He won’t even answer his phone, she fumed as she made her way onto Chance’s street.
Chance’s car was nowhere to be seen as she approached his house, but that didn’t stop her. Jenny stormed up the drive and knocked loudly on the door. Someone had to be home, and they would give her answers.
The door opened just enough for Levi to stick his head through, his blond curls wild.
“Hello?” he asked. “Jenny?”
Jenny stood there, hands on her hips. “Where is Chance?”
Levi opened the door wider, stepping outside.
“He’s not here,” he told her. He stood so much taller than she did that she had to crane her neck to look him in the face. “He didn’t come home. He said he needed to think. I think I know where he is, though.”
“So do I.” There was only one place Chance would go to escape it all. “Can you give me a ride?”
Chance’s Charger was parked outside the barn when Levi pulled up. Jenny’s adrenaline was pumping, urging her to tuck and roll out of the car and sprint toward the barn. The car had barely stopped before she hopped out.
“Thanks for the ride!” she said.
Her legs carried her past Chance’s car and sent her hurtling through the barn doors. Chance looked up, startled, from his perch on the table. The pirate hat sat on his head, and there was a fresh bruise blossoming on his chin. The sight of it only made Jenny angrier.
“Jenny?” he sputtered, jumping to his feet. “How did you—”
“Chance—” She paused, taking him in, softening her tone. She couldn’t yell at him, not when he looked so sad.
“I’m sorry, okay?” he said, his expression doleful. “I know today was a disaster, but—”
Quite the understatement.
“No, you don’t get to talk right now,” Jenny said. She struggled to keep her tone even, to quell her anger, but hearing him try to make excuses set her off again. “This is my turn.” She reached out, snatching the hat off his head and shoving it onto her own. “Drake wasn’t hurting me, Chance. We were talking it out. We were coming to a freaking truce, okay? Then you had to come sweeping in like some knight in rusty armor and save the day. I do not need saving!”
“He was making you cry!” Chance defended. He glowered at her, taking a step forward. “I couldn’t sit by and watch him make you cry! You should know that about me by now.”
“You didn’t even know the situation,” she insisted. “You stormed in without even thinking. I can’t believe that you would act so … so … horrible!” she said, for want of a better word.
The word hit home all right, causing him to take a step back. He roughly snatched the hat away, pulling it down onto his own head.
* * *
CHANCE NEEDED HER to get it. “This is exactly the kind of thing I do, Jenny. I’m going to protect the few people I have in my life. If that comes as a shock, then you obviously don’t know me.”
She threw her hands up in frustration, turning away from him. “That’s crap, Chance, and you know it. You just don’t want to take responsibility for your actions.”
Chance had to laugh at that. “I’m taking full responsibility for my actions, trust me. I know I screwed up. Why do you think I’m here? It’s because I’m trying to figure out how to fix yet another mistake.”
He wanted her to calm down, to sit at the table and let him explain things. He didn’t want this to be a fight. He didn’t want her to get mad and leave like his parents had done.
Jenny kept shaking her head. “This isn’t fixing your mistakes, Chance. This is hiding.”
That hurt like a blow. “Why stop there?” he said, spreading his arms, ready for an attack. “Tell me what you really think, Jennifer.”
“Fine.” She took the hat back, shoving it on. “I will.”
* * *
“I’M ANGRY AT you, really truly angry at you! But that’s okay, because I can be angry with you and not abandon you. I do know you, Chance. I know you perfectly well. I have feelings for you. Real genuine feelings, and I buried them away like I do everything else because I know how you are.” Her heart was pounding in her chest, and she felt like she was going to hurl any second. “I know you don’t have those feelings; you don’t do relationships. So I hid my feelings away, knowing it would make you uncomfortable to know the truth. I pretended that I felt nothing when we kissed. I dated Drake, I watched you date countless girls, and I kept it all to myself because I knew we weren’t like that.”
Chance looked at her, his expression unreadable. “You have feelings for me?” he asked uncertainly. “You—hell, Jenny, you’ve got it all wrong.”
She folded her arms over her chest, not sure whether she liked the way he was looking at her. Their voices seemed so quiet after all her yelling.
“I’m not wrong,” she insisted.
Chance took back the hat.
* * *
HE COULDN’T BELIEVE it. All these months of torture had been for nothing. “Jenny,” he said again, his voice soft. “You’ve got it all wrong.”
“I don’t want to hear it, Chance.” She tried to step away from him, but he caught her wrist. “Let me go,” she said, breaking free. “I already know how you feel. I heard you tell a girl that you don’t date.”
What is she even talking—oh. Oh my God.
Chance remembered. He remembered trying to find Jenny so he could confess everything, brushing off the girl who’d come up to him. He remembered letting that girl down gently, telling her he didn’t do relationships. He had shot himself in the foot without knowing it.
“Jenny, no, I told that girl that because I wanted to let her down easy.”
“Why would you want to let her down easy?” she asked, disbelief clear on her face. “She was gorgeous, just like the other girls.”
