Page 59 of Giving Chase

"We were trying to have it both ways," I say. "Keep the professional boundaries while pretending what was between us wasn't real. wasn't consuming us both."

"It nearly destroyed us."

"Inearly destroyed us." I correct her gently. "The drugs, the drinking... that was all me. You were just trying to keep everything from falling apart."

"I enabled you." Her fingers curl against my chest. "Every time I cleaned up your messes. Every time I chose the label's interests over your health. I told myself I was being professional, but really, I was just scared. Scared of losing you completely."

"Eliza..." I bring our joined hands to my lips, kiss her knuckles. "You saved my life. Multiple times."

"And nearly lost myself in the process." A tear slips down her cheek. I catch it with my thumb. "Do you know what scared me most? Not the drugs. Not the drinking. It was watching you spiral and knowing that if I chose you – really chose you – everything we'd built would collapse. The band. Your career. Mine."

"And now?"

She looks up at me, really looks at me, like she's seeing twenty years of history and possibility all at once.

"Now you've been sober five years without my help. Built your own recovery. Found yourself." Her hand slides up to cup my jaw, thumb brushing my beard. "Now I'm not watching you die anymore. I'm watching you live."

Something breaks open in my chest. "I miss you. God, Eliza, I miss you every day. Not just... not just the physical. I miss your mind. Your heart. The way you see through everyone's bullshit, especially mine. I miss my best friend."

"I'm right here." Her voice breaks. "I've always been right here."

When I kiss her, it feels like coming home. Like every song I've ever written. Like twenty years of longing distilled into a single moment.

She melts into me, both hands sliding into my hair, and suddenly we're not President and rockstar, not professional colleagues maintaining boundaries with stupid rules. We're just Chase and Eliza, finally,finallygetting it right.

"Stay," I whisper against her lips. "Please. We've wasted so much time."

"Are you sure?" She pulls back just enough to meet my eyes. "This changes everything."

I rest my forehead against hers. "Maybe everything needs to change."

Her answer is another kiss, deeper this time. Twenty years of restraint crumbling like sand castles in the tide.

The sun sets behind us as we stumble toward my bedroom, leaving our carefully constructed boundaries scattered like paper on the floor behind us.

Some strings, it turns out, were meant to be tied all along.

More

ELIZA

Twenty yearsof wanting crystallizes in the press of his lips against my neck, the slide of his hands under my silk blouse. Some memories live in muscle memory – the spot behind his ear that makes him gasp, the way his hands tremble when I trace his spine. Only now, the trembling isn't from withdrawal or chemicals. It's pure want, pure presence.

"Eliza," he breathes against my collar bone, and it's a prayer, a plea, a promise all at once. "God, I've missed you. Every part of you."

Moonlight spills through his bedroom windows, painting silver streaks in his beard, catching the green of his eyes as he draws back to look at me. His fingers trace my face like he's memorizing it all over again. They're steadier now than they've ever been, certain in their path.

"You're so beautiful." His voice breaks. "You've always been so beautiful. That night in the studio, remember? When you walked in wearing that black dress..."

"The one you wroteOff the Recordabout?" I smile against his lips. "How could I forget?"

I remember him at twenty-five, all swagger and charm, pressing me against the soundboard after everyone left. At thirty-five, desperate and burning. But this... this man who touches me with reverent hands, who looks at me like I'm everything he's ever written songs about... this is new. This is real.

My blouse falls away under his careful touch. His shirt follows. When skin meets skin, we both gasp at the contact. Different bodies now – softer curves, silver threads in hair, scars we've earned apart – but the way we fit together hasn't changed. I trace the new tattoo on his ribs, five years clean marked in elegant script. His fingers find the cesarean scar from Justin that he once kissed in a hotel room in Paris.

"I wrote about this," he murmurs, trailing kisses down my neck to that spot that makes me arch – the one he mentioned in verse two ofBurning Bridges. "Every freckle. Every sigh. You're in every song I've ever written."

"Chase—" My voice catches as his mouth finds that sensitive place behind my knee that he somehow still remembers, the one he used to tease during meetings just to watch me try to maintain composure. "Please."

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