by Stacey Kade
After a moment, he blinks, shivering, and his chest heaves as he struggles to catch his breath. “Holy shit. I don’t think it’s been like that since I first learned to…” He stops himself and laughs with an edge of hysteria, and I remember the overpowering sensation of well-being that I felt, that he made me feel.
His face seems softer now, younger, more relaxed. “Thank you.”
I shake my head. “No, thank you for letting me…” I hesitate. “I was afraid … I wasn’t sure if I could.”
He reaches over me and pulls a handful of tissues from the box on the coffee table to wipe my arm.
As he cleans me up and then himself, I lean into him, kissing his forehead, his temple, the crinkles by his eyes, until he looks up at me.
I capture his soft and willing mouth with mine, trying to convey the sweetness that is building in my chest, threatening to bubble over in some unknown manner. Tears, words? I don’t know.
He touches my chin with his thumb. “Stay with me?” he asks.
My confusion must have shown in my face. “I am.”
“I mean tonight, in here.” He reaches down and tugs his jeans and boxers back into place, leaving the fly open.
Involuntarily, I look over my shoulder in the direction of the king-sized bed. “I don’t know. Mia’s here…” Though who am I kidding? She practically shoved me through the door into Chase’s room earlier. I take a moment to lift up a prayer that she’s asleep by now and hasn’t been listening with her ear pressed to the door. That would be embarrassing on a level I don’t want to contemplate.
“We’re right next door, if she needs something,” Chase says. “And I promise, I’ll keep to my half of the bed. Nothing else is going to happen tonight. I just want you here with me.”
When I turn my head to face him, the honesty, vulnerability, in his expression breaks something in me, and words come flooding to my tongue, dangerous ones.
Suddenly, I’m all too aware of what this sweet, tight feeling in my chest is.
Love. I’m in love with him.
All my fears of penises suddenly seem small in comparison.
I can’t love him. That’s crazy. This is over in a few days. He’s going back to California; I’m going home to finish my high school classwork and figure out if I can have something resembling a normal life. Maybe even apply to college, now that I feel like I have a shot at succeeding in a new environment.
But knowing those facts does not diminish the feeling in my chest. Not even a little bit.
Which is utterly terrifying in its own right. I don’t need a broken heart on top of everything else. I have enough to fix.
But when I open my mouth to explain all of that, the only thing that comes out is, “Yes.”
26
Chase
I’m true to my word, and I keep to my side of the bed.
But when Amanda comes back after waking Mia and seeing her safely on her way home, at, like, four thirty in the morning or some crazy-early hour even for me, Amanda climbs in on my side, sliding beneath the covers with a shiver.
“Everything all right?” I ask in a sleep-fogged voice.
“Yeah. She’s supposed to text me when she gets home,” Amanda says, but even half awake, I can hear worry in her voice. She scoots herself backward into me, fitting herself snugly between my chest and my legs, her butt pressed against my dick, which is only too happy with that arrangement.
“She’ll be okay,” I say. I back off, putting a few inches of space between us. It’s not enough, not when she’s warm, almost naked, and well within my reach. But I want us to start right. We don’t have to hurry.
So I work very hard on counting backward from one hundred by threes, and concentrate on matching my breath to Amanda’s. She relaxes against me, her muscles going slack, and that trust, I realize, means more to me than the rest.
“Do you hear something?” Amanda asks in a sleepy voice, startling me into awareness a few minutes later. At least, I think it’s just a few minutes.
I squint at her, her dark red hair spread over the pillow in front of me. Light is breaking through the curtains behind us, creating a blinding white line on the wall.
No, I didn’t hear anything, I don’t even hear anything now. Because somehow, I’ve lost the distance I put between us and she’s pressed right up against me, and the rush of blood in my ears is drowning out everything else.
I can’t stop myself from pushing up against her, and she makes a soft sound of approval, her hips rocking back into me.
But then she stops, her hand on my arm.
