The Therapist (Chase Walker Book 5)

by J. A. Belfield

  “About work.” His shoulders seemed to hunch over, but their shift only took Ade closer to Chase across the table. “About my work.”

  Chase didn’t need telling about Ade’s work. Because Chase had been in the same role prior to calling it a day and setting up CW Consult, so he knew exactly what it entailed—what it could entail. And usually any stories shared from his job involved laughter-filled recollections, not nervous, shifty-eyed explanations.

  Swallowing, Chase asked, “What’s wrong at work, Ade?”

  “I, uh …” He blew out a breath that popped his cheeks, his gaze sliding away before it shot back again. “I got assigned Nicolette.”

  Chase breathed in. Breathed out. He’d expected a tightening of his fists. A tensing of his shoulders. Maybe even a tremor to his inhalation. He got none of that—which Chase hadn’t really anticipated, despite his adamant declarations of being over her. “Okay,” he said slowly.

  “I’m sorry, man,” Ade said, lifting his palm toward Chase. “Mrs Pacton didn’t give me a choice.”

  “Ade, I said it’s okay.”

  “I fucking told her I didn’t want the job, but she said if she had to reassign her to someone else, she’d reassign some of my other clients, too.”

  Reaching out, he gripped the back of Ade’s head and stilled his face in front of his own. “Will you quit being a dick. I just fucking told you it’s okay.”

  Chase, himself, didn’t need the added confirmations that it was okay. He’d known as soon as he’d spoken the first one that he’d meant it. Because he was over Nicolette. Past her. Done and dusted and out the other side with a clean outlook and clean goals. Even if it had taken him longer than he’d have liked to get there.

  Ade stared hard at him for a few long seconds. “You’re really cool with it?”

  “It’s not like I never expected it to happen at some point. She replaced me the minute I’d walked, and she’ll continue to replace each and every one of you as soon as she grows bored.” It was the truth, a hazard of the job—probably why Ade didn’t so much as flinch at Chase’s words. “Besides, you’re the best Mrs Pacton’s got working for her now, so it was only a matter of time.” He let go of his friend and settled back into his seat. “I’m cool with it. She’s a good deal to land—you’re lucky.”

  What he never mentioned was that the good deal part of the equation only applied to someone able to switch off their emotions from the job. Something Chase had done with ease, until he’d taken on Nic.

  Something Ade did with ease, no matter who he got assigned.

  Ade tipped his glass toward Chase before downing a gulp. “Thanks, man. I appreciate it.” His gaze lifted, sticking to something behind Chase’s left shoulder, his lips curving into only a fraction of a smile. “Shit’s about to get disturbing.”

  From those words alone, Chase knew who’d just walked in and grabbed Ade’s attention. He should’ve known he’d show. He always did on the odd occasions Chase ventured out—like he had his own satellite tracking everyone’s movements.

  A couple of minutes later, a fricking hulk of a shadow descended over the table, and a body thrust itself into the seat opposite Chase, giving Ade no choice but to scoot along the bench and make room.

  Jones’s smile seemed twisted as he set it on Chase. “Walker. You fucking remembered you have friends.” He leaned in toward Ade. “This is a fucking momentous occasion.”

  “It is a momentous occasion,” Ade agreed with a nod.

  “So, down your pint,” Jones said, turning back to Chase, “and get the fucking drinks in.”

  Chase sighed and did as ordered, preparing to worm his way through the thickening cluster of bodies. He could’ve argued with Jones. He probably should’ve done, but Chase knew from his tone alone that Jones had already been drinking before he’d even got there. And he knew arguing with him when like that would be a waste of time for anyone involved.

  “Fuck me, your arse is fucking gorgeous,” Jones shouted after him.

  Chase sighed harder as everyone around him turned toward the yelling idiot, and then toward Chase like they wanted to check out his butt for their own benefit. Sounded like Jones had had more than first assessment suggested. Chase just hoped he’d gone with the soft stuff and nothing too hard. He hoped even harder that Jones wasn’t really drunk at all and was just in a really fanfucktic mood and high on life.

