Chasing Leah (Journey Series) (29 page)

 
Every time my phone rang or a new message
alerted I scrambled to get it but no Chase. I started to worry that I had
pushed him too far by waiting so long to hear his side of things and maybe he
didn’t want to take things slow. At this rate I was ready to toss that whole
stupid slow thing out the window as long as I had Chase back.

“Hey sweetie
how you doing?”
Remy asks as she interrupts my thoughts of Chase. “Oh um
I’m fine Rem.
Just thinking.”
I finish putting in the
order that I had stopped doing midway through and grab the coffee pot to see if
any refills are needed.

“Thinking about Chase I’m sure.
He still hasn’t called?”

I zigzag my way through tables
and fill up cups as I go before answering her. “No he hasn’t. I don’t know
Rem
maybe things just weren’t meant to be.”

 
Although my heart tells a different story by
the heaviness I feel in it from not hearing from Chase. I had picked up the
phone so many times just to call him but stopped myself before the call went
through.

“I
dunno
about that Leah. Maybe he just needs a little bit of time too. You’ll see,
things will work out, you two are perfect together. Can you take these out to
table five for
me,
I need to cash these other
customers out.”

“Sure, no
problem.”
I grab a couple of plates filled with eggs and bacon and head
over to the table, checking on a few of my own customers before I make my way
back to the counter to wait for my next order.

 
“You want to come over
tonight,
we could work on that paper together if you want?” Remy asks as she counts out
the change for the waiting customer.

“I wish I could we really need
to get a jump start on that. But I promised I would help Ally with some
sorority thing. Their doing some
cleanup work
at a
park near campus and she conned me into it.”

Really I just felt like I needed
to spend some one on one time with her. She had finally confessed to me that
her and
Skylar
had decided to go their separate ways
but they were still going to do the whole let’s just be friends thing. I was
shocked that she hadn’t instantly spilled this to me considering she had dubbed
them as soul mates but she said she didn’t want to bother me when she knew I
was dealing with everything else.

I felt guilty that my love life
and its sticky problems somehow trumped hers but she insisted that she just
wasn’t feeling it with
Skylar
and things were really
okay.
Skylar
and
her
were
too much alike according to Ally which if I thought about it was pretty true
and Ally was looking for a challenge. That so did not sound like a fun time to
me but whatever floats her boat I guess. Apparently she thought her feelings
about Chase and I being soul mates was still right and she was convinced we
would work things out.

Remy giggles
as she turns back to me patting me on the shoulder.
 
“Aw poor thing.
Ally can be so persuasive can’t she? At
least you’re helping the community out.”

“I can never tell her
no
but I’m sure it’ll be fine.
At least
the weathers starting to get a little nicer out.”

It was just the beginning of
spring and I was glad to see the signs of snow clear out and stay gone for
awhile. After I finally got my nursing degree I was going to move far
far
away and live somewhere warm on the beach. I’m sure the
park would be a mess to clean up now that the snow had all melted.

After finishing up my morning
shift, Remy and I head to our two classes that we had together for the day. At
4:00 I made my way over to the park that was within walking distance of the
campus but found nothing but an empty parking lot.

 
I pull out my phone and send a quick text to
Ally asking where I’m supposed to meet up with her. Within a minute she texts
back to meet her in the shelter building beyond the walking path that wraps
around the small park. Hopefully this doesn’t take too long, I’m supposed to
pick up Caleb around six from daycare and we have plans of a lazy night with
his favorite of
mac
n cheese and
pb
&
j’s
planned for a
very nutritional dinner.

I
head
that way and push open the door at the front entrance that opens into a pitch
black room. Suddenly I’m wishing I was carrying that mace Mr. James insisted
Ally and I both carried in our purses when we headed off to school. Where the
heck was Ally and why was no one around? I lay my hand flat against the wall to
feel for a light switch and finally found it with a flick of my finger.

The room was instantly filled
with thousands of twinkling white lights covering almost every surface of the
small building. My eyes land on a single table in the center of the room that
was draped with a black tablecloth and has a vase with a single red rose set it
in, surrounded by small candle votives.

“Um hello?”
I call out before whirling around when I hear the familiar husky voice and lock
my eyes on Chase.

Chase

“Surprise, bet you weren’t
expecting me, huh?”

“
Whats
going on Chase I thought I was supposed to me meeting up with Ally.
Apparently
theres
no cleaning of the park
going on here today.”
Was that the excuse Ally had used to get Leah here? I’m surprised she actually
showed up since cleaning is like her least favorite thing. I’m lucky she’s a
good cook.

“Yeah well she
sorta
helped me out to lure you here, I guess it worked.”

“Well what is all this?” She ask
as she motions around the elaborately decorated space that I had worked on for
hours and I click on my
ipod
to add the soft sounds
of music flowing around the room.

“For you.
It’s our first date Leah. I know you said you wanted to start off slow but I
still needed to make it special to show you much I love you.”

“
Okkkkk
,”
she drags out and I guide her over to the table by placing my hand on the small
of her back, pulling out her chair for her so she can take a seat.

“I’ll be right back, don’t go
anywhere.” I make my way back to the small galley kitchen in the back of the
building and grab the two plates that I had already prepared. Luckily Leah
showed up exactly when she was supposed to so the food would still be nice and
warm and hopefully taste good.

“Here
ya
go, just to warn you I made everything myself but had my
moms
supervision, so at least it’s edible.” I sit down across from her and watch as
her gray eyes widen and take in the food on the plate I placed in front of her.
I’m even impressed myself a little bit.

