Without Warning (Capparelli & Co. Book 1)

by Dee Lagasse

  “Ugh,” I groan out loud to myself. My little trip down memory lane abruptly interrupted by the reminder that if I don’t text or call Chase soon, shit’s going to hit the fan. “Fuck.”

  The thought of having to explain what happened today makes me sigh. He’s going to be upset I didn’t come to him with exactly how sucky things were with Noah. He’s not an idiot. He knew things weren’t leading up to a happily forever after, but he has no idea how non-existent Noah was in my life.

  My family is going to be upset I hid it too. For all they knew, everything was fine and dandy in the world of “Hollis and Noah, the couple.” The impending look of disappointment from my brother hangs over me like a cloud full of guilt. We haven’t kept a secret from each other our entire lives.

  Instead of figuring out how I'm going to tell everyone, I do what I do best. Pushing back my emotions, I procrastinate having to put myself out there, deciding I’ll deal with it later. I reach for the scrapbook sitting on the pillow next to me. The blue book with “Memories” written across the cover sits in the spot I tossed it to after looking for a certain picture to make a cheesy happy birthday Instagram post for Davis this morning. I knew the picture was in the back, so I had flipped right to the last page this morning, leaving the rest of the book untouched.

  As soon as I open to the first page, a sudden, overwhelming sense of nostalgia hits me like a ton of bricks. Looking back at me is the fifteen-year-old version of myself. The cream-colored visor on my head, the magenta puffy vest, and flared jeans make me cringe. A decade ago, I was certain they were the coolest articles of clothing I could possibly own.

  My make-up is very minimal except for an obvious thick strip of white eyeliner drastically outlining my upper eyelid. The most noticeable detail of the picture is the pure, genuine happiness on my face as I’m wrapped up in the arms of a sixteen-year-old Chase Merrimack. A slight, half smirk on his face doesn’t convey much emotion, but the excitement of the moment is completely captured in the lightness of his bright green eyes.

  In the background is a football field, the lights shining brightly above us. The scoreboard reading VISITOR: 24, HOME: 28. Less than five minutes before that picture had been taken, with only 39 seconds left in the game, Chase had run 42-yards for the game winning touchdown. He was, at the time, only one of four sophomores on the Varsity team. He had worked so hard through the entire season to prove himself, and was the reason our high school's team not only went to, but won the state championship.

  Seconds after he made it to the end zone, I remember running through the bleachers, skipping rows as fast as I could. One of the first to arrive on the field, I pushed my way through 40 football players and coaches. For the rest of my life, I will never forget the sound of his laughter when he saw me come through the crowd of people surrounding him.

  “Soul mates.” Those two words are the ones our friends and family, to this day, constantly throw around when it comes to the two of us. Our response—separately or together—has always been an eye roll, maybe some laughter or a shake of our heads, but we never agreed with them. At least not out loud.

  Though in all honesty, in the beginning, I secretly allowed myself to get swept up in the thought of it. The concept that in your lifespan you will meet hundreds, if not thousands of people, and two people can be so connected that they “belong” together makes even me, the self-proclaimed black-hearted ice queen, sentimental.

  And there’s the fact that if we denied the connection between us, we would be lying. Whenever we are together it’s as if we have this incredible inside joke that the rest of the world is just dying to know. It’s been like that since the very first day we met. Of course, there's a catch though. There’s always a catch.

  Our souls may be “meant” for each other, but souls don’t understand the concept of timing. They don't have calendars with the ability to pencil in the perfect date, or clocks with snooze buttons for when you're not quite ready. When fate, the universe, or whatever God or gods you believe in decide it's time to turn your whole world upside down, they just send someone crashing into your life.

  It doesn't matter if you're prepared or not. There are no written directions or instruction manuals. Without warning, that person comes crashing into your life, and you're completely on your own.

