Page 42 of Full Body Hit: Part 2
A hand touched him, and suddenly Chase was warped back to Earth. He stumbled away, venom spreading from the warmth of Auston’s skin. “Don’t touch me,” he gasped.
Auston retracted his hand immediately, whole body flinching, a stool clattering as it was knocked aside. “Sorry. Sorry, just—try to breathe. One deep breath.”
Chase clutched the material over his chest, trying to draw some air in, out, in.
Fuck, how was he sostupid?
“Why?” Chase asked, voice a tiny little thing. “Was it just you? Did you…did you show more people?” Was it all a ruse? Had Auston been dragging him along, the pathetic little Omega, laughing at how easily he pleaded for it?
Auston’s eyes went wide. “What?No. Chase—absolutely not.”
“Then why did you do it? To laugh at me?” The panic was rising again, a drowning tide.
“No.I didn’t know either. Not for most of it, I fucking swear to you—I got on that app just the same as you did. I had no idea it was you.”
It took a few beats for that to reach Chase through the chaos. “But you knew it was me. You told Sammy and Noah—youknew.”
“I found out when you were here during your concussion. The coincidences suddenly…everything made sense.”
Chase wrapped an arm around his stomach. “And you didn’t tell me. Why? Why keep stringing me along? Youkept goingeven though you knew! Why?Why?”
Auston’s hands were in front of him, palms up—pleading. “Because you were going to fucking leave me if I told you!”
The words were loud, aboomquieting everything else, even the mess in Chase’s head.
“I wanted you to likeme, Auston,enough to believe me when I finally told you.”
“Believe what?” Chase burst out.
“That I fucking love you.” The words sliced through Chase one by one. “That I—me, right here, and not just the guy on the phone—love you.”
Chase stood there, staring. They’d never said the word ‘love.’ Despite everything they’d talked about, the insinuations of meeting and mating, they’d never touched that word.
To hear it nowhurt.
Auston swayed in place. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry for all the shit I put you through, and for being a coward, for keeping this from you. I just wanted to…to keep you.”
Chase tried to process that. “I…I need to sit down.”
He didn’t wait for a response, turning and going to the couch. He couldn’t think and stay upright anymore.
Auston followed him, steps slow. He hovered there, but Chase couldn’t look at him.
Auston had found out weeks ago. Had figured out it wasChase, and his reaction had been to…befriend him?
“But you didn’t even like me,” Chase whispered. “It doesn’t make sense. You find out it’s me and just…keep going? Even though you disliked me in real life?”
“No. That’s exactly what I’m saying—that’s not what fucking happened. Chase, everything I’ve told you has been true.”
Chase’s gaze shot up, anger lancing him.
Auston held up his hands. “I lied about this, but everything else—the fact that it was your lack of scent that fooled me. These past few weeks, me trying to get to know you—I wasn’t fucking pretending. It wasn’t all a big ruse. I was just trying to…measure up to Aunix. Don’t you see? The problem isn’t that I didn’t like you—it was that you didn’t likeme.”
Chase stared at him. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Yes, it does. Itdoes. I’m the fucking idiot here, Chase. Me. I’m the one who made all the mistakes. I’m the fucking unlikeableone. I realised it the instant I figured out who you were—who Charlie was. I didn’t want you to fucking…leave me. That’s it. I’m not telling you to forgive me, but don’t for one fucking second think that what I feel isn’t real. That I don’t fucking love you.”
That goddamn word again. It would have been devastating from Aunix. From Auston…?
