Page 13 of Our Moon
“These smell delicious,” he says as he sets them down on the folding tray table I pulled out from the rack beside the entertainment center.
“Thanks, I came up with the recipe myself,” I tell him. “Well, I picked apart a few different recipes to form this one recipe.”
“So this is a Frankenstein cookie?” he asks as he lifts one to his mouth. That mouth… Full lips concealing perfectly white teeth. Sigh.
“Ha ha. If you’re too afraid to try my concoction, you don’t have to,” I tease. Am I flirting with him? Stop it, Ally!
Chase grins, letting me know he was only teasing, and shoves the entire cookie in his mouth.
“Oh my gosh, that’s so gross,” I laugh.
He smiles as he chews. Then he closes his eyes and groans. And my heart. Just. Stops.
“This is so good, Ally,” he moans through his chewing.
My mind is completely in the gutter now as I stare at him, completely unabashed. I’msure if his eyes were open, instead of closed in cookie ecstasy, he would see the pure hunger I have for him, not the cookies, in my eyes as I sit here and imagine the various other situations where I would love to hear him say those words.
I try to shake it off but not before he opens his eyes and catches me staring at him. When his eyes widen, I know he sees what I was hoping he wouldn’t. I catch a similar look in his eyes before I turn my head away and shove a cookie in my own mouth.
Not my best move, that’s for sure, especially when I start choking on a crumb. I quickly swallow down the cookie in my mouth with a chug of milk and proceed to try and cough out the crumb.
Chase pats my back. “You okay?” he asks, concern etching his voice.
I nod as I take another sip of milk. “Wrong pipe,” I rasp out.
Out of the corner of my eye, I swear I see a small grin on his face. I’m so embarrassed. If I thought it was embarrassing having Chase witness my anxiety attack, this is so much worse. First, he catches me looking like I want to eat him. Then, he watches me stuff a whole cookie into my mouth and proceed to choke on it. This is just great. Why can’t I just be normal?
“There are some reruns ofStorage Warson TV, you used to love this show.” I look overat him in shock. That’s it? He isn’t going to point out the obvious? He’s just going to let it all slide and not say anything to further humiliate me? He looks from the television back to me and smiles his shy smile again. “Or we could watchOverhaulin’,” he says, referring to the car show he and my oldest brother can’t seem to get enough of.
I laugh, “Storage Warsit is.” We sit in a surprisingly comfortable silence, eating cookies and watching Darrell and Jarrod battle it out over a locker that contains bedroom furniture of all things. But no matter how normal the setting, my mind won’t stop racing. What I felt for Chase just then, I’d never felt that before, at least not in this life. It felt both good and bad at the same time. I really have to rein it in though, because nothing can happen there.
Chase must have noticed I was spending more time in my head than in the TV show because he touches his hand to my arm and asks, “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” I answer, looking up from my lap to the TV. Nothing is wrong, aside from the electricity of his touch, that is.
“You know, if there’s ever anything you need to talk about, you can talk to me. I know you don’t know me that well, or you feel you don’t, or whatever, but I’m here for you,” he rambles. “I know I’m not one of your brothers, but if you ever feel you can’t talk to them about something, maybe you can talk to me.”
I consider what he’s saying as I look into his endless blue eyes. For some reason, I want to be able to talk to him, to trust him. I nod my understanding, and he turns back to the TV. “There is something,” I say quietly, and I have no idea why I’m even bringing this up after what my brothers told me about the song they’d caught me humming, the one that he confessed to playing.
He looks back to me immediately. “Anything. You can talk to me about anything,” he says eagerly.
I look down to my lap again, “The song I was humming that day, the day I had the anxiety attack, and you came in.” I look to him for recognition, and he looks a little tense, but he nods for me to go on. “Alex said you said you play it sometimes and that’s probably how I’d heard it.”
“Yeah,” he agrees, but doesn’t say anything else.
“Would you play it for me?” I ask softly, not wanting to overstep my bounds, but knowing full well I probably have. He doesn’t say anything for a moment, and I quickly try to retract my question. “Never mind, forget I asked. It’s silly.”
“No, it’s not silly. I’d love to. Play it for you, that is.” I look at him and the expression on his face confuses me. He looks almost pained, but he’s still so damn beautiful.
“Will you tell me about it?”
“What do you want to know?”
“Did you write it?” My brothers said he did, but I want to hear him tell me about it.
“Yeah. Well, the guys helped. But I did the lyrics and came up with most of the melody.”
“Why haven’t you recorded it?”
