Winter Break (Chasing Chase London #6)

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“New Year’s Prayer”—Jeff Buckley

I wake to silence, instantly reminded that my mother is going to literally murder me when she finds a boy in my bed. I blink against the light assaulting my eyes and grope blindly across the bed, only to find it empty.

I sink back on the pillows, feeling like death itself. I should be happy he’s gone—and I am—but there’s a small sense of betrayal too. He didn’t even say goodbye.

I fell asleep while he was reading.

Shit.

I roll over, staring down at the empty sleeping bag beside the bed. My sister is gone too!

My heart stops, but before I can start screaming, Lily comes bounding in and leaps onto my bed on her knees. “Hey, guess what?” she asks, bouncing up and down in a way that makes my stomach roll.

“What?” I groan, kinda wishing Oliver had kidnapped her. At least for a day, until my head doesn’t feel like there’s a rhinoceros charging around inside trying to break out.

“I slept in your room all night,” she pronounces, like it’s some huge accomplishment. She flops down on the pillows and throws her hair out of her eyes. “I had this dream, that I was being chased by a cow!” She starts rambling on about her dream in great detail, wriggling like an eel in her excitement and inability to sit still.

He left while I was sleeping.

And even though I knew I’d never see him again, it still feels wrong somehow. Incomplete. Like that loose end will just hang there in my life forever, a what if, a thread that doesn’t attach to anything.

Finally Lily runs off to find breakfast, and I drag myself up and shower, feeling about as lousy as it’s possible to feel without being sick. I stumble downstairs and into the kitchen to find Meghan at the kitchen table, coffee in hand, chatting away with Uncle Seamus about some culinary adventure he had in Austin or Ashville or Nashville.

“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” Uncle Frederick says, coming up behind me and snagging the coffee pot before I can.

“What?” I ask, my heart skipping. “I’ve been here all night.”

“Wasn’t talking about you, honey,” he says, kissing the back of my head and replacing the coffee before turning to Meghan, who’s still wearing the same dress she had on last night. “Do I need to have a talk with you about behaving like a young lady?”

“Little late, Uncle Fred,” she says. “I haven’t behaved like a lady since I was… Well, ever.”

“I’m a lady,” Lily pipes up from her plate of toaster waffles.

They laugh, the sounds crashing around my head like someone’s banging pots and pans together. I pour a full cup of coffee, throw some creamer in, and collapse at the table.

“Not sure I’m the one who needs a lecture,” Meghan says, raising a brow and surveying me over the rim of her coffee cup while she sips.

“No lectures,” I groan. “Words bad. Hurt brain.”

They all laugh again, and I nurse my coffee and melt with gratitude when I hear that our parents are still sleeping. Finally the uncles go off to pack up their van for their next adventure, and Lily tags along telling them about the princess van she’ll have one day, and Meghan and I are left alone.

“So,” she says, drawing out the word and wiggling her brows. “You do it?”

I scowl at her. “No. Did you?”

“Um, yes, hello? Did you see those guys? How could you not ? We left you alone all night.”

“Oh, it wasn’t for lack of trying,” I say, taking a gulp of coffee. “On my part. His part mostly consisted of lecturing me on the virtues of waiting until marriage.”

“What?” Meghan shrieks. I’m pretty sure it’s the first time she’s ever made that sound in her life, and I have the misfortune of being within earshot when it happens. It feels like she buried a pickax in my skull.

I hold up a hand, wincing. “Trying to have a hangover here.”

“Are you serious?” she hisses. “He’s an incel? ”

“What’s an incel?”

“You know,” she says, bugging her eyes at me. “Involuntarily celibate, thinks women exist for the sole purpose of pleasing men, the red pill brigade…”

“Well, seeing as how I threw myself at him, I’m going to say his celibacy is definitely voluntary,” I say, humiliation returning at the reminder of last night. “But yeah, he’s basically the captain of the purity police, so nothing was being lost last night except my dignity. Still a card-carrying member of the virgin squad over here.”

“Dude, what a waste,” she says, shaking her head. “Poor, sweet Dimples.”

“Poor me,” I say, downing the rest of my coffee, since it seems to be making me feel semi-human again. “Yet another disaster at the lake that we shall never speak of again.”

“Right,” she says, grinning. “Like you never spoke of the ole finger-banger again.”

“I wouldn’t have, if I’d never had to see him again,” I protest, going back for more coffee.

“So, what’d y’all do all that time?”

The memory of the balcony races up my spine like a shiver, and I open my mouth to tell her at least we did some stuff, but then I stop. I share everything with Meghan, but… This is different. She’d make jokes about it, and I’d laugh about it, and it would cheapen it somehow.

So, for now, for the first time in a long time, I don’t tell her.

“Um, he read to me,” I say, knowing she’ll laugh with me and call him pathetic if that’s what I want. I should. I should tell her everything and let her laugh and give him a nickname like the finger-banger. It will help erase it from my mind, turn it from something as sensitive as a broken tooth into something crude and ordinary. But I’m not quite ready. Like that broken tooth, it’s exposed, equal measures sweet and painful, and any exposure to the harsh cold of her examination will destroy whatever’s still precious about it.

“He read to you?” she howls. “I so envy you!”

“It was sweet,” I protest, not because I feel the need to defend him, but because I need to defend myself and how nice that felt. I can’t explain that to her, though; how safe and loved and cared for I felt in his arms and yes, under the blankets while he sat beside me reading and absently stroking my hair. That’s something her dad probably did when she was a kid. But it was Mom who always read to me while Dad was working late or whatever he was doing.

Meghan is in hysterics over there, so I interrupt her. “What did you guys do the whole time?”

“Had sex,” she says, like she’s pointing out the obvious.

“The whole time?”

“Not the whole time. We took breaks to drink and smoke, and go for snack-and-condom runs,” she says, stretching her arms over her head with a giant yawn. “It was epic.”

“Are you going to try to see him again?” I ask, my heart skipping at the thought of having to face Oliver sober after my behavior tonight. “I mean, even if we’re going back today, you could drive up in your car, or next time he’s over to see his uncle…”

“Why would I do that?” Meghan asks, pushing back from the table. “Last night was perfect. I don’t want to ruin it.”

She sets her coffee cup in the sink and ambles up the stairs to shower and change out of yesterday’s clothes, no more affected by her wild night than by anything else. I marvel at her lack of attachment. I need to find out if she was born with that or if it’s something I could learn. If it’s teachable, I need to sign up for a masterclass on it, because not only am I now thinking about the lack of closure I have with a guy I’ll never see again who lives across the ocean, but I haven’t quite managed to get over Chase London either.

In just a few days, I’ll have to see him again, and I’m no closer to forgetting he exists than I was when the break started. If anything, I’m dying to know all the drama I missed over the break. Worst of all, the reality of my breakup with Todd has only begun to sink in. Is that what Lindsey’s silence means? After all, Todd is a football player. He was in the group far before I arrived in Faulkner. If someone has to leave the group to avoid awkwardness, it’ll be me. If I’m not with Todd anymore, am I even part of Lindsey’s world?

And if I’m not, where do I belong now?

To be continued…