Page 83 of Stealing Chances

Chase had studied me for a while, jaw working before he’d wrapped an arm around my waist. Leading us toward the short line as he’d finally admitted, “She doesn’t know how to keep her mind or her mouth out of her pants, doesn’t matter who her target is.”

A laugh had burst free. “LT’s like that with literally everyone. But she’s harmless.”

“She’s fucking trash.”

“Chase!”

“I’m sorry,” he’d said quickly as he’d lifted his free hand in a placating gesture. “I’m sorry. But, Scar, she makes more appointments than anyone I’ve ever tattooed. She’s at our house at least twice a week. I can’t escape her, and I want to.”

I’d rolled my eyes and turned in his hold to face the counters, waving at Erin as I did. “Okay, Chase. Next time I find you eating one of LT’s pastries, I’ll be sure to remind you of this conversation.”

Chase had called her trash...trash.

Oh God.

“I need to talk to Chase,” I said through thin breaths as I turned, only to come to a stop when Harper spoke.

“I don’t know where he went.”

“What do you mean?” I asked as I looked back at her.

“He said he was going for a walk. That he needed time to think.” She lifted a shoulder and glanced at Brandon before focusing on me. “He seemed to be struggling a lot more this morning than he had been during the last couple of family nights. He also said something about embarrassing you...”

My eyebrows drew close in confusion as her words hung in the air.

“Something about losing it,” she said before lifting her hands. “That he’d lost it and embarrassed you, and wondered if you realized ‘how it was going to end yet’ because it was only going to get worse. That’s when he said he needed time to think.”

I nodded when I couldn’t seem to speak around the knot in my throat, then offered everyone a weak wave as I continued out of the kitchen and house. Moving in a daze as I thought through everything I’d learned and realized.

Fitting pieces together and coming to roadblocks the way we had this entire time. Feeling only the slightest bit of relief that Chase hadn’t been pushing me away last night. He’d put that barrier between us again forme—a barrier I still didn’t want. And struggling to wrap my head around the fact that the person we’d been looking for was one of my closest friends...

Trashhad becomeTrish. His frustrations with LT always hitting on him—and every other man she saw—and wanting him to do all her tattoos had twisted into Harper being upset with those very things. She hadn’t worked with him, but she was there often enough. Always at his station, as he’d liked to complain about.

She was everywhere.

But Chase’s words had been “I didn’t know” and “what the hell am I going to do,” according to Brian. And I couldn’t figure out how that came into play. I still couldn’t see something happening between them because IknewChase would’ve never laid a finger on LT.

And if we were going with the theory that the person in Chase’s memories was the same person who’d taken the canvas and sketchbooks, I still found it laughable to picture LT even attempting something like that.

She probably would’ve stopped halfway through hanging the canvas back up to run into the bathroom, yelling,I have to pee!

So much made sense, and somehow, nothing did.

But I knew one thing, at least. Konrad was right. Chase needed to go and just sit at his station.

Grabbing my phone once I was in my car, I pulled up Brian’s number and tapped on it. Already preparing an apology for waking him that involved tons of greasy food as I started toward the one place I knew Chase would always go.

Just sit. Please.

That’s what Scarlet had asked me to do when she’d dropped me off at the tattoo parlor about forty-five minutes before.

When she’d found me nearing the beach not long before that, she hadn’t asked for an explanation or details on my conversation with Harper. She hadn’t said anything as she’d driven us here. Just continuously stole glances my way until we were pulling up to the shop.

And then it’d been those three words.

Pleading. Worried. Full of so much damn meaning as if she’d already known what I’d been attempting to do.

Trying anything to get those memories to come rushing back, all while I was terrified theywould.

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