Worth the Chase Page 3

  My mind lingered to the events from the night before even though I repeatedly told myself that I needed to forget them. I just couldn’t, they were embedded in my thoughts.

  I could see her chest moving up and down, shallow breaths filtering in and out. She was beautiful, magnificent in the simplest of ways. Her face was scrunched up, wrinkles formed on her brow. I had to stop myself from reaching out to rub them away. She shouldn’t be worried, not while dreaming, not while in my bed.

  “You don’t know how beautiful you truly are,” I whispered so quietly I almost didn’t hear myself speak.

  She stirred lightly, rolling over to face me. My heart was beating out of my chest as I stared at her, waiting for the moment that her eyes would open and she would know I had been watching her sleep.

  This was different for me. Everything about Gia was different for me. I never let them stay after sex, and I most definitely never lingered around long enough to watch them fall asleep. Yet here I was, forcing myself not to reach out and touch the contours of her face.

  The moonlight poured in through the window above us silhouetting her body against the bed. Looking at her I knew she was everything I needed in life, but the very last thing at the same time.

  A complete and utter contradiction.

  Gia caused a fire to stir in my chest, but with the same token made me want to burn her with that very fire. The feelings she caused in me I had never felt before, and that made her dangerous. No, it made her more than dangerous.

  It made her loveable.

  It made me capable of love.

  If those two things happened, there would be no coming back from it.

  Something drew me back to the present, call it my conscious or just the fact that I shouldn’t have been thinking about her. My eyes drifted over to the spot where she had laid just an hour ago, and I knew it was time to let what I had experienced go.

  Getting off the bed, I stripped it bare before reaching into my closet and pulling out a fresh set of sheets. I picked up the remnants of our night shared and headed toward the trash. These sheets couldn’t just be washed. Yea her scent would be gone, but every time I looked at them I would remember what happened and that just couldn’t happen.

  Gia wasn’t allowed under my skin anymore.

  Chase Winchester was back.

  The days between Taylor coming and my time studying with Chance seemed to dwindle down. Two weeks had passed since my night of intense passion with Chase. I wanted to say that not every waking minute revolved around him because it didn’t, but I almost always thought about him. It didn’t help that everyone on campus seemed to chant his name.

  I had three days before Taylor got here, and we had less than two weeks to get moved into our new place before the fall semester begun. During all of this I needed to stay prepared for my Advanced Biology test I had been studying for all summer, so letting my mind drift to Chase wasn’t something I should allow, but rather something I couldn’t help.

  I wanted to be a Bio-Chemist and there was no time for fucking up. When I finished my junior year, I had decided to stay ahead of my other classmates by doing something they weren’t even thinking of. While everyone else went home for the summer, I found a tutor and stayed at school, going over my textbook and study guides all summer. This was my last year of college, everything was crucial if I wanted to succeed and be at the top of my class. I needed to not only be at the top but to stay on the top all year long if I wanted to have numerous internship offers after graduation while continuing my studies to receive a Ph. D in biochemistry.

  I glanced up at Chance from across the table in the library. I didn’t want to see Chase every time I looked at him, but what could I do? I’m sure he didn’t want to be a spitting image of his brother. But hell, what could he do?

  My eyes glided over his hair, which was cut in the same style, his muscular build and tone in voice were very much the same. It was like looking at Chase, without him being Chase. It was wrong, yet so right.

  “Is there something on my shirt?” Chance smirked at me then gazed back down at his book. I shielded myself from him, knowing I had been caught staring. If Chance knew about the night I had shared with his brother he never mentioned it. In fact, he never brought anything up about that party. Either he didn’t know or he just didn’t care.

  “You know you don’t have to be shy if you want to stare ate.” Chance was getting all flirty with his tone. I used to think maybe he had a crush on me but realized rather quickly that he was this way with all the girls.

  “I wasn’t staring at you.” I paused trying to find a comeback. “When did you become so self-absorbed?” I asked tilting my head at him, happy that I had found something to make him stop and think. The smile fell from his face as he seemed a bit flabbergasted at my words.

  “Wow,” Chance murmured.

  “What? I wasn’t staring at you. I thought for sure you had been hanging around your brother far longer than needed,” I added, hoping that would lessen the blow of what I had said. I didn’t mean to be a bitch or to say hurtful things to him. Sometimes my mind was locked in bitch mode. You know the one where all you want to do is protect yourself against others?

  He shoved back from his chair, his seat scraping across the marble flooring of the library study room.

  “I was fucking with you, Gia. If you ask me, it’s you who seems to still have a hard on for my brother.” There he was calling my fucking bluff. Did I like Chase? No, not really. At least I didn’t want to like him. In all honesty, I didn’t know what I wanted with him. He was unpredictable, crazy, and if you add in how I was raised he was everything I shouldn’t want.

  Unsure of what I should say I narrowed my eyes, which only lasted a fraction of a second because not even a minute later a hand landed on my shoulder and I turned around with my foot ready to crack someone in the balls.

  When my eyes landed on Taylor’s small frame and her fiery red hair, I burst with excitement. She looked so young but so mature, so much like her mother but with her dad’s demeanor.

