Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 109038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
It feels like someone is ripping out my whole heart to see him like this. His eyes look so bleak, the green contrasted against the redness of his eyes.
I reach out and bring my arms around his shoulders, gathering him toward me.
He doesn’t move.
And that’s the most certain I’ve ever felt that I never needed to worry about Chase.
He doesn’t move.
When I come to him, he doesn’t run from me.
When he’s reeling, hurting, feeling the worst he’s probably ever felt, he doesn’t shove me away, or scream at me to go, or any of the other shit that I went through with Daniel, when the media tore him apart.
Chase is nothing like that.
He hurts, and he feels emotions deeply, and he wears his heart on his sleeve, but after all of that, he doesn’t fucking give up.
Even here, now, he isn’t giving up on me.
And it makes me choke up as I keep my arms wrapped around him, knowing that Chase’s ugliest, broken moments are still precious to me. He doesn’t push me away. And even though I’m certain he saw the flood of different comments on social media, I know that he can process that pain and come out on the other side of it to make something beautiful.
I believe in him.
And that makes all the difference in the world.
I hold him for a minute, then five minutes, saying nothing as a tear breaks off from my eye, too. The sounds of the city come in through the windows of the studio, with occasional car horns, people talking, or music from cars driving by.
I can feel him breathing steadily, and when I finally move, I just rest my forehead against the side of his, holding a whole ocean inside me.
He swallows, taking in a breath, before he finally speaks.
“I’m a mess, but I haven’t been drinking or taking anything,” he says, his voice quiet and broken.
I squeeze my arm around his shoulder tighter. “I know.”
He shifts just a little in my arms. “You didn’t automatically assume that?”
“What? No. That didn’t even occur to me.”
“That can’t be true.”
“I trust you, Chase,” I tell him. Nothing has ever felt so true. “I trust you.”
He doesn’t move or speak for a while again. I move a few times, gently pressing a kiss to his hair, then stroking the back of his neck for a while, then going back to wrapping my arms around him.
“I don’t think I am good enough for you, Logan,” he finally tells me.
His voice doesn’t sound broken anymore.
He says it firmly, matter-of-fact, like he’s certain he’s informing me of the truth.
“Do me a favor and don’t ever say that again.”
“Don’t you see it, too?” he asks. “That I fuck things up like I have a special talent for it?”
“Your father was wrong, Chase—”
“And I always manage to drag down the people around me, somehow, too?”
“Anyone who doesn’t see your worth is fucking blind,” I tell him, my voice resolute. I squeeze his shoulder hard, leaning forward to look at his eyes. “Stop doing this.”
“I can’t.”
“This isn’t you,” I tell him.
He finally looks up to meet my eyes. “It’s always been me.”
I hold his face in my hands.
I lean in to kiss his forehead, then each of his cheeks. I tilt his chin backward so I can kiss his lips, and I do it softly, slowly, taking my time.
“You aren’t going to scare me away,” I tell him. “Keep trying, if you’d like to. It won’t work. Tell me the worst of you, and I’ll still be right here.”
He puffs out an exhale that sounds like a laugh, but then I see a stray tear break off from his eye.
“I can’t believe you’re still here,” he whispers, looking up as he pulls in a shaky breath.
“Why didn’t you call me?” I demand. “Why didn’t you call me when you were let go from the restaurant?”
“You know about that?”
“I know about that. And you could have called me, or come back to my suite, or told me anything you were going through.”
He swallows. “I couldn’t think. I didn’t know…”
I nod, running my hand down his back. “I understand.”
For the first time since I’ve gotten here, he changes his position. He lets his knees straighten out and he leans his body against mine, letting me hold him at a better angle as he melts against my body.
He tucks his head against the crook of my neck, and I let my hand stroke over his hair in a steady rhythm.
Finally, he clutches at me in the way I’m used to.
He brings his arms around my waist, tugging at me, squeezing me like he’s holding onto me for life.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“It’s okay.”
He kisses me on my neck, then on my collarbone. He nuzzles against me like he’s trying to burrow.
“I’ll be able to talk about it soon. I just… can’t, right now.”