  I wasn't ready for my world to turn upside down. But, oh man, did it turn that September morning when the “new kid” walked into my sophomore gym class. Thinking back to the first day I met Chase makes me chuckle to myself and smile a dopey, cheesy grin. Unbeknownst to me, the day before he started school, my brother and my cousin Travis were called down to the guidance office and were told that Chase, a boy that played football with them during rec football days, was moving back to Abbott Hills. Out of all the people he played with, Chase remembered Davis and Travis. My brother and my cousin took him under their wings before he even stepped foot into the school, even going as far as securing him a late in the season football try-out.

  I knew I was a goner the second our eyes locked. I pretended not to care when the guys caught up at the lunch table later that day. Instead I hung onto every word as he told me how he had only lived in Abbott Hills for two years when his dad's job relocated his family to New Hampshire from Washington. His mom had loved New Hampshire so much that as soon as Chase's parents' divorced was finalized, she packed up Chase and his little brother Tucker and moved them back to Abbott Hills.

  Despite what you’re probably thinking, it wasn't love. I don't care what anyone says, that “insta-love” crap is just that–complete crap. No, it wasn’t love, but meeting Chase felt like coming home. That we were meant to be in each other’s lives and something inside me knew we always would be. When we’re together, everything in the world feels safe and right.

  I can’t tell you every exact detail of some of the most important, most memorable days of my life, but if someone were to ask me about the entire day I met Chase? I could tell you everything. All the way down to the cereal I ate for breakfast. (It was Lucky Charms.)

  But I wasn't the kind of girl Chase wanted. At least not sixteen, seventeen, eighteen-year-old Chase. I had plain brown hair and freckles. I wore ripped jeans and band tees. I didn’t care that he wore a football jersey for our school, but I understood the game he played and loved so much. I had morals. I cared about my grades and my future more than fitting in and the latest fads. I didn’t need his attention constantly like the girls (he still tries to deny) he was getting “attention” from after practice. I had a lot of friends, in a lot of circles, but I was good being left in my own company too.

  When Chase looked at me, he saw a girl that was dependable. The kind of girl that you tell all your secrets to–and over time, he did just that. Before long, he wasn’t “Davis and Travis’ friend, Chase,” he was “Hollis’ best friend, Chase.”

  We were thick as thieves and did everything together. Every week, for three years, during football season, he chose me to be his rally girl. He became an extension of my family and shortly after, so did his brother and his mom. Mischa Merrimack became the mother figure I turned to so many times as both a teenager and as an adult.

  There were so many times I went over to their house to make cookies or watch movies with his mom. Every time I went over, I got the scoop on who was trying to be the next girl that slept with Abbott Hill’s beloved wide receiver. Every one of them hoping to be the girl that got to wear his jersey to school on game days. But much to their chagrin, that honor always went to me—his best friend. The fact that he was Chase, the football God of Abbott Hills High didn’t faze me. Student government, select choir, and being an assistant captain of the girls’ Varsity soccer team kept me worrying about my own stats.

  I would be lying if I said there wasn’t a time or five that we almost crossed a line we never would have been able to come back from. Without fail, one of us always pulled back before it became something more. Each moment never spoken about again. As if it never happened. That was, until the d
ay I decided I couldn't live on a “what if” or a “maybe” anymore. The day I pushed the idea of anything more than friendship and the mixed feelings I had for Chase aside, a new world opened to me—a world full of boys.

  As it happens though, I should have kept walking past the next two fellas to grab my attention. The first one was Alex Hinsdale, a dumb seventeen-year-old boy that still wanted to be my boyfriend after he tried to dump me for just one night to take his ex-girlfriend to the prom. And then there was Noah. Not to say there weren’t a few drunken hook-ups in college and a couple dinner dates after and in between Alex and Noah, but nothing that lasted long enough to be considered something serious.

  Maybe I was just meant to be alone, to still live in my father’s basement when I’m fifty. I should probably get a cat or six, and start extreme couponing, really embrace the forever single lifestyle. Shaking the thought, I look at the photo of me and Chase for a moment longer before turning to the next page.

