Something flickered across Chase’s face. It was brief, almost too quick to catch.
“Here, I guess. Tampa.” He raised his mug to his lips. “I grew up in Clearwater. My mom still lives there.”
“And your dad?”
“Not in the picture.” He shook his head, but his hands tightened around his mug. “Hasn’t been since I was eight. He left and moved to Colorado, started a new family. I don’t remember the last time we talked.”
“Chase, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It was a long time ago.” His smile was back, but it looked more manufactured now. “Mom does fine on her own—better than fine, actually. She’s a pediatric nurse. She raised me by herself, put me through college, the whole thing. She might bethe strongest, most amazing person who ever lived.”
Chase’s eyes grew distant, as though revisiting some faraway place or time, though the smile never left his lips. I drank my coffee and let that settle.
“You’re close?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I mean, as close as I can be with my schedule. I don’t see her as much as I should. She keeps telling me I work too much, and she’s probably right.”
“Probably?” I cocked a brow.
“Fine. Definitely. Fuck. She’s my mom. She’salwaysright.” Finally, his smile reached his eyes. “She’d like you, I think. She’s always trying to set me up with people. Nice boys from church, her friends’ sons, the guy who bags groceries at Publix—”
I groaned. “Your mum pulled the grocery bagger setup on you, too?”
“Grocery boy love knows no borders.” Chase laughed.
“Clearly.”
Our crepes arrived. Dear God, Chase had been right. They were incredible.
We ate in comfortable silence before I asked, “So what made you want to go into law? You said you wanted to help people, but was that what drove you?”
“Yeah.” Chase set down his fork and got thatdistant look again. “When I was seventeen, maybe eighteen, there was this case on the local news for weeks. It was a custody battle between the top cop in town and his wife, the mayor. High profile, and even higher emotions. A real mess. I remember watching them fight over their kid, using him as a weapon against each other. I was in high school and wouldn’t have even noticed if the local stations hadn’t turned it into a hometown version ofThe Real Housewivesor something. It was ugly and public, and the poor kid was just caught in the middle. No one seemed to care whathewanted.”
Chase was staring at his plate now, not quite meeting my gaze.
“I remember thinking, someone should stand up for that kid. Someone should make sure his voice is heard. The whole thing just felt so wrong.” Chase’s jaw tightened. “I didn’t understand how the system worked or what it all meant, but I knew I had to do something. I might not be able to help that one kid, but I could go to law school, do family law, and help other kids who were stuck in the middle of their parents’ bullshit.”
“That’s—that’s really admirable.”
“It was so naive.” He looked up. “Turns out most of family law is property division and alimony disputes. The cases with kids are rare, and even whenyou get them, you can’t always help. Sometimes the system is broken. Sometimes both parents are terrible. Sometimes—” He stopped and shook his head. “Sometimes you can’t save everyone.”
There was something raw in his voice now, something personal.
I wanted to ask about it.
Wanted to dig deeper into whatever had just crossed his face.
But then Chase straightened, picked up his coffee, and when he looked at me again, the walls were back up. I could still see warmth in his gaze, but that brief glimpse of vulnerability had evaporated.
“Anyway,” he said, his voice lighter now, though sounding a bit forced. “That’s why I’m drowning in paperwork and falling asleep in soup at Diego’s house. I’m living the dream.”
“Nightmares are dreams, too,” I said.
Chase nearly spit coffee. “That might be the truest thing you’ve ever said. But it has its moments. Enough serious talk. Tell me about the bar. You’ve been open, what, three weeks?”
“Yeah. It was slow at first, but the theme nights are working. We’re busy enough to need more staff.”
“The pink-haired chaos tornado?”
