by Elle Harte
“We’re just worried.”
“Can you not be worried for the length of this breakfast?”
“Sure.”
“So, what’s going on with you?”
I wanted badly to tell her about Blayne. But what would I tell her? That I met someone for one night and have no idea if she’s ever going to talk to me again? It would hardly make for an engaging conversation.
“Kira?” A female of about our age came up to our table and started talking to Kira. “Where have you been? The whole group is going crazy without you. Did you ever manage to resolve that debt situation?”
A flush colored Kira’s face. She stood and took the friend aside and I watched as they spoke in hushed tones and then Kira walked back to our table. She tried to get back to her food like nothing happened.
“You don’t think I’m going to just let it go, do you?” I said to Kira. She looked up from her plate.
“Look, it’s just a little debt, I’m handling it.”
“Why do you even have a debt? Aren’t you fucking rich?”
“Sean made some bad calls, it’s not a big deal.”
“It must be, if you’re hiding out in my loft.”
“I’m not… fuck, Chase, why is everyone always interrogating me!”
“Because they’re worried about you. Besides, you could have just asked me for the money, I would have given it to you!”
“Yes, but you also would have bitten my head off about it. So, I thought I could handle it, okay? But I couldn’t raise the cash and now… they’re threatening to take away the apartment. If they do that, I’ll be on the streets!”
“I’m not going to let that happen, Kira.”
She looked mortified, so it would have been a jerk move to further discuss this situation. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Look, you see how rarely I stay at the loft. You’re not homeless, Kira. You are welcome to stay there as long as you want.”
“I’m just not mentally ready to go back.”
My phone was ringing and I picked it up. “Hello?”
“It’s me, Stefan. You on for tomorrow night?”
There was something different about him. His voice betrayed the emotions he was trying to hide and I knew he wasn’t over it. But I knew I had to keep it casual until I saw him. Over the phone, he would just clam up and I wouldn’t be able to help him. So, I kept my own excitement up. “Sure, what do you guys want to do?”
“There’s a new club opening,” he said. “I have VIP access. Bring anyone you like. I’m sure there’s some blonde-haired underwear model waiting to be swept off her feet.”
“Why does everyone keep talking about her? We’re not even fucking anymore, she’s back with her husband.”
“Whatever you say, buddy. No one’s judging you, she’s smoking hot,” he said. “So, what if she might need you to occasionally tie her shoelaces.”
“What time do you want me there, Stefan?” I said that just to change the topic. I was busy dwelling on Blayne, and news like this just further ruined my reputation. I was getting tired of being portrayed as some unfeeling playboy.
“I don’t know, I’ll text you when we get there. I should go attend this meeting and then I’ll be free for the day. See you later.”
The call ended and I realized Kira was looking at me in an odd way. “What Kira?”
“Are you going out with Stefan tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“Stefan Vanderlin?”
“I don’t know any other Stefan.”
“You have any idea how long I’ve had a crush on that guy? Since we were in grade school, man. You have to set us up.”
“What? No. I’m not doing that, it’s creepy.”
“You don’t have a date to the opening, do you?”
“Not yet.”
“I’ll be your date.”
“So, let me get this straight. You want to go to the opening so you can put the moves on Stefan. Do you seriously think he’s going alone?”
“Of course not. But I want to fuck him, Chase. Not have his children.”
Well, it’s not as if Blayne was going to come. Even though my fingers were itching to dial her number, I wanted to give her some space. But Carl was always keeping an eye on her so she was safe.
“Fine. You can come to the opening, but I’m warning you, no awkwardness. You’re going to be subtle about it.”
She was doing the tiny victory dance.
The only difference is Kira’s victory dance is twerking paired with a dougie.
Oh yes. This was going to end well.
Blayne
Change your thoughts and you change your world.
The next day was a Saturday and I took Chloe up on her offer and we spent the day making my room more livable.
Chloe even managed to find time to retrieve some of my stuff from Nick’s place without telling me and I think she did it so I wouldn’t freak out. I hadn’t told her the reason Nick was so angry and what happened besides cheating that night, or that Nick had come looking for me or Jason ratting me out.
Nick could easily mess with my head, but clearly Chloe was no match for his mind games.
And it took her less than an hour, despite Nick’s groveling, which made me grateful for her being there. He still hadn’t stopped sending me those texts and he kept calling me. I never responded, not even once, not by a text and I was certainly never taking any calls from him. I knew he couldn’t keep this up for long, he would give up eventually and I just had to wait.
In the afternoon, Chloe and I did a bit of celebrating by going out to her favorite bar. Because I was there, Chloe pretended not to like the guys over there and even though one of them even left her his number on a napkin, Chloe was determined not to get carried away. Me, I was trying my best to stay cheery but it wasn’t working as well as I had hoped. Nick’s texts increased in number somehow, and the groveling was positively aggressive now. Ultimately, I gave up and put my phone in my purse so I wouldn’t get the alerts, and I decided not to look at it until the next day.
