Chasing Leah (Journey Series) (27 page)

“Chase your being so silly
today. You don’t take baths with your clothes on. You can borrow some of my
jammies
.” I force a smile onto my face and try not to drip
onto the carpet.

 
“I know buddy. I’m
gonna
take a rain check on the spaghetti though okay? I don’t think your
jammies
will fit me so I’m
gonna
head home and get some of my own. We’ll hang out soon, I promise.”

I leave Caleb curled up watching
movies with Ally and head back to my apartment to take a warm shower and get a
dry change of clothes. I hear the familiar chirp of my phone alerting me I have
a message. I don’t even remember the last time I saw my phone, at least I know
it’s here somewhere.
Might as well clean up my room while I
try to find it.

The only thing bad about Leah
living with me was she’s kind of a slob. And with how she’s acting right now
who knows if she’ll ever come back. I toss a few things into the laundry basket
and hear the chirp again, coming from the direction of my bed. I toss back the
blankets on my bed.

 
Aha! And what the fuck are these? I hold up a
red see through thong that I’ve never before seen in my life and I know it’s
not
Leahs
. She’s more into those sexy boy shorts that
her ass fits so well into. I stare at the offending panties like maybe they’ll
bring back some kind of memory but nothing comes. Oh fuck what did I do last
night?

I pick up my phone and start
scrolling through about a million messages, the majority of them from some chic
named Missy.
Missy, Missy.
I know that name, she’s
some girl that happens to show up at like every performance we have and can
never seem to keep her hands off me. She’s not bad looking to say the least
with her mile long legs and tits about the size of my head.

 
Speaking of tits those ones look pretty
familiar, it’s pretty hard
not
to recognize them when she’s always
trying to rub them in my face. But I’ve never seen ‘
em
uncovered before and why the fuck was she sending me a picture like
that?
She
might look alright but she’s not Leah and I wouldn’t touch anyone other than
her with a ten foot pole.

 
Now I know why
Leahs
pissed, I’d be
fuckin
’ hot too if I found shit like
this on
Leahs
phone. I grab my keys from the usual
spot by the front door. No clue how I got home last night, I hope I didn’t
drive but somehow my trucks here and I know the place I need to go and find out
exactly what happened.

                                                                                                               
               
********************************************************

“Teddy! Come on man I know
you’re in there, open up.” I pound my fist on the door and try to peer through
the little side window on the front porch. I’ve been banging away for the past
five minutes but still no answer, his cars parked in the driveway so I’m
guessing he’s trying to avoid me. Not
gonna
happen.
“C’mon
douchebag
, open it up or I’ll kick the fucker
open.” I bend my leg back to do just that even though I know it’s
gonna
hurt like hell when the door swings open and Teddy
stands there with a towel around his waist.

“Dude you’re up already? I
figured you’d be out of it all day after last night, you were smashed.”

 
I push my way past him with my shoulder and he
slams the door shut behind us. “What the fuck did you let me do last night
Teddy?” He points a finger at his tattoo covered body with a smirk on his face.
“Me? I’m pretty sure you should be thanking me right now Chase. So you’re
welcome,” he says with a fist out to me which I promptly ignore. “I’m
gonna
go throw some clothes on and you can explain to me
what your bitchy attitude is all about.”

I plop down onto the only couch
in their living room that I’m pretty sure him and Mark found on the side of the
road and it still reeks even with all the
febreeze
they sprayed all over it. They have the ultimate bachelor pad with a keg set up
on the kitchen counter, various band and Bob Marley posters plastered all over
the walls and dirty clothes over almost every surface, a lot of which look like
souvenirs left behind by all of
Teddys
women he
brings home. I know why Mark refuses to bring Remy back
here,
she’d probably catch herpes just by looking at the toilet.

“So,” Teddy says as he runs a
hand through his shaggy blonde hair. The girls seem to go crazy over that look.
“
Whats
wrong, Leah finally get sick of your ass and
decide she wants a real man?” He blinks back at my stony expression and my fist
twitches with the need to nail him in his smug looking face.

 
“Dude you know I’m just messing with you when
I say that shit, c’mon spill lets have girl talk.” I explain everything that
happened with Leah and everything that I found in my room and show him the
messages on my phone. He sends the pictures to his own phone before he hands it
back to me. “I need those for research.”

“Whatever dude, just tell me why
those are there.”

“Well you’re in luck Mr.
O’Neil,” he says with a wink. “Everyone was buying you shots last night after
you told us about that teaching job you scored. So
me
being the awesome friend that I am stepped up as your DD. You’re welcome again
by the way.”

 
He continues on after he finally figures out
he’s not getting a thanks from me. “That Missy chic was all over you, doing
that ‘accidental’ bump thing that women think they’re so sneaky about. I tried
to take her off your hands but she wanted nothing to do with me, I think that
was a first.” He pauses as he rubs a finger over his lip ring likes he’s
contemplating how something like that could happen, women don’t usually say no
to Teddy.

 
“She ended up with your phone number. I think
you thought maybe if you gave it to her she would leave you alone. Even with
all of your drunken babble about how
fuckin
’ amazing
and beautiful and smart and blah
blah
blah
about Leah. She still hung around, she’s resilient
I’ll give her that.”

Well that explains a lot I guess
and I can instantly feel the tension release out of my shoulders. I knew I
wouldn’t have anything to do with another girl and if I did I know Leah
wouldn’t put up with an excuse of ‘the liquor did it to me baby.’

“What about these?” I reach into
my pocket and throw the scrap of material I found in my bed this morning into
Teddys
face. “Thanks
bud,
I’ll add
these to the collection.
Never thought I’d get a pair of
Leahs
.”

