“Take care of his clothes, Corey…and run a bath. I’ll be right back,” J.T. said, stepping out of the room just as Bliss was going in. He gave her a charming smile and slipped an arm around her shoulders, efficiently turning her in the other direction. Bliss tried to look over her shoulder into the bedroom, but J.T. kept her moving and seated her at the breakfast bar. He leaned on it and looked her in the eye. “You okay?”
She wanted to hit him. What the hell kind of question is that? She was shaken up, and she stood up to tell him so. “What do you think, J.T.? What happened to Chase? Why isn’t he in the hospital? Why did you bring him back here and leave him in his room with Dr. Corey?”
J.T. laughed and started making coffee. “Dr. Corey? That’s funny,” he said, shaking his head.
Bliss came around the counter at him. “That’s not funny, J.T. He could be in there dying! He’s got a goddamned head wound! What are you and Corey, stupid? You’re not supposed to be moving someone with a head wound around like that!” She stomped her foot and pushed him. “You get your ass in there and take him to the hospital. Right now, J.T.!” she screamed at him.
J.T. looked at her calmly. “Sit down, Bliss. If you calm down, I’ll talk to you, but otherwise, I’m not saying a word. I’ve been aggravated enough for one evening.” He stared at her until she complied, even though she did it with major attitude. J.T. sat beside her and looked at her sympathetically. “I know you’re upset, Bliss, but we’ve got a situation here. Before he passed out, Chase told us to take him home, so that’s what we did.” He paused. “I think it makes sense.”
Bliss frowned. “What are you not telling me, J.T.?”
He shrugged. “Nothing. Tonight was a bad night. Wolf sent his boys to Cyrus’s club to take us out, and we didn’t let them.”
Bliss rolled her eyes at him as she put the coffee on. “Looks like they almost took Chase out. Where were you and Corey when they did this to him?”
“We were handling our business, Bliss, and Chase was handling his. I can guarantee you that blow to his head was a rare and extremely lucky thing for them.” J.T. was looking at her steadily, but Bliss was still frowning.
“What are those chains on his jeans?”
J.T. frowned and smiled at the same time. “What chains, Bliss?”
Bliss turned her head and looked at him sideways. “Okay, J.T. I guess it would be stupid of me to assume all that blood is his, right?”
J.T. shrugged and eyed her gently. “I don’t know, Bliss”
They stared at each other for a long moment. Bliss wasn’t stupid. There was one thing she could give all of them credit for, especially Chase. She could not remember any lies. She took a deep breath and stood up, letting it out slowly, and tears filled her eyes. “Oh,” she said quietly.
J.T. was watching her like she might flip out any minute. “It is what it is, Bliss. Looks like you’ve got to make a decision.”
Bliss caught a flashback of Chase looking down at her and asking—no, daring her—to jump of the cliff with him. She smiled through her tears and shook her head. “There’s no decision to make, J.T. If I left him, I’d die…and so would he. I can’t. That’s out of the question.” She folded her arms across her chest and sighed shakily. “How bad is it? Did he hurt somebody tonight?”
J.T. shrugged again. “I have no idea. We weren’t together all night, and at one point I got a little busy.”
She nodded. It was very close to what she’d figured he’d say, and she looked at him knowingly. “You’re not gonna give him up, are you? Even to me?”
He smiled at her. “Never in this lifetime, Bliss. He’s been my best friend since we were eight years old.”
Bliss was touched, but there was a lot of shit going on. “I can understand and respect that, J.T. Let me ask you a question you can answer. Did you hurt anybody tonight?”
J.T. laughed and shook his head. “Don’t, Bliss. You know I’m gonna plead the Fifth on that one.”
“What are you guys, gangsters?”
He laughed again and went to the coffeemaker. “Nope. We’re just businessmen. Cyrus though? Maybe.”
Bliss frowned. “Where is Cyrus?”
J.T. shrugged his broad shoulders again. “Don’t know, don’t care. I’m sure we’ll be hearing from his stupid ass shortly though.”
Bliss sat back down. “This is all his fault, isn’t it?”
J.T. nodded. “Yes, yes it is.”
