I flopped down on my back and covered my face with my hands. “No . . . I mean, I tried to break up with Harrison, but he wouldn’t let me. He told me . . . that he was developing very serious feelings for me, that it was like nothing he'd felt before.”
Kendra looked shocked. “For real? Harrison said he loved you? Shit, that is huge, Annie! What did you say?”
“I didn’t know what to say. He was so . . . sincere. I tried to tell him that I couldn’t be with him, but he just wouldn’t take no for an answer. He wants to introduce me to his parents.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I-I don’t know,” I stuttered. “I care about Harrison, but I swear . . . what Chase and I have is like nothing else. It’s like he’s taken this part of me that was frozen for years and thawed me out.”
Kendra rolled her eyes. “You are delusional if you think Chase is in this for anything beyond getting his rocks off. This is Chase Adams we’re talking about! He was horrible to you!”
“I know, but if you really knew him, Kendra, there’s so much more to him beyond that tough-guy exterior. He’s sweet, he’s tender, and there’s a very good reason he’s—”
“Oh my . . . God . . . Annie! Is that a tattoo?” Kendra squealed, pulling my T-shirt up off my belly. Her eyes were practically bulging out of her head. “That definitely wasn’t there. So . . . last night?”
I wanted to slap my head for having taken off the bandage this morning; if I hadn’t, I could at least have played it off as a cut from dropping my razor in the shower or something. I wanted to be able to share my happiness with Kendra, but the cutting judgment in her voice threw me. “Yes, Kendra, I was with Chase. He tattooed me. We had sex. Are you happy now?” I snapped.
“Are you serious? Was it even hygienic? I mean, I know he’s a graffiti artist, but I didn’t think he also did tattoos. How do you know it was safe? And what the hell is that design? I swear I’ve seen it around before . . .”
I didn’t want to give up Chase’s tag, so I ignored her last question. “Kendra, why can’t you just be happy for me? I’m fine, seriously!”
“The way you’ve been acting . . . it just isn’t like you, Annie. Skipping class? Cheating on your boyfriend? I’m just worried.”
“I didn’t realize you were so square,” I said mordantly. “And look, I may not have everything under control, Kendra, but I swear I’ll figure out what to do about Harrison. It’s not like I meant for any of this to happen. I just wish . . . that I’d followed my instincts.”
Kendra snorted. “Really? ’Cause your instincts seem a little flawed now. I mean, what would your mom think?”
That was the clincher. I felt myself suck in a deep breath of air. “How dare you ask me that?” My calm voice belied my emotions.
“I’m just trying to smack some sense into you, girl, because I actually care.”
“Aren’t you the one who told me I was too nice?” I snapped. “I don’t get it, Kendra. I don’t get you or anyone else. There are just too many expectations here to manage.” I put a pillow over my head. I wanted to zone everything out, especially my roommate.
Kendra got quiet and didn’t speak for several long moments. “You are such a self-centered brat, you know that? I’ve been here for you throughout all your drama with your stupid gallery internship, your beef with Elsie, and the fact that Chase Adams hurt your feelings way back when. Do you think any of that comes from a place of expectations? I’ve never asked you to do or be anything, Annie, and hell if I care whether or not you think it’s too much for your best friend to ask you to be a decent person right now.” Before I could say anything, Kendra grabbed her coat.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m staying with Yannis, because I don’t think I want to be around you right now,” she said curtly, slamming the door behind her.
I flinched at the sound. My mouth felt dry, and while I’d been reeling from exhilaration just minutes before, Kendra’s little tantrum had put me in a dark place. I hated to think I’d angered the closest person to me in New York, and as much as I didn’t want to admit it, I knew there was more than a grain of truth in her tirade. I’d been completely selfish in the last several weeks. I’d put this Quentin Pierce project well above all my other relationships, and I’d screwed over both my best friend and my boyfriend in the process.
“I’m a terrible person!” I moaned. I was definitely in need of a good pep talk. My cell phone was dead, so I walked over to the landline, picked it up, and dialed.