“Because I had just made out with you the day before!” he yelled. “I let her down because I wanted to be with you, Jenny! I was going to tell you in class that I wanted to give it a try, but you made it clear you felt nothing for me. Then you started dating Drake, and my parents left—it wasn’t the right time. I couldn’t push my feelings on you.”
Jenny blinked up at him, befuddled. “Wait, you like me?”
“Yes, Jenny. Everyone knows.” How could she not know? How could she be so blind, so set in her view of him that she couldn’t see? Why else would he punch someone for her? “You became the only good thing in my life. You still are.”
“You mean to tell me that this entire time, we’ve both had feelings for each other? That we wasted all these months with other people, playing games for no reason?”
Chance took off the pirate hat, letting it fall to the ground without a second thought. “I don’t know, Jens.”
She looked around. “What do we do now? We just admitted that we have feelings for each other. We can’t go back from this. We can’t cover it up with a make-believe story and pretend it didn’t happen. Chance, this is real, what do we do—”
There was only one thing he wanted to do—something he had been wanting to do for months. He closed the distance between them in three steps, his hands flying to either side of her face, his lips crashing against hers.
The kiss caught her off guard, and she stumbled in his arms. She recovered quickly, her hands sliding up his chest and twisting their way into his hair. He was kissing her and it was everything. Part of him couldn’t believe it, while other parts were pressing her closer.
This is real, he kept reminding himself as she sighed against his lips. This is real and it’s incredible and wonderful and, holy crap, this is happening. He felt her fingers knot into his hair, dragging him closer still, her hips rotating against his.
This is real.
This is happening.
* * *
IF THEIR FIRST kiss was amazing, then this was nothing short of incredible. She never wanted to stop kissing him—to feel any sort of space between them ever again. Her anger had melted into lust, and it demanded to be satisfied. Months o
f longing sprang to the surface, egging her on as she pushed up the hem of his shirt, her fingers exploring his warm skin.
Hands were exploring with mouths close behind, Chance’s body practically scorching hers where they met. She wanted him closer. He pressed his lips to the hollow behind her ear, making her gasp. This was Chance, her Chance.
There was no leverage to gain, nothing to prove. They had laid their emotions out on the table. Unlike with Drake, she wasn’t doing this to prove a point or settle an argument. She wanted to be with Chance, to be as close to him as possible. There were no ulterior motives here; there was only Chance, Jenny, and an unbearable need growing inside her.
I want this. I want him.
She knew it with such conviction that she didn’t even pause when he raised his shirt over his head, only rushing to get hers off as well. His lips made a fiery trail down her neck to her collarbones, and all she could think was—
This is how it’s supposed to be.
He wanted her: sarcastic, anxious, smart-mouthed her. Not some girl he wanted her to be. Chance saw her as she was, as she would always be. No one in the world knew her better. It all felt so right.
He pulled back, his eyes boring into hers, and asked, “What do you want?”
All she could do was pull his face back to hers, whispering, “You.”
CHAPTER 34
Chance
We can’t go back, Chance thought the next morning, looking at Jenny curled in his arms. The night before, they had lain there in silence, staring up at the stars, until she drifted to sleep, a dreamy look on her face.
Now the worry set in, curling into the pit of Chance’s stomach. His mind was in overdrive, trying to process what had happened.
I had sex with Jenny. We can’t go back from this.
He had done it—he had crossed that treacherous line. He couldn’t help but run every possibility through his head, thinking of everything that could go wrong.
She could change her mind. She might be using me as a rebound. We might not fit. We could let the awkwardness eat away at us until there’s not even a friendship left.
Chance couldn’t hide it—he was petrified. He had never been with someone who meant anything to him. Love had always been a game, trying to live up to the legend his reputation painted him as. It had never been real—not like this.
I love her, he realized. I am in love with her.
There are always third options, he reminded himself. Levi had told him that, had said it applied to everything. Yes, they could revert back to how it was, or they could fall apart, but they could also make it work.
Jenny lifted her head, looking up at him with bleary eyes.
“Chance?” she asked, her voice thick with sleep. “What—?” She broke off, her eyes growing wide. She slowly looked down at his bare chest before snapping her eyes back to his.
“Good morning,” he whispered.
She was uncomfortable, he could tell. He felt any hope he’d mustered crash and burn.
She regrets it. She regrets me.
Jenny sat up gingerly, covering her chest with the blanket. Her hair was wild, the way Chance liked it best, sticking up every which way. She looked around for her clothes, not looking back at him.
Chance sat up, too, finding his pants on the pallet. Her underwear tumbled from the blanket as he picked up his pants. Wordlessly, he handed them to her.
They dressed in silence, unsure of what to say.
I have to do something to fix this, Chance thought. He knew it was now or never. The past. We always fall back on the past.
“Remember when—” he began, his voice unnaturally loud in the silence.
Jenny looked over her shoulder at him, quizzical.
“When…” He trailed off, his mind blank. “Remember when…”
He couldn’t do it. Nothing sprang to mind. The effortlessness of their stories escaped him, leaving him speechless. There were no more stories to tell, no more past to lie about.
Jenny continued to stare at him for a beat, her expression almost pleading. But he couldn’t fix this. He didn’t have the words to say. He didn’t know what to do anymore.