“I think I hate him.”
He laughed and poured coffee. “Join the club, darlin’. We all hate Cyrus—well, everybody except for Corey.”
As if he’d heard his name, Corey came out of the bedroom carrying a package tightly wrapped in duct tape under his arm. “I got everything, J.T. He’s ready for the tub.”
J.T. stood up. “Did he wake up?”
Corey shook his head, looking worried. “Kinda, but not really. He sort of opened his eyes and was movin’ around a little, but he went right back out.”
Bliss raised an eyebrow. Those fools could sit here fucking around if they wanted to, but she wasn’t about to have Chase lying there with no help. Fuck them and whatever they had to say about it. She went to her bag and took out her cell phone.
Corey came across the room real fast, holding his hand out to stop her. “Whoa! Whoa, Mama! Who you callin’? Put the phone down, Bliss.”
When he reached for her phone, Bliss held it away from her and put her hand on his chest. “Don’t you come at me, Corey! You two are not doing anything! You can’t just let him lie there like that. He needs a doctor…and I fucking know one.” She looked at J.T. “I’m calling Tasha. It’s our blind luck that she’s a neurologist. One of you is gonna go get her, and I’m gonna go in there and take care of my man. I’m making this decision, and I don’t want to hear shit about it.”
Corey frowned up. “You make the decision? You sound like his wife or somethin’.”
Bliss smirked at him. “Yeah, well, get used to it, Corey…because I will be.”
J.T. laughed and clapped his hands. “Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about. Ride or die, Bliss! Make the call, and I’ll go get your girl.”
Bliss called Tasha, whose only complaint was that she was pulled out of sleep in the middle of the night. J.T. left to get her, and Bliss and Corey went together to Chase’s bedroom.
When they got there, Chase wasn’t in his bed. They glanced at each other and followed the path he’d left with one bloody footprint; it led to the bathroom. They found him on the floor of the shower, kneeling with his hands against the wall. The cold water was on full blast, raining down on him. Chase’s teeth were chattering, and blood swirled down the drain from a wound on his calf.
Bliss stepped into the shower, fully clothed, without a second thought, and turned the hot water on until the water was warm. She got on her knees next to him and put her arm around his shoulders. “Baby, it’s me. It’s Bliss.”
He opened his eyes and smiled at her. “Hey, baby.”
Bliss smiled back and kissed his cheek. “I got you, Chase. Don’t worry, it’s gonna be okay. Can you stand up?”
He closed his eyes and frowned, then he stood, slowly, never taking his hands away from the wall. “I’m okay. I can’t let go of the wall, though, ‘cause the room is spinning.”
Bliss let go of him long enough to push her hair out of her eyes. “Okay. You hold on to the wall and I’ll clean you up. You think you can handle that, or do you want Corey to step in here and help us?”
He frowned and blinked. “He’s in here?” He started to turn around, but that would have meant letting go of the wall. “Get outta here, Corey,” he said. There was a smile in his voice that didn’t quite make it to his lips.
“Fuck that! I’m makin’ popcorn. You all right, Chase?”
“No, but I’m not unconscious.”
“That’s a start. Holler if you need me,” Corey said before he stepped out of the bathroom and left them alone.
Bliss started to soap him
up. “I called Tasha. J.T. is going to get her.”
He smiled at her. “You did that for me?”
She squatted to wash his calf and took a moment to look at the wound. It was a really bad graze, but it was obvious it had been made by a bullet. Bliss sucked her teeth. “There’s not very much I wouldn’t do for you, Chase.” She paused to look at him. “You better not bring your ass back in here shot and knocked out ever again though. I’m not playing with you!” she shouted at him.
Chase took one hand off the wall and reached for hers. “Bliss…”
She was crying again. She knocked his hand away and kept doing what she was doing. “No, Chase. There’s nothing you can say to me right now to keep me from being mad at you, so don’t even try. Just be quiet.” She stood back up and put her hands on his face. “Bend over so I can look at that gash in your head.”
Chase looked at her for a moment, then did as he was told.
