by Grey, Chloe
He was hurting. His heart hurt. Being with her was special, wonderful, and one of the stupidest things he’d ever done when he realized it could cost him their friendship. As they walked into the diner, he did his best to discard the memory of a naked Meaghan underneath him, back in the room.
It wasn’t until he got to their seat that he realized how impossible that actually was. He thought about taking his breakfast to eat in the room alone, and told himself not to be a coward. They would eat together, and enjoy each other’s company. So he sat down opposite her at the table.
“Hey!” She waved her menu at him. “You can have cooked or continental. I’m going for cooked, but you can choose whatever you want.”
Their eyes met, and he couldn’t help thinking she wanted him to go away. Far away. Maybe she was feeling the same way. He couldn’t help obsessing. The scent of the cooked breakfast from another table reached his nostrils, and his stomach grumbled.
“I thought we could work out how we’re going to do things today while we’re eating,” she suggested. “We didn’t talk much about that before.” She trailed off, and he almost thought she was going to say something else, but she didn’t.
“No, it’s fine.” Chase wished he could read her mind. “I…never mind. Don’t worry about it.”
“Tell me.”
“You’re giving me this look. It makes me think you don’t want me around.”
“Ignore it, Chase. It’s hard to describe how I’m feeling. Things are new; different. And different can sometimes be difficult. Things are going to keep being difficult for a while. I have no idea when I’m going to stop worrying. And now I have another thing to worry about.”
“What’s that?”
“That maybe we’ve made a mistake.” She stared down at the tablecloth. “I feel uncertain.”
Chapter 9
Chase didn’t know what to say. He was relieved and pensive and hesitant at the same time. When the waiter appeared and requested his order, he was glad for the break in his thoughts. After he ordered, the waiter dashed off, and they were quiet for a little while.
“I remember feeling that way when I got the letter from college,” he began. “I was certain they weren’t going to accept me, and it took me forever to open the letter. Why would they want me?” He shook his head again, remembering every moment, and realized it was another example of his tendency to think the worst.
“I was elated when I realized I’d been accepted, but at the same time I wasn’t. I was happy they wanted me, but I knew it meant I was in for more stress once I got there. Everything was uncertain then, and it’s uncertain now.”
“Dad didn’t want me to go to the same college as you.” Meaghan took a sip from her water after squeezing lemon into it. “He wanted me to go somewhere else. Somewhere better, he kept saying. He thought I deserved it. But why would he even think that, when he hadn’t set much money aside for me to truly entertain it?
He couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to go to some Ivy League place. He thought it would be good for me. I thought it would be the worst place I could possibly go. How would I even afford it, to begin with? And add the workload to that? I’ve heard some real horror stories about people who go there and aren’t ready for it, or just the hierarchy of it all.”
“So have I, but I think you would have been fine. You’re one of those people who would make it and be successful no matter where you go.”
***
Looking at him was hard. Meaghan kept imagining him on top of her, his hooded, darkened eyes reflecting passion and ecstasy. She was doing everything she could to push that memory aside.
“Maybe I would have done well at an Ivy League school, but I still didn’t want to go,” she said, thinking at least the topic of conversation was tame. “Dad kept telling me I was making a huge mistake, which wasn’t easy to deal with. I knew I wasn’t. I was doing the right thing for me, no matter what he thought. In the end, I came to terms with the fact he would never understand me. I’m more like Aunt Jennifer than like him. She pretty much raised me, anyway. He didn’t. He couldn’t.”
“Losing your mom must have been hard for him to deal with.”
“It was hard for both of us.” Her memories of her mother were fuzzy, but the images of her death remained razor sharp. “Dad withdrew into himself, which was understandable, while I…I had no choice but to grow up very quickly, because he needed me. Aunt Jennifer did what she could, but she was having a very hard time, too.”
“I know. I remember being there for the funeral. I was holding your hand. Three days later, I held you when you cried. After that, I don’t think I ever saw you cry over your mom’s death again.”
“Crying wasn’t going to do me any good. Not when there was growing up that needed to be done. Aunt Jennifer did what she could. I should have been enjoying my childhood, but instead I was missing the loss of both my parents. Dad was a shell for so long. And he left me over at Aunt Jennifer’s for weeks on end.”
Chase spoke up. “That’s one of the things I’ve always been furious with him for. You resent my parents for not giving me a childhood, and I resent your dad for not giving you one.”
“It’s fair.” A plate of food appeared in front of her. “Thank you.”
The waiter checked to see if they needed anything else, and headed off to serve another table. Meaghan looked down at the plate, and tried not to focus on the fluttering in her stomach. If she was going to get through the rest of the day, she needed to eat.
“Sometimes I get so mad at Dad for putting up a wall between us when I was young.” She felt as if she was rambling. “Actually, when I think about it, there are a lot of things I resent Dad for, because he wasn’t a good example. I wish he had been, but there were so many choices he made that could have been so much better. Neglecting your mom, and then divorcing her and marrying Wanda is a huge example of that. There are other examples, of course.”