“Listen,” she says.
I do. It’s a faint and tinny sound of bells ringing.
“The alarm next door.” I kiss her neck, at the warm juncture with her shoulder, and she shivers. “Probably Housekeeping bumped it and it’s going off.”
Which I would like to be, too. All my good intentions are rapidly dissolving with the feel of her warmth pressed against me, with only the thin layers of her shorts and my boxers between us.
Pushing myself up on my elbow, I run my free hand down her leg, from hip to knee.
When my hand rounds the back of her knee, barely touching just the inside of her thigh, she shifts her left leg forward, giving me access.
I let out a sharp breath. I should stop. Doing anything more right now is going to leave us both frustrated and wanting what we can’t have at this precise moment, not when I’m supposed to be up for work soon. But my body and mind are on opposite sides of this debate.
Amanda’s legs move restlessly. “Chase,” she whispers. “Please.”
Debate over.
I slide my hand between her thighs and up, her skin growing warmer from the heat where her legs have been pressed together.
When I pause at the top of her leg and slide my hand beneath her shorts, she makes inarticulate sounds of encouragement. I stroke a finger lightly against the soft folds between her legs, and she makes a pleading noise, arching toward me.
But I maintain that teasing touch on her, up and down, the torment only heightening the moment.
Then to my surprise, she reaches down and presses her fingers against mine, holding it in place against her clit as she moves.
It sends an electrifying surge of lust through me.
I set my teeth gently in the skin at her shoulder, and she throws her head back.
Her breath is already coming faster when I lift my mouth, pressing a quick kiss against her skin.
“Keep going,” I tell her, sliding my finger down to where she’s already wet and warm and entering her.
She moans in response and moves faster, bumping against her hand and riding my finger.
I slide a second into her, gritting my teeth as my hard-on throbs with the need to be in that smooth, soft heat instead.
But it’s just a matter of seconds before her muscles clamp down hard and a ripple of spasms sends a shudder through her whole body.
Yeah. I grin. That would be Amanda: 2, Chase: 1, and I’m feeling pretty good about those statistics.
But then, in a breath of silence between Amanda’s gasps and my own thundering heartbeat, I hear the ringing again. Though distorted by distance, the bells sound familiar, more than they did a few minutes ago when I was still half asleep. I’m more than alert now.
With a sudden growing sense of dread, I pull carefully away from Amanda, even as she protests. And then my brain puts the final piece in place, and cold panic sweeps in.
“It’s the alarm. On my phone,” I say.
Suddenly the light beaming through the crack in the curtains seems way too bright. How late is it?
I lurch upward, reaching for the pillows next to me and sweeping them toward the foot of the bed. The bells get louder.
I feel blindly for my phone across the flat, smooth sheet. It was here when I went to bed, but I moved over when Amanda joined me and the pillows got shifted.
Her cheeks still flushed, Amanda crawls over the top of me, shoves her hair out o
f her face, and then reaches into the crack between the headboard and the mattress. “Here.” She hands my phone to me. “Happens to me all the time at home,” she says by way of explanation.
One quick look at the screen tells me I’m in trouble. “Fuck, the van’s going to be here in five minutes, and Emily’s called three times.”
“What do you need?” Amanda asks with that calm possession I so appreciate in a moment like this.
A drink. But I take a deep breath, in and out, forcing myself to think. “No, it’s fine; I can do it,” I say, more to myself than to her. “I showered last night. I just need to get dressed and get out the door.” Maybe Amanda’s unruffled demeanor is contagious because I’m far calmer than I would have been before in these circumstances.
But then again, it’s not nearly as bad as it has been in the past. I’m not hungover, unprepared, or in the wrong state. Yeah, that happened.
“I can do it,” I say again to myself, as much in surprise as confirmation. So I’m not going to fuck this up. Not today, anyway.
She grins at me. “Yeah, you can.”