Bliss cleaned and inspected it as best as she could. She was gentle, but she knew it had to hurt, even if Chase didn’t let on like it did. She got him out of the shower and into the bedroom and dried him off. Working together, they managed to get him dressed in a pair of comfortable pajama bottoms.
Bliss took her soaked clothes off and put on one of his T-shirts and a pair of his sweat pants. She was brushing her hair when Corey knocked on the door.
“Hey…Tasha’s here.”
“Okay!” Bliss called back. She pulled a T-shirt carefully over Chase’s head.
“What’s this for?”
Bliss smiled. “That’s for Tasha.”
Chase looked at her funny. “She’s a doctor, Bliss.”
“She’s a woman, Chase, and I don’t want her looking at you like that. You’re real cute, you know…and she already told me more than once how fine you are.”
He laughed. “Yeah? Right now I’m not.”
“Still cute as hell to me.” She kissed his forehead and went to the door.
Tasha walked in with J.T. and Corey in tow. She was carrying a small Prada train case. “Hey, Bliss. Has he passed out again since he woke up?”
Bliss shook her head. “No. I gave him a shower. Maybe that kept him up?”
Tasha sat on the bed and opened her case. “I doubt it.” She took out a small pen light and smiled at Chase. “How you doin’, slugger? Feel okay? Gotta throw up? Do you know who I am?”
Chase leaned back against the pillows and looked at her. “Yeah, you’re Tasha. I don’t think I’m missin’ anything, but you are a little blurry.”
She got up and shined her light in his eyes. “Damn. Whoever hit you didn’t mean for you to get up. You better be glad your head is so hard.” She stepped back, squirted hand sanitizer on her hands, then slipped on rubber gloves. She thoroughly examined his skull, looking in his eyes again and also in his ears. She looked at the wound and went into her case. “I’m gonna have to close that up. Hope you’re not squeamish.”
Chase smiled. “Nope. I wouldn’t say I am.”
Tasha smirked and picked up her case. “I figured as much. Let’s go in the kitchen, and I’ll sew you up.” Once everything was set up in the kitchen like a makeshift doctor’s office, Tasha cleaned his wound properly and shot lydacaine into his scalp.
J.T. winced. “Damn, Chase. You want a drink?”
Tasha laughed and threaded her little curved needle. “He can’t have one. I’m gonna give him something for the pain that’s gonna put him out.”
Chase shook his head slowly. “That’s okay. I don’t want it.”
Tasha looked at him sternly. “Well, too bad, cause you’re taking it. Why don’t you want it? You plan on runnin’ out and gettin’ back at whoever it was that parted your scalp?”
Chase looked at the floor. “I ain’t gotta worry about him.”
Tasha looked at him for a moment, then turned to J.T. “Okay. I’ll take a double of whatever you were gonna give him.” She took her time and sewed him up, while Bliss and Corey sat at the breakfast bar and J.T. leaned over Chase and watched her handiwork with a great deal of interest. She finished with a flourish and winked at J.T.
“Nice work, Doc,” he said, smiling at her.
Tasha smiled back and looked him over. “Thanks, but that’s not the best I can do.”
J.T. returned the look. “I’ll just bet it’s not. You flirtin’ with me, Tasha?”
“I’m tryin’.”
Corey got up impatiently and raised the leg on Chase’s pants. “Well, before y’all get your freak on, could you take a look at this?”
Tasha rolled her eyes at Corey, but she looked at Chase’s leg. “Damn, negro! You managed to get yourself shot too?”
“It’s just a graze.”
She looked at him at him seriously. “Yeah, but it almost wasn’t.” She cleaned it and dressed it and then gave him a shot of antibiotics.
“Thanks, Tasha,” Chase said as she gave him another shot—a painkiller.
She looked at him dubiously with her hand on her hip. “You’re a lucky guy, Chase. You could have gotten yourself killed tonight.”
Chase blinked at her, and his mouth dropped open a little. “What did you just do?” He slumped in his seat like somebody had hit him.
Bliss got up and went to him and put her hands on his face.
Tasha looked unfazed. “I just gave you something for the pain, that’s all.”
Chase stood up suddenly, knocking Bliss’s hands away. He teetered a little, and J.T. grabbed him and held him steady.
