It makes it feel real.
“What?” The words don’t hold the kind of weight you’d expect from the bomb I just dropped. I can’t tell if he thinks I’m playing some sick joke on him or if maybe, deep down, he saw it coming. “You’re lying, right?”
“Do you think I’d still be in bed for some stupid joke?” I sit up, my hands resting behind my back to support me. “I guess we won’t have the Stella and Chase love story after all.”
“Fletch.”
“Chase.”
“Wh-what happened?”
I stand up, taking a quick peek at myself in the mirror, running my hands over my hair to look more put together.
“Reality.”
I can’t tell if I look hungover or exhausted, but what I do know is I look like shit. I didn’t change out of my clothes when I got back here last night.
We sat outside, looking at the stars, until just after midnight. We didn’t say anything to each other after it all went down. And when we decided it was time to go to our respective houses, we didn’t even look at each other; it was a silent goodbye.
I don’t know if it was better that way or made everything ten times harder, but I also didn’t know what to say.
“What does that even mean?” Chase’s eyes follow me as I dig through my duffle bag for a clean shirt.
“We were living in a bubble until one day we weren’t.” I shrug, sniffing one of the shirts in my bag, a shirt that should be clean but smells like I haven’t washed it in years.
Or maybe that’s me.
Maybe I smell.
I drop the shirt and lift my arm, sneaking my nose near the pit and taking a light whiff—
Yup. It’s me.
I drop back down to my bed.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“I think we just did.”
“Fletcher.”
“Chase, really, it’s still fresh, I’m trying to figure out how we move forward as friends, and I really don’t want to get into it.”
“Okay.”
Chase doesn’t usually give up that easily. When I told him Tate basically rejected me, he pried for hours until he got me talking.
He knows this is different.
“I’m gonna go take a shower, and then I’ll be down to see my favorite guy.”
“What do you mean?” His brows pinch. “I’m sitting right here.”
“Fuck off.”
I flip him the bird, heading into the hall and yanking a towel out of the closet. I lock the bathroom door behind me, turn the water on, and strip off my clothes.
The steam escapes through the door when I open it, and when I step in, the heat heals the aches in my body.