“They aren’t
Leahs
dude, sorry to break it to you. Apparently she found these on me last night
after I somehow made it home. I can see why she left my ass after seeing all
this.”

Teddy shrugs his shoulders at me
and examines the scrap of red.
“Well obviously there
Missys
.
Looks like something her type would wear,
trust me I know her type well. But you didn’t go anywhere with her man. Just
cause
I like to get a lot of action doesn’t mean I would let
you mess up this thing you have going on with Leah, not that you were trying to
anyways.  But damn that girl was throwing herself at you. I knew I had to
get you out of there before anything had the chance of happening. She did wrap
that
smokin
’ hot body of hers around you before I
pulled you out of there; she probably slipped ‘
em
in
your pocket. That’s the only way I can see it happened, I didn’t let you out of
my sight. I took you out for coffee, a buddy of mine followed behind us in my
car and I dropped you and your truck off. You were still pretty wasted man but
I know you made it into your apartment.
Looks like that slut
was trying to set you up.
Probably figured this is what would happen and
you’d use her as your rebound chic or
somethin
’.”

 
He pulls out a cigarette and lights it up like
he’s congratulating himself for a job well done, taking a long drag before
crossing his arms over his chest.
“Like I said
your
welcome.”

I stand up and pound
Teddys
fist with mine, after all
that he deserves some credit. I really would never expect something like that
out of Teddy. He was one of those guys that seemed like he would never have any
type of meaningful relationship with a woman but he took care of me when I
needed it.

“Thanks bud, I owe you. Now I
just need to figure out how to get Leah to believe me.”

“I’m here if you need me man.
Send her my way if she doesn’t want you back, I’ll take care of that sweet ass
of hers real good.” And
that’s
the old Teddy that I was waiting for.

Leah

After Ally finally convinced me I
needed to get out of the icy cold shower that had my whole body covered in
goosebumps
she wrapped me up in a towel and forced me to
explain what happened with Chase which I did because I knew she wouldn’t leave
me alone until then.

 
After a few choice words that I was surprised
came out of her mouth about Mr. Perfect, she started pacing my room back and
forth to plot her plan of revenge against Chase. I knew that girl had an evil
streak hidden beneath all of her sunshine and rainbows. I told her I didn’t care
one way or another if she beat the shit out of Chase or keyed his truck, as
long as she kept me out of it.

 
I reluctantly left Caleb with Ally so I could
head to work but Ally insisted she really was fine hanging out with him.
Which was a good thing since I had only just gotten back into work
and I really needed the money.
Having a kid was
freakin
’
expensive. It seemed like Caleb was constantly outgrowing every pair of shoes I
bought him and of course he always wanted those cool light up ones and I was not
about to tell the kid no. Add
ontop
of that all of
his clothes, food, and the pay by the month health insurance I had picked up
for him, I needed to work.

Luckily Remy was off tonight so
I could avoid her for a little while longer. I’m sure Mark would be filling her
in soon enough if she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes last night. I wonder why
she didn’t try to call me. Remy was a good friend and she surely wouldn’t turn
the other cheek if she caught Chase doing something with someone other than me.

I worked with a new girl, Tessa,
who had been hired while I was recuperating. She seemed quiet but was a good
worker and helped with some of my tables that I seemed to be slacking on. I
messed up orders all night and even managed to spill half a pitcher of beer on
someone’s lap. He didn’t seem to mind much though especially after I fumbled
around to trying to dry it off his pants with a towel.

 
Guys are such assholes. A girl so much as
touches them and they turn into
pervs
. Thankfully we
were unusually slow and I headed back out the door around eight with pizzas in
tow. Ally and I had decided on a movie night. She insisted we needed lifetime
movies and junk food. They could solve anything apparently.

Chases truck was still missing
from the parking lot and I tried to keep my mind from wandering about where he
could be. Probably with his stripper, I’m sure he had a much less guiltier
conscience since I ended things or maybe that was the thrill for him. Not going
to think about, not going to think about it I repeated the mantra over in my
head.

Ally and I curled up on the
couch when I got home. Caleb had gone to bed early after a long day of being
spoiled by his Auntie Ally. We both managed to polish off our pizzas and a
whole container of Ben and
Jerrys
, Chocolate Therapy
in which I was clearly in desperate need of some.

 
Lifetime seemed to be having a marathon on
about cheating men and I officially took that as I sign. After our third in a
row Ally clicked off the TV and stood up yawning. I was surprised she had stuck
around this long, most of the time on the weekends especially after watching
Caleb for me she would be heading over to
Skys
to
spend the night with him but she hadn’t mentioned him all day.

“Well I’m
gonna
head to bed. You need a good rest too, maybe you and Chase can get a chance to
talk to each other tomorrow.”

“Um excuse me?” I ask in shock.
Clearly I had heard that wrong.

 
“Weren’t you the one wanting to castrate him
earlier and now you
think
I should actually give him
the time of day?” I couldn’t believe how quickly her tune had changed from just
a few hours ago. Normally Ally was the feistier one between the two of us.

“
Wellllll
,”
she dragged out as she looked guiltily down at her shuffling feet. “I
kinda
talked to Chase while you were gone.”

“
Kinda
or you did. Which is it there’s really no in between there,” I snapped out.

“I did talk to him,” she admits.
“He kept pounding on the door begging to talk to you again and I finally opened
to tell him you weren’t here and where to shove his apology. He asked if you
had told me what happened and he told me his side of things. Apparently he went
over to talk to Teddy and he cleared up a few things for him. I think you
should listen to him Leah. He really sounded convinced that he wasn’t in the
wrong.”