CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Last night when I got back to my apartment, it had occurred to me that I’d been so focused on Chase finding out about the fund-raiser that I had sort of blocked out the whole “Hey, Chase, guess what’s completely off the table between us?” conversation.
And if he was the kind of guy who would bail over it, I needed to know. No more playing house or living in a fantasy. I had to face it.
Because it would be better to find out now before he so completely enchanted my heart that it would devastate me to lose him.
Again, I spent more time than I normally would getting ready to go to Chase’s house. I finished putting on mascara and gave my reflection a last once-over. He had asked me why I didn’t think I was beautiful. There was the traumatic stuff, but I just didn’t think of myself that way. Men had found me attractive enough to ask out, but to be honest, there was always insecurity involved when you had a friend like Lexi. She was the hot one whom all the guys drooled over, and I was the smart one. Like we each had roles to play, and I’d spent so much time in her shadow that it hadn’t occurred to me that I could be pretty and she could have brains, too.
In our tiny living room, Lexi and Gavin were cuddled together watching one of Chase’s movies. It was based on a postapocalyptic YA novel about how the earth had turned into a giant desert and Chase’s character had the magical ability to detect water. Dumb as it sounded, he was much better in that one than in Octavius.
“Somebody’s all dressed up!” Lexi noticed, giving me a satisfied grin. “Off to see your man?”
I’d left Chase’s sweater on the coffee table so I wouldn’t forget to return it to him. I picked it up. “He’s not my man. We’re not dating.”
“Yet. You’re headed down the road to Relationship City.”
“It’s more of a flirtationship.”
“Do you at least know if his intentions are honorable?” Gavin asked, pausing the movie.
Lexi giggled. I rolled my eyes. “We’re hanging out. Not discovering Plymouth Rock.”
I had started stroking the soft fabric of Chase’s sweater, not realizing I was doing so. Lexi pointedly looked at my hands, and I stopped. “It’s just really soft. Although I don’t know what it’s made out of.” As if that would explain my anxiety.
“I do. Boyfriend material.” She waggled her eyebrows at me, but I didn’t laugh. “You’re nervous.”
“He makes me nervous,” I confessed.
“You should feel that way in the beginning. It’s exciting and scary to fall for someone. I always say when you first start dating someone, he should be like a cappuccino. Hot and sweet, and he makes you all jittery.”
“Did I make you jittery?” Gavin asked.
“Obviously. Still do sometimes,” she said, and they both smiled. Their smiles faded, and their expressions changed, like they were about to ravage each other.
I cleared my throat. “Okay. So I’m going to go.”
“Before you do”—Lexi broke eye contact with Gavin long enough to look at me—“don’t give up on him once you get past the honeymoon phase.”
“Honeymoon phase?” I repeated, not sure what she meant.
“Everyone is amazing and wonderful when you first start dating, but nobody can keep up the pretense forever. Eventually he’ll show his true colors. Everybody has skeletons in the closet.”
I told her I would keep an open mind and said goodbye. As I headed to my car, I wondered how true Lexi’s statement was. Because so far, Chase had been kind of perfect. He was thoughtful, considerate, and kind. Charming and funny. And the handsomest man I’d ever met in real life.
But I had skeletons in my closet. And personality defects. I was human, after all.
Chase was a movie star and had grown up in a completely different environment from me. He didn’t just have skeletons in his closet. There were probably T. rex–size fossils in there. We would have to decide if we could deal with each other’s shortcomings.
I’d offer to show him mine if he showed me his.
Um, I probably needed to think of a different way to phrase that before I saw him.
“Come in!” For some reason it surprised me that Chase answered his own door. Like, what was the point of being that wealthy if you couldn’t have somebody else answering your door and fighting off solicitors?
“Here’s your sweater. Thanks for lending it to me.” I decided not to tell him that I’d seriously considered putting it on my body pillow, because that was too weird, even for me.
“Anytime.” He closed the door behind me, and I followed him into the kitchen. He had a stack of head shots on the island. “I sign these for fans who write in asking for one.”
I put my purse down as he sat on a bar stool and began quickly autographing one picture after another. “Shouldn’t I be helping you with this?”
“Do you think you could forge my signature?” he asked. “If you can’t, it has to be me. I promised my agent I’d get these signed by tomorrow morning.” He tapped the Sharpie he was using against his lips, and I’d never been so jealous of a writing instrument in my life. “Was it tomorrow? My agent says I never listen to him. At least, I think that’s what he says.”
He tossed me a mischievous grin, pleased he’d made me smile. It was so adorable and hot that all I wanted right then was to kiss him. To shove the stack of photos off the counter, leap across it, and knock him over. My lips actually tingled in anticipation.
“I’d like to know what you’re thinking right now.”
I felt all the color drain my face. Did he know? “I’m not telling you. That’s why I didn’t say it out loud. Because that’s how thinking works.”
Chase laughed. “Sometimes in interviews they ask you what superpower you’d like to have. I used to choose being able to read people’s minds. Then Facebook happened, and I got over that.”
Now it was my turn to laugh. He seriously got cuter with each passing minute. I needed to keep my hands busy and think of the best way to tell him what I’d come to say. “Do you mind?” I pointed at the pantry, and it made his hand still.
“Are you making me cookies?”
“Yes, you obsessed weirdo.”
“Mi kitchen is su kitchen. Help yourself.”
