Blayne

Fear is unattractive, show some other emotion.

 

 

If I had to tell you about last night, I wouldn’t say I was drunk exactly.

No.

Because out of my freaking mind! would be a much better description.

I woke up in a bed that I’d never been in before. I couldn’t remember much until I remembered Chase. It was the same room, it was his suite… I didn’t want to think about it.

What the hell did I do, did I sleep with him? Oh God! I remembered then what happened at the club, looking at him and feeling like I was seeing him for the first time. I remembered being somehow mesmerized by his lips and wanting to kiss them…And then, I looked at myself and I was wearing my own clothes, the same ones I was wearing last night. Does having clothes on mean we didn’t fuck? But I was about to kiss him, wasn’t I?

Of course that would have been a huge drunken mistake because you couldn’t have a second one night stand with your boss and get away with it! While I was trying to move my head in a way that didn’t hurt, my suddenly-intelligent brain started to think. There were no discarded trousers in the room, no used condom wrapper, and no sign that either of us had shed our clothing at any point. I decided that was a good sign. Before I could think further, Chase came into the room with what looked like a breakfast tray.

“You passed out before I could ask you anything,” he said. “So I brought you here.”

“So we didn’t—?”

“Are you disappointed?” he said, coming to sit on the bed. “Because if you are, I’m sure we can remedy that.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to imply that—” I didn’t have a clue what I was going to say next so I stopped myself from making it worse, “never mind.”

He handed me coffee. “This should help,” he said. “So will some greasy food.”

The breakfast looked so good, sitting there in front of me but I just wasn’t sure I could put food into the drunken morning hangover equation.

“I hope it’s okay that I brought you here,” Chase said. “I couldn’t find Chloe or any of your friends.”

“Yes,” I said. “Chloe does that sometimes. Hooks up with guys and then forgets I even exist until the walk of shame next morning.”

As if on cue, my phone started to ring and I saw that it was on the nightstand, almost out of juice. “Speak of the devil,” I said, when I answered.

“Where the fuck are you?” Chloe yelled right into my eardrum.

“Where am I, Chloe? Where were you?”

She quieted down when she remembered. “Oh shit,” she said. “I forgot you again last night, didn’t I?”

“You think?”

“Oh Blayne I’m so sorry,” she said. “I hooked up with this really awesome guy…” she said and then paused, “wait. I’m in our apartment and you’re not here. Where did you spend the night?”

I had to make something up spur of the moment. This is one thing I don’t think I should be telling her. I didn’t want her to worry especially when there was nothing to worry about. It wasn’t as though Chase and I had actually slept together. Now that would have been an actual problem. “You think you’re the only one who can have one night stands?” I said with a confidence that I didn’t feel inside.

Even Chase looked surprised.

“Holy shit,” Chloe sniggered. “You skank! Who’d you finally give your post-Chase virginity to?”

“No one you need to remember,” I said.

“That bad?”

“You have no idea!”

Great. So not only did I have to make up a guy, I also had to make up shitty sex details about him. And then I made some silly excuse to make her go away so I could deal with the hangover and Chase.

“I was fine with the one-night-stand bit,” Chase said, when I placed the phone down. “But no one you need to remember? Ouch.”

“Look I’m sorry,” I said. “I just didn’t want to give her ideas. We work together and I live with her. I don’t want things to get awkward when they don’t have to be.”

“It’s fine, Blayne. I get it.”

He picked up his own coffee cup and drank from it. “So,” he said. “What has Nick done to bother you this badly?”

“He’s been sending me those weird texts,” I told him. “Telling me that this isn’t over. That he’s going to make me reconsider. Last night he texted me that I shouldn’t trust anyone. What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Shouldn’t you be asking him that?”

“Yeah but for that I would have to confront him, which is not something I want to do just yet.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Do you think you might have made a mistake by leaving Nick?”

Why does he want to know?

“That’s an odd question to ask.”

“Is it?” he became apologetic. “You don’t have to answer.”