  He doubted it, though.

  It took almost five minutes for the tender to realise Chase actually wanted serving and wasn’t just trying to grab his attention for a lark, and with three pint glasses wedged between his fingers, he twisted and turned his way back to the table.

  As soon as he broke free from the crowd, his eyes narrowed. Mostly on the way Jones stared really fucking hard at something—something Chase didn’t want to check out because that kind of stare from Jones too often led to trouble. He also didn’t like the way Ade had his head tipped in close to Jones and stared the same way, their lips mumbling. Because that kind of behaviour always spelled trouble for Chase specifically.

  Cutting off their line of sight to whatever they checked out, he dropped the drinks to the table and slipped back onto the bench. “’The fuck are you two doing? Whatever the hell it is, it hadn’t better involve me.” He settled deeper into his seat, his steely eyes slicing from one of them to the other.

  “Girl over there,” Ade said, still fixated on something over Chase’s shoulder. “Totally just fucking checked you out when you went to the bar.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Fuck off, you two. I’m not playing.” Too many times, the two of them had gelled together in a let’s get Walker fucked tonight campaign. He’d never met anyone who couldn’t accept as much as they didn’t that if he wanted sex he’d just get it himself, who couldn’t accept that not every night had to be about getting lucky. If their stupid efforts didn’t end in so much laughter and pissing about, he’d have probably found the whole thing tedious as hell.

  “I’m not playing, either, man.” Ade leaned in closer across the table like he had a secret to share. “I’m telling you straight. She totally eye-fucked you when you went for drinks. Look for your fucking self.”

  Shaking his head at the idiots, he twisted in his seat. Anything to shut them up. Once he’d got his butt far enough around, he scanned the lounge behind him, but other than the parting and re-meeting of bodies into their groups, he saw absolutely zilch to back up their stupid projections.

  Lips curled into a smile that wasn’t a smile, he turned back and raised an eyebrow.

  They merely lifted their hands. “She was fucking there,” Ade said. “If you looked when we told you the first time, you’d have seen her.”

  With a fingertip against each, he pushed their drinks across the table toward them both. “And if she was that interested, she’d have still been standing and staring her butt off. But she wasn’t.”

  “Maybe if you’d been a bit more discreet in checking her out, she would,” Ade muttered.

  “Listen—” Chase curled his hand around his own glass. He didn’t like the way Jones stared at him from beneath his lowered brows. “Just find someone else to fuck with, yeah? I came here for a quiet night out, so just give it to me.”

  “If I tell you someone is checking you out,” Jones said, his voice low, “they’re fucking checking you out, Walker.”

  That time, Chase’s smile did break through, though it didn’t hold much humour. “I know you like to always be right. Hell, you even think you’re always right. But this time, you’re not, so get over it.”

  “When you turned around, how many people paid you the slightest bit of attention.” Jones’s voice had deepened. Not always a good sign.

  Chase heaved a breath in then out, before admitting, “None.”

  “And how many of them even so much as looked up when you walked into The Trafalgar?”

  He rolled his eyes, but went with it—mostly because trying not to would be pointless. “None.”

  “
And how many of them are looking at me now …” He shot a hand across and down into Ade’s crotch.

  Ade jerked back, but whatever Jones did beneath the table must’ve held him in place because he didn’t move more than that.

  “How many?” Jones asked, when nobody spoke.

  Chase glanced either side of their table, took in the way everyone just nattered on among themselves like nothing existed outside of their own groups. He looked back to Jones. “None.”

  “None,” Jones repeated, and his arm slowly moved up and down. “Even if I hand-fuck him through his kegs beneath the table.”

  Beside him, Ade’s jaw tightened. Lines etched outward from the corners of his eyes.

  “Not a single person is interested in what we’re doing.”

  “You can quit now,” Ade said through his teeth.

  “I’m not done.” Jones’s arm continued shifting up, down, the tendons pulling tight as he probably massaged the fuck out of Ade’s cock beneath the table. “I have a point to fucking make.”