I shove back the covers and stride toward the bathroom, only to take three steps back and lean over to kiss her. How is my life this much better so suddenly?
“Are you coming with me?” I ask with a smile as I pull away. “Because we’re probably at the four-minute mark now.”
Her eyes go wide and she scrambles off the bed, running for her room, a gorgeous blur of hair, pale skin, and white shirt.
She’s dressed and waiting for me by the time I’m out of the bathroom.
“You okay for clothes this morning?” I ask as we head into the hall and hurry toward the elevator.
“No time to freak out about it,” she says with a shrug. “I wanted to brush my teeth more.”
I laugh. “I respect the choice.”
“And I’ve got my jacket on.” She tugs at the front of her fleece. “So no one can even tell if I’m wearing short sleeves anyway.”
“But you are,” I say as we reach the elevator and I push the button.
“Yeah. I am,” she says with a tiny pleased-with-herself shrug.
“Is it weird if I say I’m proud of you since I had nothing to do with it?” I ask.
“No, I’ll take it.” She smiles up at me and rises on her tiptoes to kiss my mouth and then chin.
The five floors go by quickly that way, Amanda picking random places on my face to kiss—including the lines by my eyes, the ones much discussed by various professionals, which she says she likes—and the doors open on the lobby as Emily calls my phone again.
“How do you feel about making a small spectacle of ourselves?” I ask, stuffing my phone in my jeans pocket. I don’t want Emily reporting back that I’m not answering my phone, but neither do I want to call her and offer an excuse for why I’m not already outside and in the van.
“Only a small one? We’re scaling back?” Amanda asks, her eyes bright with humor.
“You know, just for today,” I say with feigned indifference. “Change it up a little.”
“Uh-huh. What do you have in mind?”
“Running.” I take her hand and tug her after me, and she’s laughing giddily as we dart across the shiny floor, flying past other guests and gawkers, heading for the front doors.
And for the first time in years, my heart feels light, weightless, even. In spite of everything Amanda and I have to figure out, the work still ahead of me and truths I have yet to confess, in this moment, I think I’m actually happy.
27
Amanda
“Oh, shit.” Chase comes to an abrupt halt, a step ahead of me, and I stop next to him, staring.
Beyond the hotel’s glass doors, the crowd is double what it was yesterday. Hotel security has corralled them behind wooden barricades to keep the entrance clear. But now, mixed in with the photographers and reporters are full camera crews and what appears to be just random people. Mostly women and girls, some of them younger than I am. They’re bundled up in jackets and scarves, their faces pink with excitement and cold. Some of them are holding thermoses and others …
I frown. “Are those—”
“Signs. Yeah,” Chase says, his jaw tight.
Now that I’m looking, I see dozens of homemade poster board placards with messages, decorated in puffy paint and glitter.
Most of them are for Chase exclusively, including a few marriage proposals and offers for childbearing. Does that ever actually work? And would you really want somebody who chooses you for matrimony or to be the mother of his children based on your masterful glue pen skills?
Others, to my surprise, bear the hashtag AMASE. Other variations include things like: WE LOVE YOU, AMANDA & CHASE; FAIRY TALES DO COME TRUE! <3; TRUE LOVE IS 4-EVER, AG + CH; LOVE FROM ABOVE. On this last, our names are surrounded by what I think is a depiction of angel wings. A connection to Chase’s guardian angel character on Starlight, maybe? Is this the Starlight fan contingent?
“Whoa,” I murmur. It’s sweet and more than a little intimidating. I don’t think Chase and I are even sure what we’re doing, and suddenly, strangers seem to have a vested interest in the outcome of something we’re still trying to figure out.
But a few of the signs bring tears to my eyes. They’re the simpler ones: AMANDA GRACE LIVES; GOD BLESS AMANDA; MIRACLES DO HAPPEN.
Wescott is only an hour from my house. Some of these people might well be the ones who spent their free time searching empty houses, drainage ditches, and stretches of uninterrupted forest trying to find me. Other people hung flyers, worked in a volunteer center, or called tip lines.
