He stops pacing and sighs. “Megan …”
“What did you say to me last night?Good luck to ya? Well, good luck to ya, Chase.”
He rolls his eyes. “Will you shut up?”
I gasp. “No, I will not.”
“Of course not. What was I thinking?”
“At least I’m not acting like a child. Are you sure your mom didn’t need a babysitter foryou?”
He throws his hands in the air.
I move around the room—careful to stay on the opposite side of the island from Chase. My heart pounds as the words I just spoke echo back at me.
What are you doing, Megan? Don’t act like this.
“I’m sorry for saying that,” I say, stopping beside the sink. “I’m just … worked up.”
He pulls his hands down his face. “That makes two of us.”
The tension between us thickens. It’s heavier and more cumbersome. Even if we’re firing back and forth, the levity we've shared seems to have evaporated.
“I’m sorry too,” he says, blowing out a breath. “You just surprised me.”
I see my opening—the sliver of an opportunity to bring some light into this conversation—and take it.
“When I walked in on you practically naked?” I ask.
Chase stops in his tracks and smirks. The longer I say nothing, the deeper his smirk grows. The deeper his smirk grows, the more his shoulders relax and the lines in his handsome face ease.
“What?” I ask, playing it cool. “Do you want me to be embarrassed that I saw you in your boxers?”
He shrugs.
“I’m not,” I say, hoping my voice is void of the tremble in my stomach. “I think your romantic, inspirational car repair side was my favorite. It turns out that I prefer you naked and not talking.”
“Maybe that’s our problem.”
“Excuse me?”
He shifts his weight from one foot to the other, his grin slipping. “Nothing. Never mind.”
I don’t know where to go with this. We aren’t getting anywhere, and I don’t foresee progress. We might have partially defused the situation, but the problem remains.
The thought of disappointing Maggie—and my mother—hurts my heart, but what can I do? This is out of my hands—even if I wanted to stay. And, at the moment, I don’t.
Finally, he sighs and folds his arms over his chest. “You called me a grumpy cat. What kind of a description is that?A grumpy cat?”
“It’s a meme you would know if you had social media.”
Shit. This is why I didn’t want information, Calista!
A shadow falls across his face for a split second.
“But I didn’t say youwerea grumpy cat,” I say hurriedly, hoping he doesn’t catch my slipup. “I said you have the personality of one, and, you know, my observation wasn’t wrong.”
He narrows his eyes. “Chris led you into the middle of cornfields, and you called him a damn superhero. And I get a grumpy fucking cat?”