“Honey, what’s wrong?” Bliss asked, surprised by his reaction and the panic on his face.
For once, Chase ignored her. He turned his head and talked to Tasha. “Don’t think I don’t appreciate your help, Tasha. I do. I just wish you could have waited on that. I don’t need to be feeling like this right now.”
J.T. patted his back. “It’s okay, Chase. Me and Corey ain’t goin’ nowhere. You got time to get yourself together.”
Tasha looked at Bliss. “You want me to stay? He’s got a pretty nasty concussion. Whether I stay or not, I want to see him in my office in the morning.”
Bliss nodded. “Yeah, if you can stay, that’d be great. I’m sorry, Tasha.”
Tasha smiled at her. “Fuck sorry. I’m your friend. Take your man to bed and watch him. You see anything strange, hear any strange breathing, you holler, okay?”
“Thanks, Tasha.” Chase slurred, but he walked to the bedroom under his own power.
Bliss got him settled into bed with two pillows under his head. She snuggled in close to him and closed her eyes.
Chase startled her when he spoke because she thought he was asleep. “I’m sorry for this, Bliss. I’m really sorry.”
She turned over on her back and looked at him in the moonlight. He was frowning hard. She touched his face. “What happened tonight, Chase?”
“I…I can’t tell you. It was something I don’t want to think about, but I’m sorry to you, Bliss, and I couldn’t really stop it from happening.”
Bliss frowned. He could have stopped it. He didn’t have to go. He could have stayed right there with her, and she told him as much.
Chase held her close, and she didn’t pull away. She couldn’t have if she’d wanted to. “I had to go, Bliss. I know you don’t understand, and I don’t really expect you to…” He sounded like he was drifting off, but he was talking, and Bliss wanted to hear what he had to say.
“You didn’t have to do whatever it was that you did tonight, Chase.” She said it quietly, with a great amount of reproach in her voice.
Chase put his face very close to hers, like he was trying hard to see her in the dark. He said her name with a sigh and put his cheek to hers. “I had to do that, too, Bliss. I had to. They were gonna kill me, and I couldn’t let that happen, could I? I had to save myself, Bliss. I had to save me for you. I had to save me for us.”
Bliss frowned, but she held him tighter. “I don’t know what you did, and I don’t really want to know. You better sto
p this nonsense though. We can’t change what already happened, but you damned sure can stop doing whatever it is that you do.”
“It’s not that easy, Bliss.”
Bliss sat up, and he sat up with her. She reached over and flicked on the light. She looked him in the eye. “Do you love me like you say you do, Chase?”
He frowned. “Of course I do. How could you question that?”
She put her hand on his cheek. “I’m not, baby, but I’ve got a feeling you’ve got a side to you that I never want to see. What were those chains on your jeans, Chase? Sweetheart, I’m looking at you now, and sure, you’ve got a pretty good gash in your scalp and a decent-sized wound on your leg, but Chase…neither one of those injuries justifies all that blood you had on you—neither one of them.”
He tried to turn his face away, but Bliss wouldn’t let him. He stayed where she kept him, but he cast his eyes down and wouldn’t look at her.
She remembered the way he’d looked when he came in—all that blood—and she shuddered. Bliss felt delayed hysteria trying to creep in and pushed it back. “I don’t think you just got in a fight, Chase.”
He wouldn’t look at her and wouldn’t comment.
“Are the police looking for you? Do they have a reason to?”
“I doubt it,” he said quietly. He looked at her, and his eyes were tremendously sad. “You gonna walk away now, Bliss?”
Bliss smiled in spite of the horror of the night. “It’s a little late for that. I don’t want to live without you.”
He smiled. “You still gonna marry me? You promised, you know.”
Bliss smiled back at him. “I don’t have a choice. I’m in love with you…in spite of all this.”
He kissed her with a soft, sweet kiss. “I love you, Bliss.”
“I love you, too, but you’ve got to make me a promise, Chase.”
He kissed her again. “I’ll promise you anything, Bliss.”
She kissed him back, but she looked at him skeptically. “I want you to mean it, Chase.”
Chasing Bliss Page 20