  “Where you going to kick me, in the vag?” she questioned with an eyebrow raised. I laughed loudly, wrapping her in a hug.

  “For sure!! I wasn’t expecting you for another three days. How did you even find this place?”

  “Well, I went by your room. I remembered where it was from when I visited last year. Your RA was monitoring the halls, and I asked her where this building was after texting you and asking what you were doing.” She gave me a small hug back, and as I pulled away I realized she was staring at Chance with curious eyes.

  “Oh, I forgot you were still here. Chance this is my best friend, Taylor. Taylor, Chance, my tutor. The one I was matched with at student services.” I introduced them, but neither one of them reached a hand out in greeting. They simply stared at one another, their eyes saying just how attractive they found the other.

  Moments passed and neither one of them spoke a word as I stood between them in all my awkwardness, before realizing someone had to say something.

  “Hello…” I snapped my fingers at both of them, pulling them out of their crazy love drunken stares. Chance blinked quickly and then cleared his throat, being the first to break free out of the trance.

  “Uhh...” he stumbled over his words, and I almost broke out in laughter. I had never seen him so bound up over a girl before. Who knew little innocent Taylor would be the first to do so.

  “It was nice meeting you, Taylor. Gia, I’ll text you the time and place for our next meet up.” Chance rushed out as he closed his book, pulling his backpack on in record time. And then he was gone. I stood there questioning what kind of spell Taylor had put him under and how in the hell could I learn how to do it.

  “That was weird, did you see the way he...” I started to say but was halted as I turned back to look at Taylor. She was still watching him as he walked out of the room. What the hell is going on here?

  “Taylor, are you okay?” I asked.

  She
shook her head slightly, pushing the fog away I’m sure. “I’m fine. I just have never… what’s he like?” The way she spoke told me she was under the Winchester spell too. The same one Chase seemed to have wrapped me in. Except when Taylor looked at Chance it was with longing, when I looked at Chase it was a cross between wanting to fuck his brains out or punch him in the throat.

  Her cheeks warmed over as she realized I was still staring at her, watching her movements wondering what kind of crazy it was that she was thinking about.

  “Stop staring at me,” her voice met my ears, pulling me from my thoughts.

  “I’m not staring. I mean I can’t believe you’re here, but I also can’t believe you were looking at him the way you were.” My voice was full of shock.

  “How can you focus with him tutoring you? I mean… I just…” I laughed out loud not really sure how to explain it to her.

  “Chance is different, more... I don’t even know how to word it properly. His brother, now that’s a whole different can of worms.” I answered her while getting the rest of my stuff together. I hadn’t meant to leave things the way I had with Chance because in all honesty I considered him a friend, but if he thought he knew me he was wrong. I wasn’t hung up on Chase. I couldn’t be.

  “Well, my day just got twice as good. If there are two of those walking around, I don’t think there will be a chance of me maintaining that 4.0 I promised my mom.” I wanted to laugh at all the naivety that was Taylor. She had no clue the trouble that I could get her into. No idea the kind of things that took place in college. She was new, young, and what the guys around campus would consider fresh meat. Bottom line, Chance wouldn’t be the only guy on campus with his eyes on her.

  Not wanting to talk about Chase or Chance a moment longer, I shifted the subject to our housing situation. Taylor had gone ahead and rented out the place she was scoping out on the high end of town. The entire downstairs basement was ours to do with as we pleased while the kitchen and living room would be the shared common areas. Since I was already used to sharing any and all space I had with a roommate I didn’t find it to be strange at all.

  “About this place we’re renting...” I said to her as I guided us out of the library and down the steps.

  “It’s beautiful! I already saw photos of it. My dad made sure everything turned out good with the property.” What she meant by that was that her dad and my dad had teamed up and ran checks on the owners.

  “Great! Now I’m trusting you, Tay. I haven’t seen this place. I just don’t want to be stuck living with people who don’t pay their bills, or buy food for themselves.” My voice was uncertain. Did I really want to move out of student housing to end up in a place with shitty roommates? If I wanted me and Taylor to live together, I really had no other choice.

  “It’ll be fine, Gia. I think you’re way too worried. In fact, I think you’re so worried that you should go get us some wine and we should totally have a girls night of catching up?” She winked at me, giving me her pouty eyes. The ones that I’m sure no one, not even I was immune to.

  “Fine.” I sighed. “But I get to pick the wine. The last time I let you pick it tasted like I was drinking dry ass water.”

  “My wine tastes are very appealing, you just fail to know what good wine is,” she shot back, and I laughed as we bumped shoulders. God, how I had missed her, missed this very interaction.

  We walked down the steps to my car in complete silence, just enjoying being together again when I stopped for a moment, catching a glimpse of something across the courtyard. I lingered there for a moment drinking him in, my eyes knew that body− the silhouette, the manner in which he stood.

  “Gia?” Taylor called my name breaking me out of my inner thoughts, and I knew we needed to go. At least before he noticed us or Taylor started asking questions about who I was staring at.

  “Yeah sorry, I thought I saw someone I knew,” I lied, almost too easily. I didn’t want to explain my one night stand to her, or the fact that I kind of liked Chase but failed at admitting it. Keeping this secret to myself until I figured out exactly how I felt about everything that had transpired between us was the best thing to do.

