Why did she run? Did she not trust me enough to help her with whatever she was dealing with?
My emotions were a jumbled messy ball in the pit of my stomach.
“Give her some time, Chase,” Evie said, still by my side.
I didn’t like that. “Time for what?”
Spinning on my heels, I turned from Evie. The bar was the best place for me at the moment.
“Bourbon, neat.”
The bartender nodded, and as soon as he placed the drink in front of me, I tossed it back.
“Keep ’em coming,” I said.
“Ya know, that’s not a shot you’re ordering.” Mitch stood next to me. My eye roll earned me a smile out of him. “Evie let me know a bit of what’s going on. You OK?”
I figured his question was rhetorical and continued working on my drink, which I did not chug this time.
I remember last year, early in Gage and Harper’s relationship, she took off to Florida when they had an issue. Gage was a mess. Personally, I didn’t understand his issue with her needing time and space. Sometimes space with couples was a good thing. But Gage said it was how she took off, without a word, no idea where she was, that was the problem.
The feeling of being abandoned.
He and I knew that all too well. And although I understood, this felt different.
With Maryellen, it felt as though she was scared and didn’t trust me. And trust issues were hard to fix.
“Hey, your brother and Harper are talking to the crowd, you should probably pay attention,” Mitch said.
They looked so happy up on the steps, with their arms around one another as Harper thanked everyone for coming. Gage could only look upon her with loving eyes. I may have, back in the day, cracked a joke about how lovesick my brother was when it came to her. But now, I felt so lost without Maryellen at my side, and seeing him only made me sad.
For myself.
“I need to go find my father.”
I wasn’t sure if Mitch even heard me when I told him I was going in search of my dad. Figuring he was listening to Gage and Harper’s speech, I snaked through the crowd toward the steps. Sara and he were standing to the side of the room, near the cake.
Cake time already.
“Dad,” I said as I walked up behind him. “Can we have a word?”
Sara turned to me first, though. “Chase. It’s nice to see you, I’ve been looking for you all night. Where have you been?”
“Hi, Sara.” I tried to be cordial. She was great for my dad, and I loved that he found her. Right now, I just needed to talk to him. “It’s great to see you.”
The pursed lips as I said it didn’t convey the same message as my words, and she saw that. She turned to my dad. “Rob, why don’t you go with Chase toward the back?”
Following behind the man I’d spent most of my life being angry at, I noticed a few things. First, time was catching up to him. As he walked, I noticed he wasn’t as steady as he used to be. His light hair appeared even lighter with streaks of gray layered in. As we reached a quieter part of the restaurant and he looked back at me, his eyes had a softness to them I wasn’t used to seeing.
He started pulling some unused chairs from the side of the room for us to sit on, but I stopped him. “I got it, Dad.”
Once we sat, staring across at one another, he spoke first.
“I’m assuming you want to talk about Maryellen?” he asked.
Leaning forward on my knees, I stared at my father as the pit in my stomach dropped, making me feel sick.
“Dad, what do you have to do with all of this? I’m not understanding.”
