His hands are still at my wrists. He wets his lips, starts to speak.
“Leaving you, disappearing on you, the way I did, hurt me just as much as it hurt you.” He pauses, to flip my wrists over, to press his thumbs to my pulse. “But, what I did, I did to protect you. From me. From what I’ve become. I need you to believe me, to believe that, okay?” He’s tapping his fingers to the beat of us.
A tear drips from my eye, down my cheek, off the ledge of my chin. I don’t move to palm it away, but he does. He reaches upward, catching it on his thumb.
“I’m so fucking sorry for the hurt that brought you, Laik. So. Fucking. Sorry.” Chase sucks down a sharp breath, wets his lips, and does it again. And I hold on my own when he slides his fingers into the side of my hair. “But I can’t promise I won’t fuck up again. I’m a fucking mess. I’m not who I used to be.” He chokes on his words, tumbles over them. “But I will chase you, Laik. When I fuck up again, I’ll fucking chase you. And I will do everything I can to earn your trust back.”
I’m trembling in his hands. I bite the inside of my bottom lip. I try to find words, try to make sense of what I want to say before saying it, but something unbridled and vulnerable is already tumbling off my tongue, “I’m so…so fucking…scared. You…you…scare me, Chase.”
Chase bows his head, rolls his shoulders, then twitches his neck, and I bring both of my hands up to bracket his cheeks.
I wait for his eyes to reach mine. And when they do, when they hold on mine, I tell him, “But I promise to work on trusting you again. To stop throwing the past three years in your face. Because I meant what I said.”
I’ve. Always. Fucking. Loved. You.
Chase looks at me, and I look at him, and something quiet and warm presses between us. What I just said meant something to him, and the look on his face tells me he wasn’t expecting it, that he doesn’t believe he deserves it.
A knock behind us has us both turning toward the metal door.
“Chase, you here!?”
Harlen.
Chase buries his head against my shoulder, drags his eyes over the fabric, letting go of his breath.
I slide off his lap and on trembling legs make for the kitchen.
There’s shattered glass everywhere still, and I make sure to tiptoe around the larger chunks before reaching into the cupboard to grab for a glass.
“Laik,” Chase calls.
I look over my shoulder, and when our eyes lock, he whispers, “We might never be okay again, but at least we have each other, right?”
I smile sadly, nod, then turn back to the cupboard. He is right, at least we have each other…finally.
I’m at the sink flicking on the faucet when Chase opens the door and I hear three voices, not just the two I’d expected. Looking over my shoulder, I see both Rusty and Harlen join Chase in the living room. Harlen’s hands are raking through his golden curls, his chest rising and falling like he’s just ran a marathon.
And I hadn’t known I was holding my breath until he turned and punched a clean hole into the wall beside him.
I flinch, the glass in my hand slipping, cutting another gash in my palm. I bite into my bottom lip to stop it from trembling. Spinning around, I take a step toward them noticing how Harlen’s gaze looks stripped raw, emotion naked in his deep blue eyes.
He jerks his chin at the two of us and asks, “Our pact, you guys remember it?”
Chase flicks his gaze over his shoulder, his hollow eyes catching mine, and I know he remembers it. We’d never be able to forget the look on Jade’s face when she pitched it. The excitement that glimmered in her blue eyes was unmatched, the longing she had for the buzz of the city that was passionate and manic and so alive. A promise that we’d get out of Devil’s Peak and move to the city that never sleeps.
New York.
Three years.
The timing was right.
But there was something else to this, something much darker.
Something out of our control.
My bottom lip trembles, my heart shaking in my chest. “I’m not safe here anymore, am I?” I ask on a croak, shifting my eyes to Harlen, then to Rusty and back again. “Wha?—”
Harlen is quick to cut me off, “Tomorrow, we’re leavingtomorrow.”
