Giving Chase (Incendiary Ink #1)

21. Alive Again – Chase

Alive Again

CHASE

Her hand fits in mine exactly the same way it did twenty years ago. Some things, it seems, muscle memory never forgets.

"We were idiots," she says softly, thumb tracing patterns on my palm. "Thinking we could compartmentalize this. Draw neat little lines between personal and professional."

"The 'no strings' rule." I laugh, but there's no bitterness now. Just understanding. "Probably the biggest lie we ever told ourselves."

"We thought we were being smart. Well, I did." She looks up at me, steel grey eyes catching the last light of sunset. "Protecting the band. The label. Our careers."

"Instead we just made everything harder." I reach up, tuck a strand of platinum hair behind her ear. Her breath catches. "Every meeting. Every recording session. Every time I had to watch you leave."

"You think I didn't feel it too?" Her free hand comes up to rest against my chest, right over my heart. "Sitting in board meetings, defending your talent while trying not to let them see how much I loved you? Having to maintain professional distance when all I wanted..."

She trails off, but I feel the weight of twenty years in that unfinished sentence.

"We were trying to have it both ways," I say. "Keep the professional boundaries while pretending what was between us wasn't real. wasn't consuming us both."

"It nearly destroyed us."

" I nearly destroyed us." I correct her gently. "The drugs, the drinking... that was all me. You were just trying to keep everything from falling apart."

"I enabled you." Her fingers curl against my chest. "Every time I cleaned up your messes. Every time I chose the label's interests over your health. I told myself I was being professional, but really, I was just scared. Scared of losing you completely."

"Eliza..." I bring our joined hands to my lips, kiss her knuckles. "You saved my life. Multiple times."

"And nearly lost myself in the process." A tear slips down her cheek. I catch it with my thumb. "Do you know what scared me most? Not the drugs. Not the drinking. It was watching you spiral and knowing that if I chose you – really chose you – everything we'd built would collapse. The band. Your career. Mine."

"And now?"

She looks up at me, really looks at me, like she's seeing twenty years of history and possibility all at once.

"Now you've been sober five years without my help. Built your own recovery. Found yourself." Her hand slides up to cup my jaw, thumb brushing my beard. "Now I'm not watching you die anymore. I'm watching you live."

Something breaks open in my chest. "I miss you. God, Eliza, I miss you every day. Not just... not just the physical. I miss your mind. Your heart. The way you see through everyone's bullshit, especially mine. I miss my best friend."

"I'm right here." Her voice breaks. "I've always been right here."

When I kiss her, it feels like coming home. Like every song I've ever written. Like twenty years of longing distilled into a single moment.

She melts into me, both hands sliding into my hair, and suddenly we're not President and rockstar, not professional colleagues maintaining boundaries with stupid rules. We're just Chase and Eliza, finally, finally getting it right.

"Stay," I whisper against her lips. "Please. We've wasted so much time."

"Are you sure?" She pulls back just enough to meet my eyes. "This changes everything."

I rest my forehead against hers. "Maybe everything needs to change."

Her answer is another kiss, deeper this time. Twenty years of restraint crumbling like sand castles in the tide.

The sun sets behind us as we stumble toward my bedroom, leaving our carefully constructed boundaries scattered like paper on the floor behind us.

Some strings, it turns out, were meant to be tied all along.