As he trailed off, his gray eyes landed on mine. It was amazing how just looking at him had a way of knocking the wind out of me. It wasn’t only his looks that did it for me. Chase had always been funny and sweet. He was good at cheering anyone up when they were down and made friends easily because of it. Maybe that was why I found it so odd that he had so few now.
“Yeah?” My pulse skyrocketed at the idea of doing something with him that didn’t involve work. Maybe he’d loosen up enough to actually talk to me about something real.
Chase’s cheeks pinked a little as he held out his phone to me. With my hands slightly shaking, I took it and entered my number before handing it back to him. He gave me a small smile as he pocketed it. Maybe he’d send me a message later so that Ihad his number as well. I could always ask for it, but he’d been so skittish, so I was taking the small win.
When neither of us made a move after that, Chase laughed awkwardly before waving to the front door. “They wanted to meet there in like forty-five minutes. I know it’s not that long of a walk from here, but I figured...”
It was cute how he was being kind of shy about this, but it was outside of his element. Was this a date? This wasn’t like our agreed-upon arrangement of just hooking up and working together. “Yeah, we can walk. Let me just let Uncle Drew know, and we can go.”
“He knows. I asked if I could steal you for a while.”
It was my turn to blush now. Uncle Drew had more than implied that he knew about my history with Chase without directly saying it. Perhaps this was his way of shoving the two of us together.
I made sure my wallet and phone were in my pocket before leading Chase out of the house. I locked the door behind me even though Uncle Drew was out back working on some sort of project. He was always so secretive when he worked on his special projects. Sometimes it was a piece of furniture or some useless gadget that he was trying to invent.
The day was nice and not overly warm. The breeze blew through my hair and I looked over to see Chase adjusting his hat on his head. He almost always wore a hat, even when we were younger. They were sort of a security blanket. In a way, he’d let his guarddown that night at the party when he’d taken it off and talked to me. Maybe that was the trick, getting him to take that hat off.
The need to fill the silence became overwhelming again. I couldn’t walk all the way to the fun park without talking to him at all. “So, who are we meeting up with?”
“A couple of my friends who were at the party, Art and Daniel. Tilly will be there as well. She’s Art’s on-again, off-again girlfriend. They break up and get back together so often, I think they do it just for the make-up sex at this point.”
I chuckled at his explanation. Joe had a few relationships like that while we were in school, which was another reason I wanted him to stay far away from Aiden. Joe was pansexual and didn’t discriminate. I had no idea which way my brother swung since it wasn’t something he was open with me about.
“Do they know that you’re bringing me?”
Chase paused for a second before catching back up. “They know you’re coming, yeah.”
The way he had to think about that made me wonder what he’d told them about me. “What was that?”
“What do you mean?”
“You hesitated.”
Chase let out a sigh. He took his hat off for a moment and ran a hand through his dirty-blond strands before fixing it back on his head. “I haven’t told them everything about you. As far asthey know, you’re just some guy Drew hired to help me for the summer.”
Ouch. Had I really hurt him so much that he couldn’t even tell his friends about our past? It was my turn to stop walking. It took Chase a moment to realize that I wasn’t following. He paused and turned around.
“What did you want me to tell them?”
I shrugged. He had a point. “I don’t know, but I’m more than just some guy.”
Chase growled in frustration. “You know what? Maybe this was a bad idea. I shouldn’t have invited you to this.”
My heart lurched as he turned and started marching down the sidewalk again. I ran to catch up, grabbing him by the arm. A zing, like a bolt of lightning, shot from where our skin connected, and Chase looked at me in shock. It was impossible for him not to have felt it. “Would you wait a minute?”
Chase shook out of my hold and crossed his arms. “Wait for what? You want to try to scratch open old wounds again?”
The last thing I wanted to do was to turn this into a fight. “That’s not what I meant. I would at least hope you would introduce me as a friend.”
When Chase shook his head and kept walking, I didn’t know how to feel. An unsettled feeling made a home in my stomach as I followed him down the road. There wasn’t a point in continuingto argue. It made me question our agreement from the party. It made me feel insignificant. But hadn't I also done the same to him?
The fun park was only a fifteen-minute walk from my uncle’s house, so we arrived well before we were supposed to meet up with Chase’s friends. The park consisted of a go-kart track, bumper cars, and a small arcade. Sometimes small carnivals came through and set up a few rides, and the place would be swarmed with families. Today looked like one of those days. On top of the usual attractions, there was aTilt-A-Whirl, a small roller coaster, and one of those ring rides that flipped you upside down.
Chase had a little extra pep in his step the closer we got to the attractions, like he was excited to be there. I wondered how much of this was his idea versus his friends’. This was more like the guy I remembered, who wasn’t afraid of doing things, even if they weren’t the popular thing to do. These types of attractions became boring after a while of living in a place like this.
Trying to lighten the mood from the walk, I turned into the ice cream shop. It was packed with families and kids picking out their scoops, and at some point, I lost Chase in the crowd. Thankfully, the area around the park wasn’t big, and it would be easy to find him when I got out of there. The staff was used to dealing with the summer chaos, and I was in and out in less than ten minutes carrying two cones. A scoop of pistachio for me and a scoop of rocky road for Chase. My only hope was that it was still his favorite flavor.
I found Chase resting against the building for the bumper cars, fiddling with his phone. “I was just about to message you.”
