Dr. Chase Hudson (The Surrogate Book 2) (25 page)

“Stop looking at me like that,” she said,
her lips twitching, dragging me out of the memory.

“Like what, babe?” I asked, raising my
brows innocently.

“Like you want me again,” she said, her
gaze dropping away for a second before she looked back at me.

“I do want you again.”
“You just
had me!” she said, laughing.

And I had. I'd woken up to her kissing my neck and then
she rode me slow and soft, making herself come twice.

“I guess it can wait until tonight,” I
shrugged.

“I'm going
home
tonight,” she
reminded me unnecessarily.

“Yeah. I was thinking it was about time we broke
in that bed too,” I nodded and watched her beautiful eyes bug
out.

“We can't have
sex,
” she whispered
the word like someone might overhear her, “in my bed.”

“Why not?”

“Because Shay and Jake share a wall with my
room!”

“So?”

“So they might hear us!” she said, slapping
my leg like I was being unreasonable.

I knifed up toward her, putting my hand over the front
of her throat lightly. “Then maybe you'll just have to be a
good girl and be very quiet.”

Her eyes flashed and she swallowed hard. “I don't
know if I can be quiet,” she admitted and if the past was
anything to go by, she was probably right. But that being said, by
the time we got into it, she would forget about sharing a wall with
Shay and Jake. Hell, she would forget they fucking existed.

“Sure you can,” I said, lying through my
teeth.

She exhaled loudly and I knew I had her. “Alright,
fine.”

Two Weeks & Ten Hours

“I hate you,” she said, lowering her eyes
at me, her face redder than I had ever seen it as Shay banged her
hand on the wall.

“That a girl! You get yours!” she called.

“No you don't,” I said, not able to hide my
smile as I pulled her toward me. “You love me.”

“Not right now I don't,” she said, crossing
her arms over her chest, trying to hold onto her anger.

“Always,” I countered easily.

A knock sounded at the door. “Cover up your
naughty bits, I'm coming in,” Shay warned and I barely had a
chance to flick the sheet over us before the door opened. “You
guys might want to, I dunno, put some music on or something,”
she said, giving me a pointed look that Ava totally missed.
“Post-coital pancakes in an hour,” she declared, turning
and slamming the door and going to 'get hers'.

“Post coital pancakes?” Ava repeated, two
small lines between her brows. But then the bed in the other room
started slamming on the wall and her mouth fell open. “Oh my
god...”

“Music, babe,” I laughed and she jumped out
of the bed, beautifully naked and not bothering to cover up as she
jammed a few buttons on her stereo until it almost, just barely
drowned out the racket Shay and Jake were making.

“We're never having sex here again,” she
grumbled as she climbed back in the bed.

She was wrong about that.

Because after post-coital pancakes, she let me insider
her as we spooned. But only because I promised to keep my hand
pressed against her mouth the whole time.

Four Months

Ava

“So you're who I have to thank,” Eddie said
when Chase walked out the door to go grab dinner.

“Thank for what?” I asked, hoisting myself
up on Chase's, no...
our
... kitchen counter. The
us
thing
had finally stopped feeling odd. But the
our
thing still sent
a tiny surge of panic through my system. It wasn't bad per say, just
odd. A thrill. Half excitement and half fear. I wondered how long it
would take for the fear part to go away. But it had only been two
weeks since I officially moved in. I had to give it time.

“For making him happy,” Eddie said, moving
to stand across from me, making the space feel a little too small and
my hand went to my throat where the anxiety felt like it was crushing
my windpipe slightly. “He's had a rough life. He deserves a
little happiness.”

“I agree,” I said, thinking how odd it was
that the man in front of me and I were the only two people in the
world who knew Chase,
really
knew him.

Eddie was a stranger to me still. We had just met
fifteen minutes before when Chase brought him in after his stint in
rehab. He looked good. I mean... to my untrained eyes. He seemed
healthy. Bright-eyed, at ease.

“I know I'm one of the many reasons he's had a
rough life...”

“Don't say that...” I started to break in
even though I knew it was the truth.

“It's true, honey. We both know it. But, fuck,”
he said, running a hand through his somewhat shaggy dirty blonde
hair. “That night? That night when you left him...” he
started and I felt a pain shoot through my chest at the memory. How I
felt that night- hopeless, devastated, like I was more screwed up
than I had been before. Chase never talked about how he felt that
night. He told me that later that night Eddie OD'd and he went to the
hospital, but that was it.

“That night...” I prompted, a hand still
over my throat, but the pressure was easing slightly.

“Ava, babe...” he said, his eyes holding
mine and I saw the grief there. “I'd never seen him like that.
He was fucking wrecked.”

Wrecked.

I couldn't picture him that way. I didn't
want
to
picture him that way.

“I could see it as soon as I opened my eyes. It
was like every ounce of happiness was sucked out of him. And trust
me, love, he didn't have much in there to begin with. I swore that
night that I would never fucking
ever
be a part of making him
look like that again.”

I felt those words settle deep into my own soul. “Me
either,” I agreed. “I mean... I, um, I didn't see him
like that. But if he felt anything like how I did... I never want to
make him feel that way again. I never will.”

“I believe you,” he said nodding.

The door opened and Chase kicked it closed.

“I believe you too,” I whispered so only
Eddie could hear.