  Polaroids of me and a tall brunette are scattered over the next two pages. Her olive skin looks a few shades darker next to the pale, porcelain-like tone of mine. Every one of them are captioned within the white film underneath the processed photograph.

  Reaching for my phone to send the “KINLEY & HOLLIS – SISTERS FROM OTHER MISTERS” pages of me and Kinley to her, I see that it's 5:23PM.

  …and I never turned my phone off silent.

  Notifications are stacked one on top of the other on my lock screen. Two missed calls, a voicemail, and three texts from Kinley; two calls from “Twin”; a call from my dad; and a text from my cousin Ellis. Ugh. There’s no need to open them. Every one of them will be about the text I sent to Kinley.

  Thinking rationally had not been my top priority earlier. Had I been thinking rationally, I would have realized what and where she would be walking into reading the text I sent. Right about now, Kinley's townhome, the one that she shares with my brother, is filling up for Davis’s annual birthday poker night.

  My dad, uncles, cousins, his friends that have known me most of my life, and a slew of off-duty police officers will be witnessing Kinley freaking out over the text message I sent an hour ago, one that I haven’t responded to, in addition to all of their calls.

  And Chase. Shit. Shit. Shit. Chase will be there by now too. So much for holding off. Before I get a hold of Chase, I need to text Kinley. Maybe if I can convince her I’m okay, she’ll pass along the message and the guys will let it go for the night. It’s wishful thinking to say the least, but I don’t have a Plan B right now.

  Quickly scanning through the messages from her first to see if there is a question I need to answer immediately, I stop when I see, “I'll head over in a few mins but, Chase was here. He wasn't waiting on an answer...he's on his way over.”

  Putting my finger on the H in the box below the text window, I start to respond back, freezing in place when I hear, “I will fucking kill him.”

  Looking up, I am greeted with a set of bright green eyes that I'd know anywhere. Despite the shit show that’s about to take place, I would have to be both blind and crazy to not appreciate Chase Merrimack standing there—distressed jeans, white t-shirt, and backwards black hat— looking like he's ready to take on the entire world for me.

  It takes him seven seconds to make his way to over me. Five seconds for him pull me off the bed and into his arms. And two seconds for me to completely fall apart.

  Chapter Two

  Chase

  I have never considered myself a weak man.

  I’ve been in my fair share of fights, both off and on the field. There’s a whole long list of concussions, strains, tears, fractures, and broken bones, and I’ve been on the receiving end of more than a couple slaps in the face from females who didn’t believe me when I said that I didn’t do serious. But there isn’t any injury in existence that could have prepared me for what I just walked into.

  I still don’t know exactly what happened to get me here, in Hollis’s bedroom, in the first place. Twenty minutes ago, I had just walked into Davis Capparelli’s for his annual birthday poker night. While grabbing a Sam Summer from the fridge, I overheard Davis’s girlfriend Kinley frantically reading Davis a text from Hollis.

  All it took was hearing, “She’s not answering my calls or my texts, Davis. Doesn’t your sister know you cannot send someone a picture of an empty ring finger with a text that says ‘help’?” for me to abandon all reason and rush out the door.

  Acting on instinct, there was no time for goodbyes. Leaving the open beer on the counter, I ran out of the house without a word to anyone. In retrospect, driving thirty miles-per-hour over the speed limit across town to her house probably wasn’t the safest or the smartest thing to do. In the back of my mind I think I knew if I got pulled over, all I had to do was let them know I was checking on Sergeant Davis Capparelli’s twin sister and I’d have ended up with a police escort with flashing lights, sirens and all.

  The sight of her black Jeep parked in the driveway as I pulled onto her street allowed me to exhale the first real, deep breath since I left her brother’s townhouse. That sudden sense of relief would be gone as fast as it came though. Sitting up cross-legged on her bed, I found her staring at a scrapbook in her lap. Her foot tapped along to some country song while a sad smile lingered on her face as she looked down at whatever was on those pages.

