Page 157 of Chase
I nod. “Damn right, it did.”
His eyes search my face. “Were you okay today? Really?”
“No. I wasn’t,” I say, telling him the complete truth. “I feel like I’m running on fumes right now, and my eyes still ache from crying, but… I’mgoingto be okay.”
He squeezes my shoulder. “Good.”
As I’m leaving, I turn back to say one last thing. “Also, don’t freak when I don’t come home tonight. I’m going to LA with Logan for the weekend.My boyfriend.”
Jules gives me a salute. “Lucky fuck.”
“I really am lucky, aren’t I?”
Earlier today, I couldn’t have imagined saying that. But the world has a funny way of surprising you.
And Logan Stone has a way of making anything better when he’s around.
LA is nothing like I thought it would be. The palm trees look like I expected, but Logan’s house is so much better than what I’d pictured.
It’s not a modern glass museum on the corner of a hill.
It’s a classic Spanish-style gorgeous home, and while it does have an amazing view of the city below, it almost feels like a tropical retreat in his backyard. There’s a small pool, a hot tub, and so many beautiful, lush green plants that surround the edges of the yard.
When I meet his parents, I see exactly why Logan turned out the way he did.
We eat at the formal dining table and they’re as polite as an English king and queen would be, asking me questions about what it was like growing up in the suburbs outside New York, and showing interest in my artwork, too.
When I show them one I did of a wolf painted in acid yellow with pink highlights, Logan’s mother lets out a hoot, then a polite laugh.
“Well, that’s an angry looking fellow!” she says, and I can’t help but smile.
“Here. Maybe you’ll like this one.”
I show her a painting I did of a Luna moth, where I kept the colors slightly more muted, though there are plenty of neon touches throughout its wings.
“Well, that’s lovely,” she says. “It’s just like the one on your arm.”
“Let me show you something, Chase,” Logan’s father says, taking out his phone. After a few moments, he finally locates what he was looking for, showing me. “Found this just the other day, deep in a file cabinet. Logan did this when he was… oh, ten? Eleven?”
He shows me a picture of a drawing. It’s clearly done by a kid, and the style is rudimentary, but the end result is so charming that it doesn’t matter.
Logan drew two people on a green hill, looking out at a sunset.
“Eleven years old, and he was already looking for love,” his mom says.
“Mom, you’re making me blush.”
“What?” she protests. “We always thought he was looking for a girl, but, well, this other one looks not too different from the back of your head, Chase. Black wavy hair, huh?”
She laughs and Logan looks like he wants to crawl under the table.
“We’re so proud of him,” his father says, sliding his phone away. “We always knew he’d be successful. But we just want him to be happy. You know?”
I bite the inside of my cheek, my heart soaring.
I couldn’t imagine my father ever having said that about me.
I’m pretty certain he never thought about my happiness as a priority at all.