“It’s alright I don’t mind,” I said. “Look, Chase I was with him for years. I know what he is and I know exactly what he’s capable of. He was never the right person for me and that’s not something that I just found out. I always knew that.”

“Five years is a long time to be with someone that you know isn’t the right person for you.”

“I thought he was the right person,” I told him. “I thought that deep down he loved me. I took his words for granted. It was much later that I found out he had been cheating on me for quite some time. You have to understand we were pretty young when we got together. Back then, it just felt like we were meant to be, because everyone said so!”

“I know the feeling,” he said.

“Do I detect a note of personal experience?”

“We’ll need an entire year to go over mine. Let’s just stick to you for today. So when was the first time you found out about him?”

“Well, he told me he had to leave town for a while you know? The typical excuse. I was fine with it. So he goes and he barely calls me the entire week. Then, he comes back, looking all depressed and as though something went wrong. It concerned me but he shrugged it off, saying it was some work thing he didn’t want to bother me with. A day later, there’s a woman at our door. A really hot looking thing, asking to talk to Nick. So I call Nick and he goes all pale, and then he tries to salvage it by going over to the girl and reasoning with her but she isn’t about to listen. Turns out she was pissed that he didn’t call her back or try to see her again. It was obvious she knew he was in a long term relationship, but that didn’t seem to bother her. She was threatening a lawsuit…sexual harassment, she kept saying.”

“Someone he knew from work?”

“Yes! Some new hire he thought he had handled, but obviously he had been wrong about her. She wasn’t about to let him do this to her. Anyway, I stood there listening to them arguing, until Nick asked me to wait and went outside to talk to her and closed the door. I was so…stunned. I didn’t know what to do. I kept wondering if leaving would be the right thing but I was so stuck. I kept hoping for him to apologize and make this better somehow. And then before I knew it, Nick was in front of me, apologizing, and making it sound like he would die without me.”

“You caved?”

“I was infuriated. I yelled and screamed and everything. But then he promised he would never do it again. He told me he would never ever hurt me this way. That it was just a moment of passion and he slipped up. In any case, he convinced me not to leave him. He convinced me to stay.

“You see, I cared for him. Ever since Jason broke up with me, I’ve never even had the chance to look at anyone else, because I’ve always been truthful and loyal to him. There was never any need for me to do all that, you know? It’s not like I was doing him a favor or anything,” I said, and hesitated before adding the next bit. “The only reason Nick and I were even together, was because our families wanted it. I know it sounds absurd but I think we both gave in to our parents happiness because we both felt like we couldn’t do much better on our own. Our families have business ties, it’s complicated when there’s so much money involved.”

“Blayne,” he said. “Being faithful to someone, when temptation is all around you, is the most remarkable favor anyone can do for you. But it sounds like you were in an arranged relationship.”

“I get that now, but you know, back then I was so lost and alone. I barely had any friends because I alienated myself from everyone. The whole living together thing had changed me. It changed him too. He wasn’t the same guy anymore but I kept thinking maybe once things get better, he might be. But things never got better. They just got worse.”

I couldn’t help that I started crying. Chase’s face was a mixture of concerned and confused. And then he came over to my side and put an arm around me. “I’m sorry you had to go through this,” he said. “I know how hard it can be.”

And again, there was that note, of experience, something in his words that made me feel like there was a story beneath the surface, but he didn’t say anything.

“I’m so embarrassed,” I said, unable to pull away from him. “I didn’t mean to cry like some crazy hormonal woman.”

“Hey,” he said gently. “You passed out drunk in the middle of the street. We’re way past embarrassing.”

That made me laugh. Just the image of that happening outside the club. Did you carry me to the car? To the bed? In your arms? And with my head buried in his chest I felt like I really was a crazy hormonal woman, because even though his embrace was little more than casual friendship, it was beginning to feel like a lot more. When he finally pulled away I was left a bit breathless.

“Blayne?” he said, getting up and facing me.

“Yeah?”

“I  think I might be addicted to you.”