  Whatever the hell Jones did next had a groan pushing free from Ade and his hands gripping the edge of the table, but Jones didn’t once remove his focus from Chase. His stare heavy and probing and full of a smugness that was present all too often in Chase’s childhood friend.

  A snorted breath flared Ade’s nostrils. His knuckles bleached against the table-top as the muscles through his shoulders clenched tight.

  “Still want me to stop?” Though he spoke to Ade, Jones continued staring at Chase.

  “Don’t you fucking dare,” he rumbled.

  If Chase hadn’t been privy to Jones’s games before, he might’ve gotten himself a decent hard-on from the show, especially as Ade’s head shook like the guy was having a seizure. Instead, he just settled back into his seat and let the two of them get on with it. Wasn’t the first time Jones had gone for Ade. Wouldn’t be the last.

  The wicked grin that split Jones’s lips could’ve earned him a high seat in hell, as he pumped his arm up and down behind the table and Ade’s body twitched like fucking crazy beside him. It took around thirty seconds more for Ade to jerk back against his seat and heavy breaths to pump from him as his hands fisted in front of him. Eyes closing, he rode out the orgasm like he and Jones had booked a private room and he’d just had the wank of his life.

  “You fucking cocksucker,” Ade muttered, his voice close to a growl.

  Jones shot out a brief laugh before turning to Ade. “That was just a taster, sugar. Imagine how fucking good it would’ve felt if I’d got your cock out of your pants and sucked you as dry as a ninety-year-old nun.”

  “Fuck you, Jones.”

  “Was there even a point to this exercise?” Chase asked, reaching for his pint.

  With that smug fucking smile on his face, Jones scanned the room before his gaze settled back on Chase. “Just like I expected. You can even jack someone off in plain sight of these sheep, and not a single one of them notice a damned thing.”

  “And the point is …?”

  “The point is, you fucking moron, if I tell you someone in here is checking you out, then believe it. Because she was the only one not bleeting and bahing like every other sad bastard in here.”

  Chase just looked away. Away at nothing—anything, if it meant he didn’t have to see Jones’s big fuck you dancing a jig in his self-satisfied smirk.

  Across the table, Ade shoved at Jones, shoving harder when Jones’s dark chuckle rolled out. “Move, you dickhead. Thanks to you, I now have to go clean up.”

  “Only if you get rid of those kiddie boxers,” Jones said. “Make yourself more ready for me when I treat you to a bigger taste of the Jonesenator later.”

  “In your dreams, Jones.” He pushed, until Jones had no choice but to stand if he didn’t want to land on his arse on the floor. “In your fucking dreams.”

  As Jones moved to the side, and Ade squeezed past him, Chase twisted for another glance behind, but still saw nothing fitting ‘someone checking him out’.

  “That’s right, baby,” Jones shouted after Ade. “Plenty more where that came from.”

  Before Jones could catch him scouring, Chase spun back and feigned nursing his drink.

  Once he’d reclaimed his seat, Jones watched Chase as he took a long gulp of beer and set his glass back on the table. “He talk to you yet?” The banter of before had vanished from his expression, as had all mention of the ‘interested party’. Only a deep seriousness stared out at Chase from Jones’s eyes.

  Chase didn’t need to ask what he meant. “He did.”

  “And?”

  Chase frowned. “And what?”

  Jones seemed to probe right through to his brain with a level of intensity that added to his already intimidating personality. “You okay, Walker?”

  Chase held his gaze, because Jones would never believe him if he so much as fluttered. “I’m good.”

  “Yeah?” Only the tiniest tic above his eyebrow gave away the depth of Jones’s concern.

  “Yeah,” Chase confirmed.

  Jones rolled back into his seat, his arms outstretched as he cupped his glass atop the table. His gaze lazily roamed the room, his head tilting as he checked out one corner after another. His easy dismissal of the conversation told Chase that even Jones believed he was okay when he’d said so—which meant it had to be true.

  With his head tipped to the right, his gaze seemed to lock onto a spot beyond Chase’s shoulder. “Incoming,” he muttered, his voice low but deep enough to carry.