Chase dumped the bags on the counter, one of his hands
automatically going up to where I was holding my throat and pulled it
away. “Breathe, baby,” he said, kissing my temple as he
moved past.

I sucked in a breath.

It was always that easy with him.

Two Years

Ava

“I'm so sorry,” I said, hiding my face in
my hands to block the tears from view. I shouldn't have been crying.
I needed to pull it together. I needed to be strong. For him.

“Baby...” he said, his arm going around my
back and crushing me to his chest. His lips kissed the side of my
head and he squeezed me tight. “It's okay. You're allowed to
cry.” He always had to be so nice. So good. So giving. It was
all the more reason I needed to pull myself together. “Just
stay here with me,” he said, taking a deep breath.

I pulled back and looked up at him, handsome as ever in
his black suit. Black tie. Black shirt. No buttons. His hands went up
and brushed the tears off my cheeks. And I saw it then.

Wrecked.

That was what Eddie had said.

And that was how he looked.

I lifted my chin, feeling my stomach clench painfully
at the sight. “I'll be right back,” I said, squeezing his
hand as I moved up the aisle.

The casket seemed huge. But then again, so was the man
inside of it.

He looked silly in a suit.

I had never seen him in a suit before.

It didn't, well,
suit
him.

He should have been buried in jeans and a tee.

I lowered myself onto the bench beside the casket,
laying my hands on the side.

“
I
believed you,
” I
hissed, surprised to feel the anger well up strong and
unstoppable.
“We stood in that kitchen and we made promises. And I
believed
you,” I
said,
the tears flowing freely. “And now he has that look, Eddie. He
has that look he had
that
night that you said you would never put on his face again.”

It felt wrong to be angry at a dead person.

But then again, it
felt wrong for Eddie to
be
a dead person.

When we had walked up to find a bunch of Eddie's work
buddies laughing and joking and Chase had felt me tense, he ran a
hand up my back and murmured in my ear, “There's no wrong way
to grieve, baby.”

So I was allowed to be angry.

Even at a dead person.

As soon as I acknowledged that right, though, the anger
drained away... leaving only the sadness. Sadness because he was a
good man. He had been a good brother to Chase, a good friend to me.
He had made me laugh over dinner hard enough for wine to come out of
my nose. And he hadn't teased me about it. At Christmas when we were
all decorating a tree, he had knelt down in front of me and told me
to climb on. Then he hoisted me up like a kid so I could put the star
on the top.

Sadness because he was such a good man, but so full of
demons that the only way he could deal with them was to drown them at
the bottom of bottles or in pills or powder or whatever else he got
himself into.

“I'm really going to miss you,” I said,
standing up, wiping my eyes, and making my way back to my man with
tears still clinging to my lashes.

I found him standing toward the back of the room, his
hand on a redhead's arm, giving her a small smile. The redhead was
tense, her gaze on Chase's hand on her arm. And I recognized that
look. Panic. Fear. Chase noticed too, squeezing her forearm slightly
before letting his hand drop. “Ava,” he breathed when he
saw me, his arm sliding across my hips. He leaned down and kissed my
nose before turning back to the woman. “Ava, this is Mae.”

Three Years

Chase

At first, it was wrong to ask her. Because she was
still struggling to settle in, still jumpy. Still worried like she
was constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop.

When that finally went away, well, Eddie died.

And we both needed to grieve.

But it was time.

Three years.

Three years I spent every night with her resting on my
chest. And I wanted to make damn sure she knew that that was where
she belonged. Forever.

My hand went into my pocket, worrying the small blue
case as I waited.

She was late.

I still smiled every fucking time she was.

Because it was a reminder of how far she had come, how
comfortable she had gotten with me.

“Why would you have me come all the way to your
office when we could just meet at Jake and Shay's?” she asked
from the doorway, making me jump almost guiltily.

“Come over here, baby,” I said, holding out
an arm.

“We're going to be late.”

“Don't worry about it. They'll understand,”
I said, pulling her toward the seating alcove and pressing her into
the couch as I took the chair across from her.

A smile toyed at her lips. “Am I suddenly in need
of some therapy?” she asked playfully.

“It all started here,” I said, ignoring her
comment.

“What?” she asked, her head tilting.

“Us,” I clarified. “It all started
right here.”

“Oh my god,” she said, realization crossing
her face, making her pale slightly.

“Jake and Shay will be okay with us being late,”
I repeated, reaching into my pocket. “Because I need to ask you
something,” I said, sliding down by her feet.

“Oh my god,” she said again, her hand
closing over her throat.

I pushed open the box, taking out the platinum band
with a princess cut diamond. “Breathe, baby,” I said as I
took her hand from her throat and slowly slid my ring on her finger.
She sucked in a shaky breath. “Will you marry me?” I
asked simply, having spent the last month trying to think of what to
say when I asked her. But in the end, she didn't want flowery words
and I just needed an answer.

But she didn't say yes.

No.

She flung herself at me, sending us both falling
backward as I wrapped my arms around her and her head rested on my
chest. “It's mine,” she declared.

“What is?” I asked, squeezing her.

“My safest place in the world,” she said,
lifting her head from it. “It's mine forever.”

My hand went to the side of her face. “It always
has been,” I told her.

“I love you, Chase.”