eye candy was nice.
Being watched so intently, however, was unnerving.
She finished her squats in silence, concentrating on counting each rep. As Jo set the kettle bell down on the floor and grabbed her water, she almost laughed out loud as the lyrics of Sugarcult’s “Pretty Girl” pummeled her ears.
