Page 46 of Call It What You Want
He blinks, absorbing that. “So…you bumped into each other at Isca or what? I mean, you don’t go anywhere else.”
“Um, yeah,” I say with an awkward shrug. I mean, we did reconnect at Isca. In the parking lot. When he kidnapped me.
Chase is silent, and that silence kills me.
“Chase—” I reach out to touch his arm, but he pulls it away.
“Listen, I get it,” he says, his tone calm. “I just wish you’d been honest with me.”
Tears sting the backs of my eyes, but I manage to hold them back. Chase is a good guy, asafeguy. Do I love him? I don’t know. But there’s time for that. And this is what Idoknow—I’m content with Chase. Comfortable. And the idea of losing that is terrifying.
But the damage is done. I can see it on his face. And I have no idea what I could possibly say to fix this, but I have to try. “Please, let’s just talk,” I plead. “Let me explain.”
He leans back and shakes his head. “You need to figure things out first, Ava. Then maybe we’ll have something to talk about.”
A lump forms in my throat. “So this is it, then? We’re breaking up?”
I could literally kill Jackson right now.
Chase’s warm eyes search my face. “We’re just pressing pause, until you know what you really want.”
That gives me a little relief, at least. And his response is just confirmation that Chase is the right choice. Imagine Jackson being this secure. There’s no way in hell he’d everallow me to explore a relationship with another guy while he’s actively fucking me—evidence that Chase is so much more evolved and mature than Jackson could ever hope to be.
“A pause,” I repeat, nodding stiffly. “Okay. That’s fair.”
A smile curves his lips, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. If I weren’t so quick to trust him, I might wonder what he’s hiding. But Chase isn’t like other guys. He’s genuine, honest.
Everything Jackson isn’t.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Jackson
“What the fuck is my sister doing in the basement?” I bark at Ash, throwing the controller down. Ash steps aside as I make my way down the hall to the kitchen, hell bent on finding my little sister so I can beat some sense into her.
“No idea,” Ash says, two steps behind me. “She bailed before I could ask her what the fuck she was doing. But someone said they saw her head down to the party.”
“Why wasn’t the door to the basement locked?” I bite out, my long, angry strides eating up the polished hardwood.
“It was,” Ash answers. “She got in somehow.”
Unfortunately, that tracks. When we were kids, my sister taught herself how to pick locks, a hobby entirely motivated by her need to fuck with me. She’d break into my room, steal my shit, then snicker as I searched the house frantically, only giving it back after I’d threatened to snap her fingers off, one by one.
Outside, I pass three private security guards and a handful of Burning Crown members as I make my way down to the beach. The party is already in full swing—tables dragged out onto the sand, covered in piles of seafood. The air reeks of brine, smoke,and beer. Live music blasts from hidden speakers while girls in bikinis dance around the fire pit.
My eyes skim over the faces and red solo cups, looking for a flash of Ember’s brown hair. She’s not by the firepit. Not hanging out by the water. Not taking part in the various drinking games.
My jaw tightens, and I pull out my phone. I try calling her first, but it goes straight to voicemail, so I fire off a text, asking her where the fuck she is. No immediate answer, of course.
I scan the party, and I’mthisclose to shutting the whole thing down, when something—or someone—catches my eye. A flash of creamy thigh, a shock of mahogany hair. I don’t even know what draws my gaze to her, except that, like a heat-seeking missile, my gaze isalwaysdrawn to her.
Ava.
She’s slouched in a lounge chair that’s been dragged down from the hot tub area, one leg casually crossed over the other. And what’s worse, she’s not alone.
I start toward her when a heavy hand claps down on my shoulder, stopping me. I turn, ready to swing, only to find Roman standing next to me.
“Hey, I heard congrats are in order,” Roman says cheerfully. Now that he and Lux have a cozy little apartment together, he’s all smiles and rainbows lately. It’s disgusting. “You beat us all to the altar. Not gonna lie, I wouldn’t have put my money on it being you.”