  All it took was one look at her to tell she was just pretending to be okay. She’s good at masking her emotions. Over the thirteen years I’ve known her, I’ve only seen her cry a handful or so of times and they were during Harry Potter movies. And then once before our Senior Prom when her date bailed on her last minute.

  Well, to be more exact, she didn’t shed a tear because her douche boyfriend at the time Alex Hinsdale tried to break up with her “for a day” to take Brooklyn Barrington to prom, solely based on the promise of making it “worth it” afterwards. Alex didn’t care that Brooklyn had already offered the same promise to me, Travis, and half the football team before making her way over to the baseball team. I had learned my lesson with Brooklyn already and none of the other guys were dumb enough to take the drama that always came attached with doing anything with Brooklyn…Except the douche dating the girl who was, at the time, planning on holding onto her V card until marriage.

  Spreading like wildfire, like most gossip and drama does in high school, it didn’t take long for my phone to start blowing up with people “concerned” for Hollis. Just like today, she refused to answer her phone that day too. But instead of me coming to her, just as I was about to walk out the door of my mother’s house, there was a short knock and then it opened.

  She was, and still is, the only person that can just walk into my mother’s house and no one bats an eye. She didn’t wait for me to ask what happened, she just started spewing obscenities, calling Alex every name in the books. I will never forget the disbelief and shock on my mom’s face when she heard her sweet little “adopted” daughter call him a “pussy ass piece of shit.”

  Without skipping a beat, she went right into her plan to work at her grandparents’ restaurant to pay her dad back for the money “wasted” on a prom she wouldn’t be attending. Like most things when it comes to Hollis, before I knew what I was saying, I asked her to be my date. I hadn’t even wanted to go to prom. It would have made sense to go if I had a girlfriend, but I didn’t. And I didn’t see the point in taking a girl I wouldn’t be talking to a year from then.

  That was until a bunch of the guys from the football team convinced me to go a week before. “One last hurrah for the Wolf Pack,” they said. I had a tux from being in my aunt’s wedding earlier that Spring, so I said fuck it and bought the ticket. I figured I’d spend a few hours at the hotel, take some pictures, and then we’d head up to one of the guys’ family cabin on Lake Winnipesauke.

  She was calm and collected when she asked if I was sure, but the hope in her eyes would have had me moving mountains if necessary. When I promised that it was exactly what I
wanted, she burst into tears, and then apologized a hundred times for being emotional.

  That’s how it’s always been though. Since the very first day I met her. To everyone else, Hollis Capparelli has perfected the art of putting up walls and pretending everything is fine. Despite having a small army’s worth of people behind her always, she doesn’t want to be an inconvenience to anyone around her.

  I’ve always been the only one that could easily call her bluff. Her poker face is solid, but it’s not about her facial expressions or body language—it’s all in her eyes. That’s why as soon as I spoke, and she jerked her head up to look at me, I swear I died a little inside.

  I made a somewhat joking comment about killing the, I guess, now ex-fiancé of hers. At first glance, you wouldn’t have known she was on the brink of losing it. But when she looked up at me and I saw the complete hopelessness in her eyes, I was certain I felt the world crumble beneath me.

  I didn’t consider myself a weak man.

  Not until my favorite person on this Earth completely fell apart in my arms. It’s been a few minutes since she clung to me, holding on as if my presence was the very last thread keeping her together. There’s not a single word said between the two of us as she leaves puddles of black mascara all over my white t-shirt.

  It’s not for a lack of trying though. Everything I play out in my head just sounds ridiculous. I could tell her that it’s “his loss,” but I guarantee she already knows this. I could say that she’s “better than him,” but I hope she knows that too. God knows I thought it the entire time they were together. This isn’t the time to be charming or try to make her laugh, so I just stand there like a fucking idiot while she sobs into my chest.

  “I don't even want to hear it, you know,” she sniffles, breaking the silence, slowly pulling herself away just enough to look up at me. “I know it's coming, but right now I can’t handle the ‘I told you so’ speech.”