The Devil Wears Black

I whipped my head in her direction, realizing what it was. Confrontation. Seeing as Katie hated confrontation, I knew what was at stake here.

“Oh.” I pretended to smile. “I still keep my apartment. I was home all week to work on my latest assignment.”

“So that cheating story . . .”

“You should forget about that story,” I bit out. I was ripped apart by the idea Katie was going to discover Chase’s secret. That anyone would. “Forget it altogether, Katie. I love your brother. We’re together.”

It didn’t feel like a lie anymore. No part of that sentence. And that scared me.

I was feeling restless. Almost violent. I placed my hands on either side of the vending machine and began to shake it with everything I had in me, letting out a scream that had been lodged inside my throat since the day I’d first seen Chase in that elevator a year ago. The walls in the hallway shook with my cry. The floor rocked beneath my feet. And yet I couldn’t stop. I didn’t even want to try. It was so liberating to let it all out.

The lies.

The pain.

The ache of wanting something you knew was bad for you. That was always in front of you, dangling like a forbidden fruit.

I screamed and shook the vending machine until there was no more voice in my throat. The bag of pretzels finally relented, falling down with a soft clink. I bent over to grab it and set it on a tray I’d placed on a seat next to the machine. It had three foam cups of lukewarm black coffee poured straight from a day-old pot and sandwiches that looked downright inedible. I began to make my way back to Ronan’s room like nothing had happened. Like I hadn’t screamed. Like two nurses hadn’t poked their heads out of rooms, checking if everything was okay.

Katie followed me. “I won’t say anything,” she whispered.

“I have no idea what you are talking about.” The food and coffee were dancing on the tray, my hands shook so bad.

“The thing is . . . God, I don’t even know what the thing is. He seems happy when he is with you, and I think this part is real.” Katie swallowed. “I think it’s the only real part about him since him and Amber . . . and then after a few years, when he lost Julian too.”

I finally understood what Katie was saying. Why Chase refused to become attached. He hadn’t only lost his fiancée to his brother. He also lost his brother to the CEO title Ronan decided to invest him with. Everyone he loved wanted something, and when Chase didn’t relent, they were quick to turn their backs on him.

Even the person he’d grown up with.

Even the person he looked up to and saw as a big brother.

“What do you make of it?” I changed the subject, jerking my chin to the door we were approaching. Ronan’s room. “Did Grant say if this is . . . you know?”

The end.

Katie shook her head, folding her lower lip into her mouth. “You know doctors. They never say anything this way or the other.”

I did know doctors. And she was absolutely right.

After distributing the coffees, sandwiches, and pretzels, for which Katie and Lori were grateful, I pulled a barely conscious Chase by the sleeve. “You’re going to take a nap. Now.”

“I’m waiting for Grant,” he said icily, but he lacked that Chase Black frostbite that usually came with his tone.

“No, you’re not. Once Grant arrives, I’ll talk to him myself. If something important happens, I’ll wake you up. Otherwise, you need to sleep.”

He shook my touch from his arm, but I grabbed his elbow, tugging hard. His gaze slid up to mine. Whatever he saw in my face, he knew I wasn’t going to back off. Reluctantly, he stood up. I showed him to the room next to his father’s. I’d noticed it was empty when Katie and I had walked back with the snacks. I fluffed the pillows while he stood behind me awkwardly, watching. When he slid into the bed, I hesitated, then, knowing he was almost out of it, he was so drunk with exhaustion, I rolled the scratchy blanket over his body. He’d done the same to me when I’d been drunk in the Hamptons. Taken care of me without complaining about it once.

I was all but forcing myself to leave the room when Chase grabbed my wrist. The jolt his touch sent up my arm made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. My stomach dipped. It seemed monumental. Pivotal, even. The way his eyes, silvery like a sheet of ice, met my common brown ones. His mouth moved, and I dropped my gaze to follow it, too flustered to decipher his words. It was only one word. One I’d been dreaming of hearing for many months prior to our first breakup.

“Stay.”

“In the room, or . . . ?” In your life? I couldn’t breathe. I needed to breathe, but it was hard when I pinned all my hopes momentarily on his answer.

“In the hospital. Where I can find you.”

He looked so deliriously wrecked, with black-rimmed eyes, his skin hanging onto his cheekbones, like he’d lost weight overnight. I’d always wondered how you knew if you loved someone. I got my answer when he looked at me. I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that I loved Chase in that moment.

“I’ll stay.” I put my hand on his.

His eyes were half-closed, his throat bobbing like he was struggling to swallow. His lips looked dry, and I wanted to press mine against them. Crazy, crazy thoughts.

“You asked if I’m over Amber,” he croaked, his eyes drifting shut. The rest of him too. “I am. I don’t think I ever loved her. Not really. Not like I could love you.”

Thud. Thud. Thud. My heart was rioting in my chest.

“I didn’t cheat, but I wanted to. I fucking wished I could, Mad. Because you were there, and you were real, and if the bullshit with Amber, whom I didn’t even love, hurt like a thousand bitches, you had the potential to totally detonate my life. You were a weakness. I was so . . .”

So? I held my breath, waiting for him to continue. But he never did. His breaths grew more labored, until they curled into soft, drained snores. I put my hand on my heart to keep it from exploding.

I closed my eyes, willing myself to stop what I was doing. Romanticizing what we were. Forgetting every moment I’d loathed him. I heard Layla scoffing in my head about returning to my old Martyr Maddie patterns. Putting other people before myself.

A flash of Boyfriend Chase flickered on the screen of my closed eyelids like an old film.

Him leaning his hips into mine, his whiskey breath caressing my neck at a party. “Let’s dip. Everyone’s a loser, and you’re the only person I can stand, which is funny.”