  Chase rolled his eyes. He should’ve known neither of them would give up so easily. Despite his lack of enthusiasm, though, he couldn’t help watching for whomever had Jones’s attention to cross his periphery.

  He knew when they’d reached him by the slight shift of Jones’s eyes, and as soon as they’d passed the table, Chase flicked his sights higher.

  Straight onto a swinging ponytail of strawberry blonde hair.

  Cropped denim shorts covered a swaying arse, from where satiny leggings stretched downward and coated a slim but shapely pair of legs. Letting his gaze skim higher, he took in the flick of hair, the way the yellowed overhead lights made the tips look like they’d been dipped in a vat of sunshine—and Chase was on his feet before he’d even registered his own command to stand.

  Ignoring Jones’s quiet laughter, he pushed off through the increasing bodies as the ponytail hid within the crowd. Along the full length of the bar. Through the arches that led to the back rooms and the restaurant. And through a second set of arches leading to the bathrooms.

  No one lingered in the corridor between the four doors. The fire exit at the end definitely hadn’t been opened because he’d have heard the clank of it shutting.

  After ducking his head back out into the lounge long enough to double check he hadn’t missed her on route, he pushed through into the men’s, hoping to catch sight of her on his way back out.

  Over by the five urinals, a row of five guys took a piss, but Chase ignored them all and marched right over to where Ade had his cock resting on the sink counter and his jeans gathered at his ankles. If any of the others in there thought it odd for a guy to be washing his tool in the men’s bathrooms, none of them showed it.

  “Looks like it got messy out there,” Chase said, leaning against the counter beside Ade.

  “Bastard got me good,” Ade muttered.

  “Seemed like you enjoyed it to me.”

  Ade merely shrugged. “He’s good at what he does.”

  Chase nodded. Jones was good at what he did. Whoever he did it with. Even those who struggled to walk after he’d finished with them never had any complaints about the journey that’d put them there.

  “You come to help clean me up?” Ade asked, when Chase hadn’t moved.

  He didn’t want to reveal what’d really dragged him to the toilets, and as soon as a urinal came free, he pushed off from the counter. “No, I need a piss.”

  By the time Chase had finished relieving himself a
nd cleaned up, Ade was done at the sinks, and the two of them pushed out of the men’s together, but Chase couldn’t stop the glances left and right as they did so. He also could stop the people-scouring as they wove their way back to the table where Jones sat waiting. Though, what he was looking for, exactly, he didn’t want to investigate too closely.

  As soon as they reached the table, Ade rounded to the side Chase had been occupying. “No way am I sitting next to that dodgy fucker again.”

  Before Chase could join him, Jones grabbed his arm and pulled him round to face him. In his other hand, he held up a twenty, only a ghost of a smile curling the corners of his lips.

  “You could try getting off your arse and going yourself,” Chase said, and Jones’s smile widened.

  “I could. But I don’t want to.”

  Snatching the note from his hand, Chase swung for the bar and back into the four-deep gathering blocking his way. Elbows up high, he nudged through until his chest hit the bar and signalled the white-shirted young woman behind there. “Three Guinness and black—pints.”

  As she placed the drinks down in front of him, he handed over the note. “Keep the change.”

  Her brows shot up. Probably because she’d made as much as the drinks had cost. “Cheers.”

  Grinning, he grouped the drinks within his hands and backed away toward their seats. Served Jones right for being a lazy bastard.

  Those around him parted more readily for a rear-facing body, it seemed, and breaking free of their confines, he spun for the table, cursing beneath his breath as a collision set the drinks spilling over his hands after his success at getting them that far.

  “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. Please forgive—” The feminine voice cut off with a quiet gasp. “Mr Walker?”

  Letting his gaze slide to the left, he took in the satiny-clad legs, the small denim shorts, up over a cami that hugged a small waist and embraced a really fucking amazing pair of tits, all the way up to the palest of blue eyes all wide and staring back at him.

  “Abi?” He couldn’t help the frown. “What are you doing here?”

  “Oh, I’m—”

  “Friend of yours?” Jones asked, and Chase glanced over to find both him and Ade staring real hard at the two of them.