Forget taking a step away from him. My skin scalding where his brushed mine, I shove his hand away and just about leap back.
Don’t touch me, Chase. Justdon’t.
As though he heard the scream inside my head, he frowns, but he keeps his goddamn hands to himself as he grates out: “Xandra?”
You know what? I should be grateful he knows my name. Glad he uses it. Not my twin’s, not my childhood nickname, but the reminder of who I am… I need that.
Lately, he’s had this habit of calling me Holden as though he knows he won’t be able to fuck up and accidentally use my twin’s name. So when he does say Xandra… I do need that.
But I definitely don’t need the pleading… thehunger… in his pretty blue eyes as his lips part again.
I swallow roughly. “I’m fine,” I lie.
Does he believe me? He bites down on his bottom lip—I fist my hands, trying to erase the way that simple gesture twists my insides—before exhaling softly. “Then I’m glad to hear that. When Jack told me this morning you weren’t feeling up to going to today’s meeting, I was…” He runs his fingers through his hair, his eyes still worried and haunted as he admits, “I was real fucking worried about you.”
I feel myself frowning now, and I can’t tell if it’s because of what Chase just confessed—or because he actually thoughtI’d purposely miss this meeting I had no clue about until right before I left the house.
Hang on?—
“Wait. You talked to Jack? Today?”
“Yeah.” His brow furrows even deeper, leaving lines etched there. Worry lines. Shit. If there’s anything I hate, it’s having anyone concerned for me. But Chase… that’s so muchworse. “Didn’t your old man tell you we had coffee and pancakes at the house this morning after my patrol?”
Not really. Sure, Jack said something about seeing Chase last night, but nothing about this morning. But then I remember the mug of coffee on the table he didn’t touch, plus how he didn’t have any of Mrs. B’s pancakes with me, either.
Why would he if he already ate?
Goddamn it. I grit my teeth, trying my best to hide the fact that I’m both angry at Jack for lying to meandat myself for not expecting something like this. Not even just how he’s protecting me, either. But having breakfast dates with the man who would be Hallie’s widower if they’d managed to get hitched before she died?
“It must’ve slipped his mind.”
Chase shrugs. “It doesn’t matter now anyway. We can both go to the meeting together.” A glutton for punishment, he reaches out a second time, smoothing the edge of my jacket’s collar before I can slap his hand away. “What do you say, Holden? Walk with me to the school?”
He’s bold. So fucking bold. For whatever reason, I freeze under the gentle caress, and he takes advantage of that by shifting his hand. His fingers brush absently against my neck. It tingles where our skin meets this time instead of burning, the sensation traveling like a current all the way down to the soles of my boots.
I jolt in place like I’ve been shocked.
“Sorry,” I say flatly, jerking my head away from him. “Can’t. I just remembered… Jack needed me to grab something from the condo for him. I forgot it. I’ve got to go back.”
“No problem. I’ll go with you.”
No fucking way. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Xandra—”
I firm my jaw. “No.” I feel like I kicked a damn puppy, the way his face goes flat like that, hiding his pain, but I… I can’t.
“But don’t you want to talk?—”
About what happened three weeks ago on the living room couch? “I’ll see you around, Chase.”
“Will you? Really?”
Sometimes I wish that Chase wasn’t so candid and honest and open. Hallie used to love that about him. He’s the kind of guy who never keeps secrets, and who always told her exactly how he felt, good or bad. You never have to worry where you stand with him. When he was my sister’s boyfriend and just another guy in our friend group, that didn’t bother me.
But that’s not all he is anymore, is it?
What makes it worse is that Hallie was always just as honest and forthright with Chase so that’s why he expects it from me. I wish I could just tell him what I feel, but that’s impossible.
