The ride home was quiet and nail biting. Not that I had much nails left to chew. At this point I was munching on skin. He pulled into my driveway, and the sound of tires crunching under crisp snow made me grimace. We walked into the house, and my eyes followed him.
Chase cracked his neck. “Spill your beans. Your anxiousness is giving me heartburn.”
Just peachy.
I twiddled my fingers, eyes averted. “Uh…” I deadpanned.
Then, by the grace of Travis, I was momentarily saved. He busted through my door, zooming into my house like a cyclone. I was engulfed into a hug that knocked me off my feet, and before I could catch my breath, he had me up in the air, swinging in dizzying circles. It was worse than running light-speed with Chase. I thought my head was going to explode.
I swayed when he put me on my feet. “Oh, God. I think I’m gonna hurl.”
Chase backed up. “Not on my shoes you aren’t.”
I gave him a pathetic death glare. My eyes were sort of crisscrossed. Blasted demon speeds. Travis kept an arm around me, and I could feel his exuberance radiating off him. “Please don’t ever do that again,” I said green-faced.
His smile was so wide his dimples were even sparkling. “I can’t thank you enough.” He spoke softly, his gemstone eyes glistening.
I swallowed hard, pretending I wasn’t about to cry. My eyes connected with Chase’s as he uplifted that brow with the hoop. The one I loved.
“What was that for?” he asked. There was genuine confusion and hope on his beautiful face. Hope that his cousin, in some holy miracle, had forgiven us. I missed that look, the one that said how much he had missed this charming side of Travis, but I wasn’t able to savor the moment for long, or the feelings that were bursting inside me.
My stomach dropped, but this time for entirely different reason. I knew that I was going to have to squash that thread of hope, and it killed something inside of me.
Chase’s head whipped from his grinning cousin to me with a menacing scowl that had the hairs on my neck standing up and my tattoo tingling.
Shitballs.
He stared at me, clearly unimpressed. “You didn’t.”
Silence.
I cursed our bond and its emotion sharing.
In a snap, his eyes burned golden, and his voice dropped ten octaves lower. “God damn it, Angel. Do I have to handcuff you to me?”
My dark eyebrow rose in consideration. Handcuffs? Chase? “I don’t see how that could be bad.”
He let out a long growl of frustration. There was no telling what he was going to do next.
“Chase, I didn’t have a choice,” I defended my claim.
Pain flashed across his eyes. And I knew that he saw my actions as a betrayal to his trust. To him. “We always have a choice.”
Then he was gone.
He didn’t scream at me.
He didn’t throw me over his shoulder.
He just left.
“Son of a bitch,” I muttered, followed by a string of very inventive swear words.
“Umm. I second that,” Travis said, coming to stand next to me, staring at the open door.
I wrapped my arms around myself as a chill blew through the house, knocking papers to the floor. Shuffling my feet, I kicked the door shut. It felt like I had slammed the door on my heart. It hurt.
But for Travis’s sake, I slapped on a small smile. “Did you see her?” I asked.
An ear-splitting grin appeared on his lips. “I didn’t think you would actually do it.”
I shrugged. “I’d do anything for you.”
The dimpled-smile disappeared slowly, and he looked at the floor. “I am sorry about what happened in the woods.”
Right-o. I was ready to let bygones be bygones, even if that had been a sad excuse to hurt Chase. I didn’t really want to sit here and rehash all the wrong we’d done or the crappy decisions we’d made. So I didn’t say anything. I just let him ramble on because he seemed like he needed to get it off his chest.
“It’s weird. I remember some of the things I’ve done the last few weeks, but most of the memories are as if they belong to someone else.” He dropped down onto my zebra-print couch. “The things I did…” His voice trailed off.
I tilted my head sideways, studying him. “It can’t be worse than the shit Chase has done.” Once the words left my mouth, I kind of wanted to slap myself. Talk about putting my foot in my super-sized mouth. “Wow, that…was probably too soon. Me and my big mouth.”
“Angel, it’s fine. I don’t pretend to think that Chase is something he’s not, and I don’t think there is anything you can say that will darken my mood. Not today. You gave me back my life.”
I didn’t know about that, but I sat there for a moment, thinking if the roles had been reversed and that if it was Chase and I torn apart, how it would make me feel. I understood more than Travis probably realized, though I think I would have been worse, if possible. Not that I was lessening what Travis felt for Emma, but Chase and I, we did everything on epic levels.
Including love.
I scrunched up my face. “I am not sure about that, but I owed it to you.”
He put his hands on his knees. “Well, no matter what my jackass cousin thinks, I say you’re a genius.”