When Mom picked up on the other end, I found myself bawling uncontrollably.
“Honey? Honey? Is that you? What’s wrong?” I could hear my mom’s voice, alarmed and rising several octaves above normal.
“Mom, Mom, I’m fine,” I sniffled. “So much is happening. I’m in love, but not with Harrison. Kendra hates me. I’m falling apart.”
“Annie Bear, start at the beginning, okay?”
I took a deep breath . . . and then told my mom everything.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Mom had been more supportive than I’d initially believed she would be, but of course I’d left out the more salacious details and focused on the hellacious experience of balancing all these disparate parts of my life—Harrison, Chase, the upcoming Quentin Pierce exhibit, Kendra, and an ever-demanding load of schoolwork. Her primary concern was smoothing the feathers I’d ruffled with Kendra.
“Honey, you’ll do an incredible job on the exhibit, and boys come and go, but girlfriends are forever,” she’d said. “And it sounds like Kendra really cares about you.”
I had to admit that it was true, albeit grudgingly. I knew that Kendra’s self-righteousness was her way of showing me she had my back. But even if I’d wanted to reach out to her, Kendra was being purposely elusive. She hadn’t answered any of my calls or texts, and from the looks of her half-empty closet, she wasn’t coming back from Yannis’s anytime soon.
To add insult to injury, Chase was proving to be just as distant and unavailable as my so-called best friend. For the past few days since I’d seen him, I’d tried to get in touch. I knew he wasn’t the kind of guy you could expect to get into a detailed conversation with via text, since he almost never looked at his phone, but all the same, the dead air between us was killing me. I was desperate to talk to him, but he couldn’t be found at the permission wall in the Meatpacking District and I didn’t know how to get in contact with his friends or his brother.
Something seemed fishy and slightly askew. I had a bad feeling in my stomach as I checked my phone for signs that he’d gotten back in touch (he hadn’t) and thought about the girls who’d been draping themselves over him with the kind of familiarity that made it crystal clear they were more than just casual acquaintances. I’d willed myself not to care at the time, especially since Chase and I weren’t even together, but in retrospect, I couldn’t help but wonder if his silence in the past few days had to do with those girls.
I shook my head. You’re not going to do this to yourself, Annie. Chase has given you no reason to suspect him! I told myself. But I couldn’t help but flash back to late senior year, when I’d discovered sexy texts from Brittany Logan on Peter’s phone. I hadn’t suspected him at the time, either. So who was I fooling by choosing to ignore the fact that Chase was a tried-and-true womanizer?
I willed myself to remember the tenderness in his eyes and the desire in his entire body when we’d made love the last two times. People are capable of changing, especially when love is part of the equation, I told myself. Chase is no exception.
I almost laughed at my own sentiments. Clearly, I’d changed, but was it for the better? I was cheating on my “real” boyfriend, I was sporting a graffiti tag as my first tattoo, and I was currently doing what I’d said I never would: obsessing over a boy. In the middle of a curatorship that would probably determine the course of my career.
I was in my bedroom, experiencing a seesaw of turbulent emotions, when I got the phone call. I frown
ed as an unknown New York City number popped up. I picked up the phone. “Hello?”
There was a moment of static on the other line, and when the person spoke, the voice was slightly muffled. “Annie?”
It was Chase.
I felt both ecstatic and somewhat stunned. “Are you okay, Chase? I’ve been trying to call you for days! Where are you? Why haven’t you answered? And if you’re not calling from your cell, whose phone are you calling from?”
I hated to sound like I was interrogating him, but I definitely felt like he owed me an explanation for the disappearing act.
“Listen, I can’t stay on the phone too long, but believe me, I wasn’t ignoring your calls. They confiscated my phone when I got brought in.”
“They? Who is they?”
My heart practically stopped at Chase’s response. “I’m in jail, Annie. At the South Bronx police department, to be exact.” He paused. “And I . . . I kind of need you to come get me.”
I swallowed and tried to stay calm. “Are you okay? Are you . . . hurt or anything?”