“We may know each other better than anyone else, but we still keeps secrets, don’t we?”
“Yeah, we do.”
She looked at him, and last night flashed through her mind again.
“How could we not? There are times when I just wanted to be able to spend some time not thinking about how terrible my life was. I wanted to just…to forget for a bit.”
She cut her food into pieces, hoping to make it look more appetizing, but nothing helped. As she filled her fork, she shrugged.
“You, I believe, were the same way.”
“Most of the time I was. Then there were days when all I wanted to do was talk about it, and you were always there to listen.”
“And I always will be there to listen, because I care about you. You’re my best friend, Chase.” She felt her face flush as she thought of sleeping with him. Nothing made sense. “We’re always going to be friends, Chase,” she added, uncertain who she was trying to convince.
At the time, sex had seemed right, so she knew she shouldn’t regret it. Despite everything she told herself, she did regret it. She regretted it for so many reasons, she wasn’t sure she knew what each of them were. “No matter what happens, I promise we will always be friends,” she said.
The look he gave her was impossible to read. She didn’t know what he was thinking, and she couldn’t bring herself to ask. She knew she should. They needed to talk about it, and they would have to eventually. Could she still be friends with him if the sex was a temporary thing?
The waiter brought Chase’s breakfast, and he began to eat. She played with her food. She tried to push all her emotions aside. What she needed to be thinking about was finding a place to rent, and finding a job, instead of thinking so much about something she couldn’t change. It had happened, and there was nothing she could do about it. In a couple of days, they could talk about it, but it was best to get settled first.
She watched him stir pieces of his omelette around on his plate. Maybe he was just as perplexed.
“Now, what’s the plan for toda
y?” she asked.
“Find a nice place. And look for jobs we like. Or at least jobs we can tolerate until we find something we like. While I was waiting for you, I emailed a couple more places. They have a few good leads for us. Some of them are probably too expensive, but that’s okay. We’ll just weed those out, and we’ll look for jobs in the meantime.”
“You did ask for places that were furnished, right?”
“Of course. One or two bedrooms, with furniture, because we don’t have any of our own,” she said between bites.
“We definitely can’t afford to buy furniture.”
“Yeah. That’s true.”
“Maybe even studio apartments. It doesn’t have to be big. Just until we figure things out.”
Meaghan could see how worried he was. His forehead was crinkled, and he chewed his food slowly and carefully. She was worried, too, but moving to San Diego—a place she already thought of as home because she went to school here—couldn’t be so bad.
She tried to think positive. A positive outlook could help with a lot of things, and she knew that from experience with problematic courses. She reminded herself it had never helped her deal with Wanda. But then, Wanda was just screwing some strange guy at a gas station restroom. Why on earth was she worried about her anymore?
She looked over at Chase. After finishing his eggs, he started in on his toast. He noticed her looking at her; and that she wasn’t eating.
“Aren’t you hungry?” he asked.
“A little. We didn’t have dinner last night.” She wouldn’t have been able to eat dinner even if she’d wanted to, and now she was having trouble with her breakfast. She tried to force a little of it down, not wanting to waste it. It wasn’t as though they could give it to someone else. “You can have some of mine, if you want. I’m not that hungry, I guess.”
“Meg…”
“Don’t. There’s too much going on. I can’t eat right now.” She thought she would be able to eat, but having him sit opposite her reminded her of last night. It was all she could think about. She remembered telling him she loved him, and she meant it. She did love him. She just didn’t know if she was in love with him. They’d grown up together. How could they go from being friends to lovers? Would it ruin what they already had?
“I’ll take a yogurt for my bag,” she decided.
“A yogurt isn’t breakfast,” he said. “Is there anything else that might tempt you? A croissant and jam, maybe?”
“Not really.”
Telling him she didn’t think she was going to be able to keep it down wasn’t going to help. Meaghan bit her lip.
“I don’t even want muesli, and you know how much I like that. I’m stressed. I keep thinking things aren’t going to work out. I feel like I’m having a slow-burning anxiety attack or something.”
Chase reached out and took her hand. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
She could hear the forced certainty in his voice, but that was okay. She didn’t have a problem with him pretending for her.
Chapter 10
Meaghan adored the feel of riding as a passenger on the bike. It helped calm her. When Chase rode, and her arms wove tightly around his waist, she didn’t think of anything else. It was perfect. She held him, she leaned into him, and she wasn’t dealing with the memories of sleeping with him, or her worries about leaving Jennifer and David, or the pain regarding her father.
Going to San Diego was the right thing to do. They were riding on their own bike, with enough money to be able to pay a deposit for a place they could call her own. It was a dream come true. They pulled up at the first apartment for a viewing. They were twenty minutes early, so they stood beside the driveway to wait.
“Chase?”
“Yeah, Meg.”
“We made the right decision.”
“We did, didn’t we?”
“Leaving behind a place we only have bad memories of, is a sensible thing to do. We can start fresh.”
