Page 25 of The Chase

“The whole summer, you stayed there?”

“Where you went, I went, April.”

“But I never noticed you...”

He shrugged. “I don’t know why you would. I was a scrawny nobody tasked with watching you from afar. I kept myself busy though, got the MC hooked up with some sweet supply chains that summer. Your daddy was so pleased with me, called me enterprising-”

He still remembered the swell of pride when Blue had heard his news. The warmth that went straight to his gut that he’d impressed them by negotiating and organizing the drug pipeline for the MC through Costa Rica. He came back feeling like a Mafia Don.

She watched him carefully, trying to interpret the well-veiled emotions that were flitting through his mind. “You were there for me the whole time?” she asked quietly.

“Got you out of trouble a few times,” he said with a wry smile.

She raised an eyebrow. “Like?”

He rolled his eyes. “How about the time you snuck out to that senior’s house party and your girlfriends took something they shouldn’t have and that red headed friend of yours passed out in the pool-”

“Jessica-”

“I had to drag her ass out of there and give her CPR-”

“Oh God, I forgot about that!”

“Yeah, not your proudest moment.”

“Okay, I’m sure you’ve got yourself into some sticky situations-”

“Plenty,” he said with a devil-may-care wink and a grin. He was enjoying reminiscing with her.

She raised one perfectly manicured eyebrow. “Did you come to prom?” she asked.

He grunted with a smile. “I rode behind your limo and made sure you got there, then I hung around outside until you got to Becky’s after party-”

“I remember feeling so grown up, wearing heels and that dress-”

“Fuck, Kitten, your prom dress.” He whistled.

She smiled. “You remember my dress?”

“It gave me wet dreams for months, thinking of you in that dress.” He smiled as if he were joking. He wasn’t, he had literally jerked himself off in the parking lot after watching her walk around in that slinky dress.

“God, I should have left that building, stepped outside, opened my eyes and found you that night,” she said, licking her lips. It was his turn to raise his eyebrows.

April continued, “Instead, I was blinded by a teenage crush for Harrison-”

“He was a fucking moron.” Colt’s face darkened instantly.

“I know, star quarterback, senior... when he asked me to be his date, I just got starstruck-”

“He didn’t deserve you.”

“And when I found out he’d been screwing that cheerleader…” she said, shaking her head, flattening her lips. “I should’ve known better. Oh well, he got mugged by a gang a few days later-”

“He didn’t get mugged by a gang,” Colt muttered quietly.

April opened her mouth but then did a double take at him. His knuckles clenched on the steering wheel and a tendon flexed in his jaw. She could figure it out. He wasn’t ashamed. When he found out that douchebag was two-timing April, especially after she’d slept with him for the first time, her first time… given him her innocence, fuck, he was getting mad just remembering it now.

“Did you... have anything to do with his injuries, Colt?” she asked directly.

---