“No, I’m fine. I can tell you about it when I see you, but for now, I need someone to come bail me out . . . and I was hoping you’d be able to. I know it’s a lot to ask, but I couldn’t think of who else to call.”
I nodded slowly, trying to focus on the logistics, rather than on the growing panic in my body. “Just tell me where, and I’ll be there as fast as I can.”
A half hour later, I found myself at the South Bronx police department, a gloomy brick building across from a stretch of noisy highway. My conversation with Chase had been brief. But from what I’d gathered, the police had taken him in for some kind of public disturbance and insubordination. He needed a cash bond of $1,000, which I’d been able to barely scrape together out of my savings account.
When I got to the front desk, a woman with bright red hair and too much red lipstick gave me a cursory once-over.
“I’m here to bail out Chase Adams?” I said with a question mark in my voice, since the entire process was something of a mystery to me. I wasn’t even sure I’d ever set foot in a police station before. As I looked around, I noticed that almost everything in the front lobby was encased by glass and iron bars—including the woman who sat behind the counter.
She perused a computer screen that was hidden from view. “Okay, I see he was booked last night,” she said mechanically. “Just fill out these forms for me.” She shoved a clipboard with a small sheaf of papers out through the window’s small opening, then returned to her computer without looking at me.
I frowned. If he’d been in jail only one night, where had he been the other days I’d been frantically trying to get in touch with him?
After filling out the papers and paying the bail, I waited for what seemed like hours. Finally, a cop brought Chase out. His face was haggard, and he looked like he hadn’t shaved in several days, but his eyes sparkled when he saw me. I stood up, and as soon as he was close enough, I let him enfold me in his arms. His heart was beating fast, and his body was trembling.
“Why didn’t you call me sooner?” I murmured, clutching him for dear life.
“I called you as soon as they let me,” he breathed into my hair. “God, Annie, it’s so fucking good to see you.”
“Can we get out of here now?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I just need to grab my stuff they were holding. Can we go back to my place? I really need a drink.”
I nodded. “Yes, but will you promise to tell me exactly what happened?”
He looked reluctant, but he just sighed. “Yeah, it’s not a pretty story, but if you really wanna know . . .”
“I do,” I said, perhaps a little too harshly.
When we got back to his warehouse, which was dark and as cold as an icebox, Chase immediately flung open the refrigerator and took out a full bottle of vodka. He began to actually chug it, which was an alarming sight. He turned to me and wiped his mouth, almost apologetically. “I haven’t slept in forever. You should’ve seen those other guys in the holding cell. I was worried I’d end up with a dick in my ass if I shut my eyes for even a second.”
I walked over to him and took the bottle, which I gently put back in the fridge. “Are you going to tell me what happened?”
He rubbed his temples for a second before he began. “I was down by Manida Street in Hunts Point, working on some stuff. Totally legal. There’s a kids’ center down there that my friend runs, and he’d asked if I could contribute some kind of autumn-themed mural. I figured it would be better to work after-hours. But it’s kind of a rough spot. Graffiti isn’t always gang-related, but sometimes it tells a story in code. Last night there was some kind of drug deal going down with this crew that’s been putting up tags—usually just their name and some kind of lame moniker—around that neighborhood. So . . . we got into it.
“I usually try to just keep my head down and stay out of the bullshit, but when they started tagging my wall, I had to say something.” He picked up a canister of spray paint and pretended to unleash it on the fridge. “They were throwing up arrows and hand symbols like they were Crips or something, but I knew for a fact one of these cats was some trust-fund kid from TriBeCa who was coming out here to slum it. I couldn’t let them turn my wall into some fucking monstrosity. So I went over and gave them a piece of my mind.”
“Them? How many guys were there, Chase?” I asked, feeling worried even though he didn’t seem to have any visible injuries.
He shrugged. “I dunno. Three? Four? My boys were there, too, so I had some backup. I wasn’t trying to fight them, either. I just wanted to talk some sense into them. Make them show a little respect for the neighborhood they were trashing.”