“I guess we should go,” Jenny said at last, turning away from him.
He watched her walk out of the barn and into the bright morning light.
CHAPTER 35
Jenny
She wanted Chance to say something, to fix this. Everything had been so perfect, but now it was ruined. Jenny walked to the car, her limbs stiff and awkward.
I slept with my best friend and now everything is weird. Maybe he’d changed his mind? Did this mean nothing to him?
She wished she could take it back, stuff the words back in her mouth. She’d known it would end up like this, but she had told him her feelings anyway. She had realized as he had kissed her, his body moving against hers, that they could never go back from that.
She had never loved Drake—that had only ever been wishful thinking. She had been trying to force her puzzle pieces into the wrong puzzle, never realizing the right one had been there the whole time. She remembered how everything with Drake had been lacking and how everything with Chance had always been fireworks. She knew now why love was always equated with heat and burning. Drake had been as fleeting as a flickering candle, snuffed out in seconds. But Chance? He was as all-consuming and unstoppable as a forest fire.
And now it was all slipping away.
She climbed into his car, her hands shaking. She had to break the tension, do something to fix this. She looked everywhere but at him, focusing on anything she could while he started up the car. She stared down at her scuffed-up shoes, tracking mud all over the floorboards. She could hardly see the stain from where she’d dropped her first beer anymore; it had been so long ago. And then she knew what to say.
“Remember when I dropped my first beer?”
“Oh God, you looked so distraught,” Chance said, laughing at the memory. “I wish I could’ve taken a picture of that face. It was priceless.”
“You’re the one who simply handed it to me, even though it was slippery.”
“Don’t put this on me; you’re the one with butterfingers.”
“I wouldn’t have dropped it if you hadn’t—” Then she stopped, because it occurred to her that she wasn’t lying. This wasn’t a fake memory, made up on the spot.
It was real. This was real. They were real.
Chance’s laughter dried up, too, the same realization dawning on him as well.
They had a past now, weird and convoluted as it was. They had been each other’s everything: best friends, confidants, lovers. Now it was time for them to take the last step.
“Can you believe we’ll be seniors next year?” Jenny asked, settling back into her seat.
“Oh God, imagine how dramatic that’ll be.”
Jenny nodded. “There will be a new transfer student who comes between us, throwing our relationship into jeopardy.”
“We’ll make up before Christmas, though—”
“—so you can take me ice-skating.”
“Then we’ll be the shining example of the perfect couple on Valentine’s Day, when I present you with a dozen roses during home room.”
“We’ll be so sickeningly lovey.”
“They’ll have no choice but to vote us Cutest Couple.”
“We don’t have yearbook superlatives, Masters.”
“They’ll create them, just so they can name us Cutest Couple, Wessler.”
“Of course, you’ll ask me to prom in some ridiculous way.”
“Skydiving,” he informed her. “You have to act surprised, though.”
“Oh, I promise. Then we’ll kiss on the stage at graduation.”
“Oh God yes, we’ll be the reigning monarchs of PDA.”
Jenny liked the sound of that future. As they sped off toward town—back toward their real lives—Chance reached over and took her hand. She liked the feeling of it in hers. It might not always have been there, but
she knew that it would be from now on.
Their past might be fake, but their future was real. It was theirs to build. It was real, unscripted, and unplanned.
And she was going to experience it all with Chance by her side.
Acknowledgments
It’s funny because I’ve always imagined writing this page. I’ve wanted to be an author for as long as I can remember, so naturally, I always imagined who I’d list in my acknowledgments. The list has evolved so much over time, as people come and go from my life, but I think I’ve finally figured it out.
First, I’d like to thank the wonderful Swoon Reads community, especially the readers who helped this book get noticed. Holly West is probably the best editor around, and I’m totally not biased at all, I swear. She made every part of the journey a joy, and I’m forever grateful for her help and insights. This book would not exist the way it is now if it wasn’t for her. Thank you to everyone on the Swoon Reads team. A huge thank-you (and a lifetime’s worth of appreciation) to Jean Feiwel, for giving this book a chance. Also, a huge thank you to Liz Dresner for designing such a beautiful cover.
I have to thank my family—Mom, Ashley, Lisa, Papa, Popo, Grandma Pitcock, and Anita—for always supporting me no matter what. I love you guys so much. Meme, I wish you were here to see this. I miss you every day.
Thank you to everyone who has helped me grow and change as a writer. The first story I ever wrote was a Harry Potter fanfic with my middle school best friend Autumn, and it was mostly in chatspeak. I think I’ve grown a lot since then. Thank you to Mrs. Stacks for welcoming me into the BHS writer’s circle. Thank you to Rae Davis for always being there for me to bounce plot ideas off of and give criticism. Thanks to Erica McDaniel, for always being up for an emergency midnight walk across campus so I could rant about my newest book idea. Also to Dr. Marck Beggs for being an awesome Creative Writing professor and publishing my work in the Proscenium. Megan Bray and Peter Wilson, for being the first people ever to read my book. I don’t know where my writing would be without any of you, and I’m so grateful.
Just Friends Page 24