The one thing I took charge of at home was cooking. I wasn’t some culinary genius but I could make do with a good recipe and that meant that I could cook well enough for the both of us. Since Chloe knew even less about cooking than I did, she was content. Over drinks, we talked. “I’m going to have to start looking for a job,” I said. “I don’t have a lot of savings.”
“When are women going to learn to be money-wise?”
“Hey, I know plenty of men who aren’t money-wise either.”
“That’s not the point,” Chloe said. “Women have it decidedly worse. They need to pay more attention to their finances.”
“I made a mistake, alright? Point is, what am I going to do about it?”
“I’ll see what I can do about the job,” Chloe said. “But I’m not too hopeful. It’s very tough getting work these days.”
“I know, and I appreciate your help.”
“I’ll ask around and try to find you the best possible job, but we have to be realistic.”
“I understand,” I said. “You know I’d do anything. I wouldn’t mind flipping the proverbial burgers if I have to.”
“I know, babe. But it’s better if you can find some real work.”
“I don’t even have experience. Who’s going to hire me for a real job?”
“We’ll figure something out,” Chloe said, reassuringly. “I don’t want you to lose hope.”
“It won’t,” I told her, even though I didn’t feel it. “I’ll be fine. I promise.”
I checked my phone, Nick’s texts were staring back at me again.
“He’s still doing that?” Chloe asked. She must have seen the look on my face.
“Apparently, he’s in love with me.”
“Really?” she said, mockingly. “Could have fooled me with that other bitch lying in your bed.”
I’d only told Chloe half of the story. If she found out what Nick really did and that he sent his men to g
et me forcibly, or that Jason ratted me out to him, I was certain Chloe was going to get the cops involved, and I wasn’t sure I needed that in my life right now.
“We don’t even know that she’s a bitch.”
“She’s sleeping with someone’s fiancé for goodness sake. She’s a bitch.”
“Maybe she didn’t know.”
“She didn’t see all those photographs, of you and him in the bedroom? She didn’t notice that there was someone else living in that house with him?”
Chloe had a point.
“You can’t feel sorry for someone like that,” she said. “That woman is as much at fault as Nick in all of this.”
“I know but I just think she has nothing to do with it. Chloe, she’s just a placeholder. If Nick wants to cheat on me he’ll find women to do it with him.”
“I don’t know what anyone sees in him.”
“There’s something about him,” I tried to explain. “When he’s good to you, when he’s telling you something, you want to believe it. Come to think of it, he’s not even that good an actor you know? You’re left wanting him and then, when he is clearly not giving you enough, you start asking yourself why? You start wondering what you’ve done wrong instead of asking what he’s done wrong. I don’t know how he does it.”
“That is a load of bull and you know it.”
“You don’t know him, Chloe. He’s a charmer! He could sell an Eskimo a block of ice if he wanted to.”
“Yes, but sadly, he isn’t selling Eskimos anything. He’s selling his cheap ass to women who don’t deserve it.”
I smiled at the way Chloe said this, how her anger was making her furious about the way Nick was behaving. She hated it more that he wasn’t leaving me alone. I think a part of her feared I might start finding the good in him somehow, that I might go back. If I really dug down deep, there was one part of me, a tiny little bit of my old self that just wanted things to go back to normal.
Even if that normal wasn’t right.
We were still in the bar when Chloe’s friends called and told her about some club opening that they could get us into. I had given Chloe the power of attorney to my social life, so I kept a straight face when they started making plans even though I felt it might be too soon for me to be going to parties. But as expected Chloe didn’t give me much of a choice.
“Let’s go home and get dressed,” she said, getting up and settling the bill. “Jeremy’s waiting for us at the club.”
Chase
The club was called Risqué.
It was a fairly large affair and I don’t think I would have thought about going without Stefan’s VIP passes. I’ve never been a fan of large gatherings. The most I can handle is a small group of close friends. So far, Stefan was the only familiar face I could see. I felt Kira pinch me when Stefan approached us. He looked wasted. “You remember Kira?” I said, introducing her.
Kira smiled and shook Stefan’s hand. “It’s okay if he doesn’t.”
“I remember you,” Stefan began but I wondered if he was lying about it. “You were with your friend at that rave. Donny’s party.”
She also went to school with him, but I noticed Kira was okay with it. “You remembered.”
“How could I not, you looked smoking hot.”
Were these two having a moment? I shuddered to think about the consequences of that. Thelma, meet Louise. I wished there was a way I could ditch them both. Separately, they were incorrigible egomaniacs but together, they were significantly more annoying.
I felt a strong thump on my shoulder and turned to find Weston standing next to some ditzy blonde who was wearing a red jumper that barely covered her body.
I met him with a secret handshake and he tipped his fedora at Kira. But unlike the others, Stefan didn’t look happy to see him.
“Stefan!!!!” Wes screamed and hugged Stefan but Stefan just looked uncomfortable. They were best friends. Wes was completely clueless but I could tell Stefan hadn’t forgiven him.