I opened the door to his pantry. It was easily the size of a small apartment. I could have happily lived in there. And it was organized with bins and containers, the kind you see in magazines. I scanned his shelves, because a cake mix would be easier. I found white, chocolate, and yellow mixes, but no spice cake. I grabbed the containers marked flour and sugar, and boxes of baking powder and soda.
“Where are your spices?”
He pointed to a cabinet next to his stove. I set the oven to 350 degrees. I admit it took me a few minutes to figure it out because it had more buttons and dials than NASA’s Mission Control Center. I quickly found cinnamon, and it surprised me when I found cloves as well.
“I can’t believe you have cloves.”
“Of course I have . . . whatever you just said. Do you think I’m a savage?”
Shaking my head, I got butter and eggs out of his Sub-Zero fridge, the inside of which resembled a small farmers’ market. He had a ton of fresh vegetables and fruits. Like they were in there reproducing.
I located a medium-size saucepan and measuring cups and put the butter, water, sugar, and spices inside. I turned on the heat (more time spent figuring that out), intending to bring it to a boil.
“What are you making?”
“Spice-cake batter. You said you wanted my spice cookies, so that’s what I’m making. Because you seem pretty determined to have everything your way.”
“Another compliment.”
I stopped my hunt for a spatula. “Then I must have said it wrong, because stubbornness isn’t really a good thing.”
“Says the girl who’s looking a little pinkish. Is that a faint sunburn I detect?”
“That wasn’t because I’m stubborn.” I found the spatula and brought it over to the island.
“No, that was because you ran away from me.”
I couldn’t meet his eyes. “I didn’t run away.”
Yes, I had. I’d totally run away.
“I noticed you can be a little . . . skittish. I hope I don’t make you feel that way.”
I almost laughed. My heart was pumping so hard right then that if I’d been standing in Texas, it probably could have pulled oil out of the ground. “Have you seen you?”
“Every day in the mirror.”
He said it like it was a joke, as if his appearance should have no bearing on this conversation. Like he couldn’t make a nun give up her vows just by winking at her.
I’d basically just told him he was ridiculously hot. And here we were being domestic again, me baking for him in his ginormous kitchen. Clearly a subject change was in order.
“You know, I’m supposed to be your assistant. Shouldn’t I be assisting you with those? Putting them in envelopes or whatever? I’m here. I could be killing two birds with one stone.”
“Nobody needs to murder any birds. I’ve got this covered.” There was an evasive tone in his voice.
“There’s something you’re not telling me.” The ingredients on the stove started to boil, and I removed the pan from the heat.
He put the Sharpie down. “Okay, I’m going to be honest with you. One-F has been doing most of the assistant work. Not running errands but just about everything else.”
“Wait. You’re paying both of us for the same job? That doesn’t seem right.”
“I wanted to help you. It’s weird, especially because we don’t know each other that well yet, and I know this sounds bizarre, but it’s like . . . I want to protect you. I’ve never felt that way about a girl before.”
Little butterflies flapped around inside me at the thought that Chase wanted to protect me. Not that I needed his protection, but it felt amazing that he wanted to.
“Not to mention it got you here making these cookies you couldn’t stop bragging about on your Twitter feed.”
It was true. I was not humble about my baking skills. “I didn’t come here as your assistant tonight. I came over as your . . .” I momentarily panicked. What was the right word here? Just because Chase felt protective didn’t mean he wanted a relationship. He might see me as a little sister or something, and I was not about to make a huge fool of myself. “As your friend. And I don’t want you to pay me to spend time with you. Do you know what that would make you?”
“Extremely lucky?” he answered with a wink that made my knees melt faster than the butter in the saucepan.
“I’m being serious.”
“So am I.” He leaned forward, and I realized his intent. To steal some of my batter. I smacked his hand and moved the bowl away, which made him chuckle.
“If you want to spend time with me, then let’s just spend time together.”
“Are you quitting?”
“You could always fire me, and I could collect unemployment.” He didn’t smile at my joke. “If we’re . . . doing whatever this is, then I don’t want your money between us.”
The silence lasted so long that I almost started babbling just to make it less quiet. “Does that mean you want to see if there’s something here?” he asked.
What was that supposed to mean? “If we’re being honest, you’re not really my type.”
“Remember what I said about you being a bad liar?”
“It’s not a lie!” I stirred the wet ingredients into the dry ones, thankful for the distraction. “I tend to go for more nerdy, shy guys.” That feeling was back, the thick one that made it hard to breathe or concentrate, that made my pulse go haywire and my stomach do flips. So of course I had to make it stupid. “I mean, obviously, you’re everyone with a pulse’s type. I’m sure you’re on the hall pass of every woman in America.”
“Hall pass?”
“Yeah, you know—the celebrities you’re allowed to cheat with and not get in trouble with your significant other. You did an episode about it on Frenemies.”
“I know.” His devilish smile made me want to smack him out of exasperation.
“Then why did you make me explain it?”
“Because of how cute you are when you get embarrassed.” He stretched, and my eyes couldn’t help but follow the lines of his arms. I enjoyed the way his muscles tightened. “I think we just established that we would like to hang out more. Without me paying you for it.”
Did “hang out more” mean dating in guy speak? If we were dating, it was time to ’fess up.
“There’s something I have to tell you first. And it may change your mind.”