Blayne

Every solution breeds new problems.

 

 

Training was finally over, and we were getting some work done. It wasn’t easy and there were things that kept bothering me. Someone’s attitude, some task that I couldn’t manage to finish, lack of creativity when there was dire need for it—yes, it was hardly perfect. But no matter how bad it got, I would just come back the next day more pumped than before. Being a paralegal was as close to my dream of becoming a lawyer as I could get. There was nothing more satisfying.

Immersing myself in work was fulfilling in a different kind of way. I knew it was a temporary position, and it wasn’t even going to last long, so I gave it my all because I really wanted things to work out. There were also plenty of late nights and frustrating moments where nothing would go right but because I was really happy with the job overall, I let it all slide.

I was even better friends with Alex and Tristan and they actually did turn out to be good people, even though they were as judgmental about everyone still as they were the first day I met them. I think it was self-defense mechanism—they judged people before others could judge them.

Chase was just the high-profile CEO we barely got to see. Sometimes we crossed paths in the elevator or walking toward our floor. A man in his position could have made my life miserable, considering he was my employer and the way things had ended between us, but he was professional despite everything that happened. In fact, he didn’t even look too concerned or interested in me anymore. So basically, he wasn’t hiding a grudge and he wasn’t trying to flirt with me: both good things and more than I could hope for because I was still trying to stay away from men in general.

It was Sunday and we were at a breakfast place on our street that Chloe loves so much. I was outside, trying to search for my phone in my purse which was never easy, as I’ve mentioned before. I had to call to Tristan and when Tristan was waiting for someone’s call and they didn’t call, he got ugly. And he tended to get annoyed which meant I would have to spend the next two days trying to get him to like me again, and I was not looking forward to that at all. But my phone had suddenly become some invisible object that may or may not exist.

“Blayne,” someone said so I looked up. I was staring right down at this person’s face, the clueless face, and hazel eyes. I couldn’t even find words to respond with, I was just standing there, speechless.

“Blayne? You okay?”

“What are you doing here, Nick?” I finally managed to find my voice. And with that, my anger was riled back up again.

“You wouldn’t talk to me,” Nick said. “What was I supposed to do?”

“Stay the fuck away, Nick! That’s what!”

He grabbed my arm in an obvious effort to threaten me. “Don’t do this,” he said. “Don’t make this a whole public insult thing. I just need to talk.”

I tried to break free but his grip on my arm was vicious. “Nick!” I yelled. “Let go of me.”

“Not until you agree to come with me,” he said, fingers digging deeper into my skin. “Come on Blayne, don’t be a bitch.”

I was about to say something rude when our conversation was interrupted. “She asked you to leave her alone,” said a familiar voice.

I turned to see the speaker, and ended up being just as confused as Nick, because it was Chase Cooper, standing there, wearing casual clothes that I had never seen on him before. There was a girl standing right next to him, and I knew I had seen her somewhere but I couldn’t remember.

“Who the hell are you?” Nick said to Cooper. Nick looked furious, but Chase wasn’t about to let this go either. “I’m a friend of Chloe’s,” he said to Nick. “And next time, I’m not going to ask you to let go of her.”

“This is none of your business Chloe’s friend,” Nick said, to my utter disappointment. “I suggest you let her deal with her own problems. She’s my fiancée. I just want to talk to her.”

“Nick I told you before, I don’t want to talk to you. Now let me go, please!”

But Nick’s gaze wasn’t on me anymore. He was eyeing Chase with contempt. Chase didn’t even flinch. “You heard her,” he said. The threat was there in his voice, even though he wasn’t saying it. We all heard it and Nick must have heard it too. Which was probably why he let go of me. I guess he must have decided it wasn’t worth taking the risk of being punched in public and losing the fight. “Blayne I will see you,” Nick said, and that was supposed to be some kind of threat but I couldn’t care less.

 He was gone.

“Thanks,” I said to Chase, as soon as Nick left. “He’s not usually like this. I don’t know what’s going on with him.”

“That’s alright,” Chase said. “Guess he’s having trouble getting over you.”

I had no idea what I was supposed to say, so I did the next best thing. “Thanks,” I said. “For telling him you were Chloe’s friend and not being weird about it.”

“No problem,” he said.

“You’re here,” I said. “In these parts?”

He grinned. “This is my friend Kira,” he pointed to the girl and the girl gave a nod of his head, and a smile. And that was when I remembered. She was the same girl I’d seen kissing Chase at the club. She also looked sheepish. “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced,” she said. “I’m Kira and Chase and I have been friends since we were in college.”

“Nice to meet you, Kira,” I wanted to be as polite as possible. “Does Chase make out with all of his college friends?”

That sounded rude and intrusive. I shouldn’t have said that. Kira shook her head. “What you saw that night at the club, wasn’t us making out,” she said. “I was transferring the E I was holding in my mouth, and I realize now that probably sounds worse, but we’re not together. If we were trust me, I’d be shouting it from the rooftops instead of hiding it.”

“Full disclosure,” Kira said. “We did go out once. Felt like we owed it to each other to try and see if we have chemistry, but we were terrible at it. Chase can confirm it. I just didn’t want there to be any bad blood between us.”

For some reason, I trusted her. She didn’t know a reason to lie to me.

Then, we were all just standing in awkward silence. It seemed like it would never end, when Chase filled it with words. “I should probably go inside,” he said and I started smiling like an idiot, I was overdoing it, I knew it.

“Sure, yeah!” I stammered.

“I’ll see you around,” he said, and I’m pretty sure his eyes said things that his words didn’t say. Kitten.

“Yes,” I managed.

And then he was gone, disappearing inside the crowd of people in the breakfast place along with Kira, and I was left standing outside, with my mouth hanging open, something that had started to happen rather frequently in Chase’s presence or every time I so much as thought about him. You’re mine, Kitten.

“What the hell was that all about?” Chloe asked, jolting me out of my fantasy state.

“Nothing,” I said, going toward a booth with her.

I felt tired even though it was just morning and I had woken up less than an hour ago. I was tired because I wanted this thing with Nick to go away. But the way Nick had behaved today it was more than a little obvious that he wasn’t about to just sit back and wait for his heart to move on.

And of course there was this other inconvenience—Chase Cooper. What the hell was I doing getting all excited over him? He was my boss, this could get complicated!

But I couldn’t help that every time I saw him I felt something, deep down inside me, an urge, a thirst, a craving if you could call it that—something that I’d never felt before and it was annoying the way every time Chase was around, it resurfaced. I needed to make more of an effort to kill that silly feeling.