The whole thing was pissing me off. They should have found resolution but as much as I loved Stefan like a brother, I also knew that he had tons of issues. And Wes was Wes! You shouldn’t expect foresight from a guy who didn’t even plan for one minute in the future. To his credit, he had tried to make up for the whole thing but Stefan just wasn’t ready. But perhaps I was worrying without reason. People fight. Brothers get into arguments. I shouldn’t think that their relationship couldn’t be fixed. They probably just needed more time, or at least Stefan did.
Someone called out for Wes and he left with the blonde and the four of us were left to figure out what to talk about next. “Who wants alcohol?” Stefan finally said and we all agreed to go with him to get drinks on our booth. Stefan opened a bottle of Cristal and we all toasted to our friendship.
“So, what have you been up to?” Stefan said, sipping his champagne.
“Now, we’re still slaving over patents,” I told him. “But we go into prototype development next month.”
“Sounds fascinating.”
“It’s all a bit sketchy right now because there isn’t a lot of interest by the right parties,” I said. “But I went through the same thing with the Textuality App. Back then they thought no one would need an app to organize their texts better and now it’s the number one app on any platform.”
“Didn’t you win a tech award for it?”
“Seriously, don’t encourage him,” Kira said. “He’s already too overbearing since someone gave him an award for being smart.”
“When did you become such a bimbo, Kira?” I wasn’t mad, it was just a question that I’d been waiting to ask.
“Don’t be such a hypocrite,” Kira shot back. “You men say they don’t want dumb women and then marry all those foreign models who can’t even speak your language. Who come from sad old villages in European countries that don’t even have schools.”
“I’ve never gone out with a dumb chick,” Stefan said. “I can’t do it.”
“Don’t validate her bullshit,” I said, only as a joke but Kira looked positively fuming and punched me in the shoulder. It did nothing but I still said ‘ow’ just to make it a better joke.
“It’s not bullshit, Cooper.”
“Listen I’m getting tired of sitting,” Stefan said. “Who wants to get wasted and dance the night away?”
Kira raised her hand. “Me!!!!”
I couldn’t stop grinning. “I think I’ll just stay here.”
“No moping Chase,” Stefan said, and grabbed my arm. “Let’s go!”
Blayne
“Risqué?” Chloe said, reading the sign outside.
“Check out this crowd,” Jeremy looked impressed and he squeezed his girlfriend Anna closer to him. They kissed and skipped the line, showing his invite to the bouncers instead. The bouncer gave us a nod and let us through.
An amazing beat hit us the minute we entered the club. We all walked to the floor and started to dance, letting the beat take us.
Chase
In the middle of the song, Stefan grabbed my arm. “I need to talk. Privately.”
I glanced at Kira and as always, she was taking care of herself by dancing with a guy who was half her age. I bet by now she had forgotten that I was even there.
Stefan dragged me through the crowd once again and to the men’s room. It was the first time I saw his eyes. He was high. He stood by the sink and looked at himself in the mirror. “I look like shit!”
He was agitated. Then he took out a vial out of his pants pocket and used one finger to block one nostril while he sniffed coke through the other. When it burned, he started banging his fists against the sink. “Fuck!”
“Stefan!”
The vial was broken and there was coke everywhere. Stefan was trying to salvage some of it that was still on the sink, when I grabbed him from behind and physically restrained him with all my strength. “Stefan, stop it! You could get an overdose!”
“So, fucking what?!”
I let
him go.
His eyes were teared up and bloodshot. It was like watching my own brother suffer and not being able to do anything about it. “There are better ways to deal with your problems, Stefan.”
“Oh yes?” he said, walking toward me. “There are better ways? Because you’re totally against extreme measures, right?”
He reached for my gun holster and I grabbed his hand before he even got close. “Why are you carrying a fucking gun, Chase?”
“That’s none of your business.”
He pushed me. “And this,” he gestured to his chest. “Is none of yours.”
“This gun is for protection only.”
Stefan laughed. “That gun is you running away from yet another situation.”
“Why did you bring me here, Stefan?” I screamed. “You know I don’t do drugs, so why? Was it a cry for help? Or you just need someone to watch you become a corpse!”
“I brought you here because…” he started to say but stopped. “Leave.”
“Stefan, let’s just talk about this…”
“Leave!!!” he was screaming so loud I was certain people could hear him despite the music.
“Listen to me carefully, Stefan. I watched my brother die from an overdose. I know the signs, and if you don’t get your act together, that’s where you’re headed. And, I’m not going to watch you die.”
I could hear him sobbing but he wasn’t going to let me in. “Go away, Chase.”
“Go away, Chase. You can’t help me.”
I came out angrily and ran into someone. At first, I wondered who it was because she looked different, and then I smelled her perfume and almost found myself losing it.
We stared at each other but then I started taking hurried steps toward the rooftop.
I opened the door and the air hit me and it was cold.
“Chase?” I heard her voice. I hadn’t expected Blayne to follow me. I wiped the tears from my eyes and turned to her.
“I’m sorry, you had to witness that.”
“Are you okay?” she sounded concerned.
“I’m fine,” I lied.