“I hope so.” He sounded more worried than he had before. “Leaving Dad…there’s this guilt that won’t go away. Walking away from him doesn’t feel great, but I know deep down it’s the right thing to do. Kids have to leave the nest eventually. I guess I’m upset because he didn’t really get that I was leaving. He was so drunk. I don’t think I’ll ever get over that.”
“There comes a time when you have to put yourself first. Living your life for other people is a mistake. That’s what I was doing at Dad’s. Maybe I am leaving him to deal with Wanda’s torture, but he chose her to be his wife. And even though your dad is sick, he’s choosing to drink. Think about it this way. Has the electricity at your house ever been shut off?”
“No,” Chase answered.
“Exactly. Why do you think that is?”
“Because he pays the bills.”
“Bingo! He pays the bills. How do you think that happens? It’s not magic. He sobers up enough to take care of what he needs. If he can sober up enough for that, he can sober up for you.”
“I know you’re right, but it’ll take some time to stop feeling the way I do.”
“I’m not saying you should shake the feeling this minute. I just think we need to put things into perspective. All the decisions we made in the past were made for other people. We never once put ourselves first, except when we made the choice we were going away for college.
“We can’t change the past, but honestly, we should have stayed in San Diego instead of spending money on flights to go home. Jennifer would have understood. She’s always been the one we’ve gone to when we couldn’t talk to each other.” She glanced at him, then back at the road. “No matter what the future holds, I think our decision is the best one we could have made.”
“It is. I just wished we had time to plan, you know? To not be so rushed to find a place and find jobs. And I wish we had more money saved up, so we wouldn’t have to worry if things don’t happen fast.”
“We’ll get through it.” Her smile turned into a grin. “Together, okay? Like Justin Bieber and Selena Gomes.”
“That’s not a great example.”
“Well, like that boy band.”
“Which boy band?”
“Forget it. You only listen to country and heavy metal. It’s not the point. Look, this is something we are more than capable of doing. We both know how to look after ourselves, especially after how we grew up. I took care of dinner when I lived with Dad, the laundry, the cleaning. Do you know the hardest thing about him bringing Wanda into the house? She never cleaned up.”
“I can contribute,” Chase said. “We can share the workload when we have a place. You’ll see. You know I don’t mind, as long as you promise not to ask me to do two things at once.”
“Yeah. Like ironing and cooking.” Meaghan laughed. “I do remember the mess you made of that pair of pants.”
If she hadn’t taken over, he would have gone to his college interview with his trousers looking like a dish rag. He couldn’t seem to get the hang of how the iron worked.
“I also remember the time you left that pot on the stove for too long, Chase.”
“That was only because I wasn’t paying enough attention.”
“How long was the saucepan on the burner?”
“An hour? I know I put it on to make some pasta, and then I got distracted by my game.”
“How much longer would it have been on there if I hadn’t come in?”
“I have no idea.”
“That’s why I’ll take on the cooking. Burning down our new apartment is not something I want you to do. And you, my friend, can do the cleaning.”
“I’m game for that. I love cleaning. I think what I need is someone to teach me how to cook. Then, I need someone to stop me from getting distracted. I want to learn. That way I can surprise you and make you romantic dinners with candlelight. That kind of stuff.”
He winked at Meaghan and she blushed.
“Otherwise it’ll be microwave dinners. I’m good at that.”
“Microwaved dinners are expensive, and they’re full of salt,” Meaghan said. “I think it would be good for us to watch what we eat. We can’t eat crap all the time anymore.”
“Are you banning me from mac and cheese? Because this man will die without it.”
Thinking about those sorts of things was comforting. It felt like they were planning their lives together. Without the pressure of the labels.
“Of course not. I like it too, just not every night.”
She felt his hand wrap around her waist. He leaned down and kissed her lips. He felt so good.
“I believe in you, Meg,” he said when he pulled away. “If anyone is going to be able to make this work for us, it’s you.”
Maybe this intimacy was a good thing. Chase was such a good kisser, and even better in bed.
“You’re sweet. Thank you for saying that. It really does make me feel better about doing all this, and dragging you with me.”
“You aren’t dragging me. I’m coming willingly.”
“Willing…and a little worried.”
“Being worried about this doesn’t make me any less willing. I saw dad have more month than money. Especially around the holidays. I just want us to have enough. I don’t want you needing for anything.”
“We won’t. Just wait and see. We’ll find a lovely apartment. We’re going to find jobs. This is all going to work out perfectly.”
That seemed to have become their mantra, and they kept repeating it, as though it was going to help. Meaghan hoped it would play out with no hitches. She wanted their lives to work out. At the same time, she knew Chase’s concerns were valid. What if they ended up in financial trouble? What then? Jennifer couldn’t help them out forever.
***
Chase wished he could push aside his worries, but the longer they waited for the realtor, the more antsy he became. He couldn’t stop thinking that things would go wrong. There were times when he thought she might be right. Maybe when he thought things were going to go badly, he was increasing the chances of it happening.
