Page 60 of Playing with Forever
“I’m better with her,” I agreed, the words catching in my throat. “But she’s better withoutme.”
Austin barked out a humorless laugh. “Bullshit. You’re not protecting Andrea. You’re punishing her for caring about you.”
I didn’t have a comeback. Not one that didn’t make me feel like a hypocrite.
Austin sat forward in the chair, his expression shrewd. “Tell me the truth, Chase. You really gonna sit back and watch her fall for someone else? Watch some other guy touch her, kiss her, give her everything you’re too goddamn afraid to?”
That possibility hit me like a sledgehammer, because that wasn’t something I’d allowed myself to think about until Austin had forced those images into my brain. The thought of her in someone else’s arms made my chest feel like it was caving in. Made me a little insane, too. Not because I didn’t think she deserved love…but because she wasmine.
Austin saw it, and smirked, just a little. “Yeah. That’s what I thought. You’ve got enough ghosts, man. Don’t make her another one.”
With that, Austin walked out of my office and I sat there, trying to remember how the hell to breathe. Leaving me to wonder, too, when the fuck my baby brother had learned to get the upper hand on me like that.
My phone chimed with a text from Tate:She’s home. Stubborn as fuck, just like you. Hurry up and take her off our hands so she can stop driving us insane.
I stared at the text until the phone screen went black, then stared a little longer, wondering if I still had the balls to fight for the only person who’d ever made the demons inside of me go quiet.
CHAPTER24
Andrea
Violet went out of town for the weekend with some coworkers who were also her friends—some kind ofwe need to go camping in Joshua Tree before we kill all our clients and burn the casino downtype thing—and to be honest, I was kind of grateful.
I loved my sister, but she was hovering, and between Violet and the nonstop bodyguards, I needed space. A weekend to myself at home would do me good.
Saturday was fine, except for the part where Ford awkwardly knocked on my door and asked me if I knew I could still go out somewhere if I wanted. I wasn’t on house arrest.
“I’m fine,” I told him. “Go away.” Then I slammed the door in his face.
That had felt really good to do. Ha.
The bodyguard who introduced himself to me on Sunday as Garrett was some newer guy I didn’t know, but he’d clearly been informed by Chase that his ass was grass if anything happened to me, because he did a whole perimeter sweep and checked my house before he went back to his car.
Once, I would’ve found it funny that a guy was so scared of Chase. Now, I just wanted to call Chase and tell him that if he was still so fucking paranoid, he could damn well just watch over me himself.
I went to bed on Sunday night, dreading the next day. Going into work could be a good distraction, and probably one I needed, but I just wanted to keep hiding away from the world.
Then, as if my subconscious wanted to punish me, I had a nightmare.
Chase was drowning in a pit of sand, and I couldn’t tug him up, no matter how hard I tried. I kept pulling and pulling, but he was still sinking under. I begged him to help me help him, but he wouldn’t even look at me. The sand swallowed him up, and I screamed, and screamed, and—
I jolted awake.
My breath was coming hard and fast. I stared up at the ceiling, trying to calm myself down. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a bad nightmare like that. All of this with Chase was seriously getting to me.
Maybe that was the real issue, at the end of the day. Chase was hurting over something and I wanted to help him, but he wouldn’t let me. He’d literally rather be swallowed up, and hurt me as well, than address whatever the issue was. I wasn’t just brokenhearted over him. I was worried about him.
But if he wouldn’t talk about it, I couldn’t make him.
I got up out of bed to get myself a glass of water to calm my nerves. Luckily our place was small. I couldn’t imagine how I’d handle a big house right now, everything dark and empty and echoing. I grabbed a glass and filled it with water without even turning on the light, standing in the dark kitchen, enjoying the peace.
An odd scraping sound reached my ears.
I froze.
It was quiet—maybe I had imagined it?
There it was again. It was a sound that was familiar, but it took me a second to place it, because, I realized as my blood went cold, I’d only ever seen/heard it in movies.
