“Damn small towns,” she grumbles.
Never thought I’d miss that small town so much. I spent years away and never missed the town. Then again, it’s not really me missing the town as much as it’s me missing everyone in it. Mainly my two brothers and one guy who is probably back to fucking anything on two legs. That’s how he moved past me the first time.
The taste in my mouth is a mixture of jealousy and self-loathing, and I feel the urge to brush my teeth.
“I need to go,” I tell her, acting like I have a life, when really all I need to do is stop listening about the one I had to give up.
“Yeah. Sure. Call me soon, okay?”
I nod like she can see me before hanging up, and I stare up at my ceiling. At least solitude is helping me with my emotions, even if it is trapping me with them at the same time.
Giving up Aidan is killing me. Giving up Hunter isn’t easy either.
Giving up Chase… It shouldn’t hurt as much as it did last time, but it hurts worse. Probably because I had a taste of what we had once again, only to have it stripped away.
At least I had him for a little while, even if it was just enough to torture me.
Chapter 47
CHASE
“Anything?” I ask Hunter, who helps me lift Aidan off the barstool. Between the two of us, we carry him out to my truck.
“No. Just glad you’re not stuck in a drunken stupor the way he is,” he grumbles.
“I got lost in the bottom of a bottle and other women the last time I lost Mika. It didn’t help. I was a kid then. I’m not anymore. Right now I’m trying not to lose my shit, because I want to deserve her when we find her. Aidan… Aidan just needs to realize this isn’t helping.”
“Dr. Stein wants to see him, because she’s worried about him. Mika allows her to update him on her well-being, but Dr. Stein says she still can’t disclose where Mika is. That’s all he needs to pull himself back together again.”
“Mika isn’t home,” Aidan mumbles, still half passed out as his head flops from side to side.
We put him into the back cab of my truck, and Hunter walks around to get in on the passenger side, while I heave myself in behind the wheel.
“She thinks she’s keeping him from living his life. Does that look like a man who is missing out on life?” Hunter asks me, gesturing behind him as Aidan groans and tries to get comfortable in the back.
“She’s coming home. I just have to figure out a way to find her. Chuck… I think Chuck knows something,” I tell him as we back out of the lot. “Which is one thing helping to keep me from being in a drunken stupor. That and the fact I’ve been focused on my list.”
“What? Why? How?” Hunter asks in a higher pitch than normal as I drive us toward Mika’s home. It’s her home even if she did sign it over to Aidan.
“He’s been avoiding me the past few weeks. When I asked him what was up, he rambled about nonsensical bullshit for a while. Chuck is terrible at keeping secrets for long periods of time.”
He sighs as though a weight is lifted off him. “Finding her would be the best thing that could happen to Aidan right now.”
“And me,” I remind him as we turn into Mika’s driveway.
“So you’ve stuck to the list for two months and think you’re ready to go full-time?”
I nod. “Haven’t checked off any boxes in over five weeks.”
“That’s impressive. Took me almost six months to go without checking off a box.”
“I have a little more incentive,” I mumble.
“You know you can’t ever get married if you do this, right? She’s not the typical bride type. She can’t plan a wedding.”
“Yeah. I read about it. A wedding of any kind would be too much stress. Even a small one without any times or planning could cause agitation. For now. Mika has improved drastically from what I’ve read in that damn book.”
“Speaking of which, she had another book come out. You died again.”
I grimace, thinking back to the book Mika once tried to stop me from reading. This was not that book. That book has yet to be published, but this one was, and I died brutally. Acid—pure burning acid—was injected into my veins in small doses.
“Yeah. Saw that. How many times can she kill me? I thought they made her stop killing someone named Chase.”
“She’s a cash cow. They bend their rules based on what she needs. You had to die in order for her to try and move forward again. She’s probably already written several others where you’re being killed. Aidan wasn’t killed. That’s a good sign.”
“Good for him,” I grumble.
Just as we get out to move Aidan inside, Whit’s car wheels in beside us. She gets out, and her eyes flick to the backseat Aidan is sprawled across.
“I need to talk to you,” she says, not looking away from Aidan.
“Kind of busy right this second. Can it wait?”
She looks up just as I heave Aidan out of the truck and wrap his arm around my shoulders, waiting on Hunter to get around here and give me a hand. I’d throw him over my shoulder, but he puked on me the last time I did that. I’d rather not get an encore.