Leah was always teasing me about
how bad of a cook I was and I knew it was true. With my mom I really never had
to step foot in the kitchen but luckily after a little convincing my mom helped
me out with a plan for my first redo date with Leah.

I watch as she takes a tentative
bite and I see a look of surprise pass over her face. “What is this Chase? It’s
really good,” she says in between bites.

“Shrimp scampi with a little bit
of angel hair pasta,” I reply proudly. Yup I did
good
.

“My mom said I needed to do
something fancy if I wanted to impress you and this was a little simpler, so
she said I couldn’t screw it up.”

She
quirks an eyebrow at me with a confused look on her face. “So your mom knows
what happened between us then?”

“Yeah well that’s where I’ve
been hiding out for most of the week. I just needed to get my head on straight
before we tried things out again. Our time apart really tore me apart.” I pause
and can see the flash of guilt covering her face before I reassure her.

“Don’t worry mom still loves
you, I don’t think you could do anything to change that. After I told her what
happened she absolutely understood how you reacted after everything you found.
It was pretty incriminating.”

She lets out a short musical
laugh. God I’ve missed that tiny sound. “Well I should’ve given you the chance
to talk to me instead of trying to avoid you even though I found I’m pretty
good at it. I’m sorry.”

“It’s in the past now Leah.
Let’s just try to move on from here.”

I clear our plates after we’ve
both managed to scrape them clean and have a dessert of chocolate cake and ice
cream which I can’t help but brag about that I made. Well the cake at least and
it was from a box but I got an A for effort and that’s all that counts. I stand
up and reach for
Leahs
hand to pull her up from her
seat,
I missed having her in my arms.

“May I have this dance?”

 She clasps her small hand
in mine and steps into my arms as we glide around the room to the soft
background music. She buries her head in my chest and I nuzzle my nose into the
soft curls of her hair breathing in the faint smell of her familiar strawberry
shampoo. I hadn’t washed any of my pillows since Leah left because of that
smell right there.

“I don’t think I can do this
Leah,” I whisper into her ear and can fill the
goosebumps
I caused running up and down her arms. Startled, she stops abruptly pulling
back from me and looking back at me with her questioning gray eyes.

 
“What do you mean Chase, what can’t you do?”
She asks in a panicked voice.

“I can’t do slow with you Leah,”
I reply back. I wasn’t really planning on this, I was
gonna
try slow with her but after having her wrapped in my arms I knew it’s where she
belonged.
Always.
Now I just needed to convince her of
the same thing. This should be fun.

“I just can’t. I want you, I
need you. I know you need to trust me again but I need all or nothing.”
Hopefully she doesn’t figure out that I’m totally bluffing. She chews on her
lip so hard I’m sure there’ll be blood. If only I could be inside that head and
put a stop to all of the crazy thoughts that are probably running through it
right now.

“Okay,” she answers back simply
while wrapping her arms around my neck again.

“Okay?” I question back making
sure I heard that right. That was the last thing I expected coming out of her
pretty mouth. She nods her head at me and I can feel a smile creeping onto my
face.

“Chase I know sometimes you
might feel like this is a one sided relationship but I love you with all of my
heart. I’ve never loved someone as much as I love you. I know it’s a little
harder for me to express that sometimes because I’m just not used to having
someone like that in my life other than Ally and Caleb.

 
I know I messed up when I didn’t listen to you
before about what really happened and I’m thankful that you didn’t just forget
about me and move on. And then I tell you I want to take things slow and you
disappear for a week. I don’t know if you planned it but I couldn’t stand that
you were gone and I wasn’t with you. I love you and I’ll do anything to make
this work no matter how fast you want to take things.”

She reaches up and tentatively
touches her full lips to mine like she’s afraid I’ll pull back but I’m not
going anywhere. I pick her up and twirl her around the room and she locks her
legs around my waist before I return her kiss with an even fiercer one by
crushing our lips together until I gently open her mouth with my tongue and the
tension that I’ve felt over the past month instantly melts away with the taste
of Leah.

She gently ends the kiss and I
set her feet back onto the ground.

“
Sooo
,”
I drag out. “I’m probably really pushing it but I guess
it’s
all or nothing right? Do you want to move back in with me like for real this
time, not just half of your stuff over but everything? It’ll be our apartment,
not just mine. We can buy new dishes, you can hang up all of the girly shit you
want, you can even paint the bedroom pink and add all those frilly pillows you
like. I was even thinking maybe we could find a place halfway between campus
and my new job in the fall that way we would both only have like a thirty
minute drive each way. That’s not too bad right?”

 
I drone on and on until she puts a finger to my
lips to quiet my rambling and simply answers. “Yes.”

“Yes?
Really?
Jeez Leah your being really easy tonight,” I say as I swing her around the room
again. I was not expecting this much agreement out of Leah ever.

“Did you just call me easy?” She
leans up and whispers into my ear after wrapping her legs snuggly around my
waist again.
Right where they belong.

“Let’s go back to our apartment
and I’ll show you just how easy I can be. We have a little time before Caleb
needs to be picked up.”

“I won’t argue with you there,”
I say as I hoist her small body over my shoulder and sprint towards the front
door before flicking off the lights. “It’s been a really long and lonely month.
Oh and by the way
Allys
picking up Caleb, they’re
having a sleepover.
Your mine for the night.
Hope
you’re not tired
cause
we aren’t getting any sleep.”

Leah

After probably the most
incredible night of my life before, during, and after dinner and all night
long, I went home and thanked Ally for helping Chase set me up. I broke the
news to her that I would officially be moving in with Chase whenever we found a
place. Chase already had a list of places to check out but we wanted to take
Caleb with us so he could help us decide.