  I stood in my Carpentry class, safety glasses and protective gloves secured to my face and hands. My work area was covered in sawdust as I cut another piece of wood. I was dead set on finishing this extended shoe rack I was making for my mom, so I found myself coming in before class and staying even later more times than not.

  A hand landed firmly on my shoulder as I turned the saw off and grabbed another piece of wood to mark the measurements.

  “You keep showing this type of dedication and I have no doubt a ton of union crews will want you,” Jacobs, a master carpenter who was responsible for training us stood before me admiring my work. He was my mentor, the man that made my dreams and aspirations not seem that farfetched.

  “I hope so because right now I don’t know what’s next for me after graduation,” I spoke to him honestly.

  “You’ll figure it out. That’s what life is all about. It’ll happen the way it is intended to happen.”

  “You’re like my own personal guru,” I chuckled slightly as I grabbed another piece of wood to mark up.

  “That’s what I’m here for, but seriously I want you to come by tomorrow morning. Only if you want to. We can look at some apprenticeships, you can fill out some entry applications, and I’ll write you a sparkly little recommendation letter.”

  “I don’t know…” I mumbled, not sure if I wanted to take that route. What if I applied and no one accepted me? What then? “What if no one wants me?” I dropped the wood and looked him dead in the eyes, the feeling of not being good enough eating away at me.

  “Sometimes you have to take a risk and go from there, but most of all you have to have confidence that your work speaks for itself. Any master carpenter would be lucky to have you working underneath them. If they can’t see that, then you could always spend another year training with me to perfect your trade. Either way, I got your back.” At his words my mind went back to my mother and something she had said to me years ago.

  Dreams don’t come true for people who aren’t willing to go after them.

  Time passed extremely fucking slow, a deliberate attack on me I’m certain. Maybe because I’ve been a major fucking douche to everyone that spoke to me, or even looked my way. Or the fact that I couldn’t shake the memories of Gia’s body against mine as I moved on top of her, let alone the decision that needed to be made about my future. Whatever it was, I couldn’t seem to pull myself from inside of my head, and now I have to deal with this rental shit, all because Chance doesn’t have the time today to do it. I should just say fuck it. It’s not like Mom and Dad need the money. It’s not like we need roommates either.

  They could be hot chicks, two for one? The little devil sitting on my shoulder whispered in my ear.

  Shaking my head of the shit that usually gets me into trouble, I shove off my bed and head into my closet knowing that I have to find something to wear. Apparently, just lounging in my surf shorts with no shirt on isn’t presentable to Chance.

  I roll my eyes at our earlier conversation. He’s always the mature, more responsible person. The person who thinks with his whole brain instead of one side like myself. He takes everyone’s opinions into account and cares for others where I only seem to care about my wants. In reality, he is the better version of me, and I wonder if I will ever be enough for someone one day.

  Grabbing a pair of brown Cargo shorts and a Henley tee off the floor of my closet I head straight for the shower. I check the time knowing that if I take my time and leave my soon-to-be roommates waiting at the door for a short time, that maybe, just maybe they won’t rent from us. An evil smirk forms on my face as I turn the water to hot and jump in. The water causes tingles to form over my body as the hot water washes away the sweat and hate I have for myself.

  Showers are my therapy, my way of dealing with my own ugliness. They give me
a chance to clean away the insecurities that reside inside of me and to start over again, even when I know there isn’t a reset button for this thing called life.

  I’m twenty-two years old and still feel as if my life after graduation is undecided. There are two routes I could take after being on a one-way street for the past three years. What I really need is a road map to figuring out my next move. I could extend my pre-apprenticeship training, or cross my fingers and hope that I am assigned to a local union where I would work within a union carpentry crew, doing jobs as a First Year Apprentice while working my way up to a journeyman, and if I’m lucky a master carpenter one day.

  I look down at myself wondering where I went wrong. In the beginning it was all fun and games, everyone was experimenting their first year of college. Not saying I was inexperienced before then because I’m no saint, and I experimented a lot with a lot of girls that year, but I’m more than this playboy I have presented myself as. I just don’t know how to come back from it.

  In high school I stayed in trouble for being the class clown, teachers always said I didn’t take anything seriously. Being sent to the principal’s office one time too many landed me in a carpentry class. The principal felt I needed something to keep my mind and hands preoccupied, that way I wouldn’t have time to goof off. Four years spent in shop and I decided it was something I wanted to take further.

  When I signed up for classes my first year here at Auburn they were all general studies’ classes, but when my second year rolled around I was intent on making up for all the bullshit I did freshman year. I extended my general degree to an advanced college degree where I would take classes in new construction, restoration, and preservation carpentry fields. I was ready to make my mom and Dad proud, the same way Chance effortlessly did time and time again, but by then everyone knew my reputation. Guys wanted to hang around me and girls wanted to bang me. They used me to get themselves up the ladder and in return I felt useless when I wasn’t being used. So I became the user so I wouldn’t have to feel the loneliness when everyone walked away, and if I’m being honest that’s the worst feeling imaginable.