I clear my throat. “Did someone organize all of this?” I ask, leaning closer to Chase.
“It’s possible,” he says, “but usually, someone tells you ahead of time if it’s a planned spontaneous thing.” He gives me an ironic smile, raising the eyebrow that has the scar.
“Oh.”
Beyond the crowd, the roof of the white van that takes us back and forth to the set is barely visible. Emily is standing on her seat, looking over the top of everyone, her cell phone pressed to her ear.
A second later, Chase’s phone rings in his pocket again. He grimaces.
The blue-coated manager from the other day approaches hesitantly. “Mr. Henry, the service entrance is available to you again, if you’d like to contact your people and have them pick you up there instead.”
Chase looks to me.
“No, it’ll be fine.” I’m not 100 percent sure of that, but I feel more confident than I did the other day. Either way, I’m going to try.
Chase takes my hand, gives it a reassuring squeeze, and we head for the doors. As soon as the outer set opens, the crowd noise explodes and they lift and wave their signs into the air.
His fingers tighten on mine, but his smile is smooth, professional. If you didn’t know him, couldn’t feel the grip of his hand, you’d think he was thrilled.
But I can see the difference, the slight variation between public Chase and the private version. I like mine better.
He waves at the gathered people, but we move quickly for the van as voices shout at us.
“Chase, over here!”
“Chase, Amanda, do you have plans for what happens after filming?”
“Chase, I love you!”
“Amanda, is this all a publicity stunt?”
“Amanda, how do you feel about Chase saving you again?”
I fight to keep my expression neutral, but really? Where is that coming from? Of course that’s probably how it looks: poor traumatized girl suddenly pulled into the spotlight and falling in love, a modern version of Cinderella with celebrity standing in for royalty. But still, it makes me uncomfortable. Chase’s poster in that basement and the connection it had to my home and family gave me strength to fight, to escape, definitely. But now?
The whole point of coming here for me was to try to regain that courage I once had.
Because if all I’ve done is hand that responsibi
lity over to Chase, then I haven’t made any progress toward trusting myself. And I don’t think that’s the case at all.
“Can you sign this for me?” someone close to my elbow asks, her voice quiet compared to the shouting. Then, there’s a magazine being shoved in front of me, and I have to stop or knock it down.
It’s a copy of the People magazine with me on the cover.
I look up, startled, and the asker, a woman probably my mom’s age, smiles at me, perfectly pleasant, holding out a marker.
I freeze.
Confusion crosses her face, and she starts to frown.
Chase steps in, taking the Sharpie from her and handing it to me. I scrawl something that might have been my name or just a bunch of loops that vaguely resemble letters.
“Thank you,” the woman says, beaming at me, as Chase tugs on my elbow and leads me to the van door.
“She’s going to sell that on eBay the second she gets home,” he says in my ear with a grin. “Probably with one of those crocheted toilet roll dolls that’s supposed to look like you.”
I nod, but I’m shaking, my heart rattling in my chest. I’m not even sure why. She was nice enough. It’s just the idea of being singled out, which, duh, is what the entire crowd is doing to us. But I guess I always thought of it as more for Chase, not anything to do with me.
It occurs to me right then as I climb into the van that if this is something Chase and I want to do, to try to be in a real relationship, then this kind of reaction—crowds, signs, insulting questions, people asking me for autographs—will probably happen again. A lot. Eventually it would die down, but until then, we would be the focus of a lot of attention.
Before I was thinking of this only as a temporary obstacle, something to survive until it was done and I could go home. I want a normal life, have ever since I got back. But now, I’m not sure if that’s possible, not if I also want Chase.
“What happened? Why weren’t you answering your phone?” Emily asks Chase as soon as the door shuts behind us.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “This morning didn’t go the way I expected.” But he smiles at me, and his thumb rubs over the back of my hand, easing something tight in me.