“But they were in a gang. I mean, what if they had guns?”
“I could tell they didn’t. Getting into scuffles is just par for the course up around here.” He seemed to stiffen at what I was sure he perceived to be my judging tone. “That’s why you make sure you have a good crew, to keep you out of the bigger trouble.”
“So if your boys were there . . . why were you the only one who got arrested?”
He opened the fridge and took the vodka bottle out. “I’m the only one who talked back to the fuzz when they finally got there,” he said, taking an extralong swig from the bottle. When he put it down, his eyes narrowed in irritation. “Why the third degree, Goldilocks?”
“What do you expect?” I cried out. “You didn’t call me for days, and now you spring this on me? How do you want me to react?”
He slammed the bottle down on his kitchen counter. “You think I’m a fuckup, don’t you?” he said in a quiet, accusatory voice.
“I didn’t say that, Chase.”
He shook his head slowly. “You didn’t have to. I can read you, Annie. And I knew you wouldn’t get it.”
“Chase—”
He held up a hand to stop me. “If you want your money back, Pike owes me a few thousand. I can get that to you next week at the latest.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. “Chase, it’s not about the fucking money! I don’t care about that!”
He raised his voice, too. “If it’s not about the money, then stop acting so high and mighty! It’s just jail—it’s not like I killed someone!” His eyes were practically bulging from rage as he tipped the bottle back again and drank like it was water. It was a terrifying sight, and I could feel myself backing away from him slowly. I’d heard of jail’s capacity to turn mild-mannered guys into ticking time bombs, and Chase wasn’t exactly mild-mannered to begin with, so I felt almost afraid of what he might be capable of.
Chase dropped the empty bottle to the ground and moved toward me. Instinctively, I took a few steps back. “The past couple days have put me on edge. I was afraid that someone was gonna give up my LunaBomber alias, but thankfully that didn’t happen.”
If I’d been fearful moments before, I was livid now. “You were afraid someone would give up your alias, but you weren’t afraid of worrying me sick? I c
an’t fucking believe you.”
“Annie, stop . . .”
“I will not stop, Chase! Informing me about your whereabouts might seem like sweating the small stuff to you, but where I come from, you don’t just keep the people who care about you in the dark! And this doesn’t even explain the fact that you haven’t responded to my texts or voicemails for the last four days. The last four days, for crying out loud!”
“Annie, I’m sorry, okay?” he said ineffectually. “I’ve spent most of my life not having people keep tabs on me; I guess I didn’t realize I had to check in with you every fucking minute of every fucking day.”
We stood in silence, the tension palpable.
I avoided his glare and could feel myself biting back the tears. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see his stature soften. He approached me, but I flinched at his touch.
“Don’t be like that, Goldilocks,” he murmured, as he pulled me close and wove his fingers into the band of my pants. “Please?” I could feel his lips on my neck, which made the heat rise to my cheeks. I could just as easily give in to him—and could feel myself about to—as he attempted to pull my pants down. But I couldn’t—not like this—so I pushed him away.
He was startled. “What the fuck? You want this, too!”
I adjusted my pants, and I felt almost queasy. “No, I don’t. Makeup sex isn’t going to make this any better.”
“Makeup sex? Can that really be classified as a fight?” He gave me a devilish grin that, for a split second, made me want to forgive him completely. But I wouldn’t let myself be swayed.
“I just don’t think this is going to work,” I said flatly. My voice felt like it was coming from far away, and I barely recognized it or registered that I was the one speaking those terrible words.
He just looked at me. “Are you kidding me? You’re just gonna walk out on me?”
I felt sick to my stomach at the thought, and my feet were practically bolted to the floor. “I don’t think I can do this, Chase,” I said carefully, in that voice that sounded like it belonged to a different person. “The last few times we’ve been together, I ran the risk of getting arrested, getting shot, and having a subway train slam into me. If that’s what it’s like to be with you, I don’t think I can handle it.” I pulled my coat more tightly around me. “So maybe we need to take a break.”
So Damn Beautiful (A New Adult Romance) Page 22