I Stand Before You (Judge Me Not #2)(53)

My gaze locks on the phone as Chase hands it back. I don’t wish to share the details of my morning run-in. Why worry him? And why confirm his belief that I should move as soon as possible?

So, with a smile, I just say, “You startled me, that’s all.”

I guess Chase assumes my skittishness has something to do with the call I was making. His brow furrows, and he glances at the phone. “Who were you calling?” he asks.

“Oh…I was calling Missy. There’s a big bake sale coming up in conjunction with the Fourth of July carnival.” Chase appears impassive as I pause. “You do know Missy is the head of the bake committee, right?”

Chase nods curtly and some emotion I can’t peg darkens his expression. But as quickly as I pick up on it, a second later, it’s gone. Strange. What is up with those two? Just this past Sunday when I waved to Chase and turned back in my seat, Missy was shaking her head. “What?” I asked her.

“You’re playing with fire, Kay,” was all she would say, shaking her head like she knew something I didn’t.

Again, I wanted to question her cryptic comment, but the organ music started up right then.

I shake off the memory and finish my explanation to Chase. “Missy called and left a message last night, asking if I could bake cookies for the sale. I always help out.” I sigh. “But I won’t be able to this time. My stupid oven broke last month.”

I half-expect Chase to tell me he’ll take a look at it, or maybe even offer up the use of his own oven—he’s usually helpful like that—but instead he just changes the subject.

“Hey, do you want to mix it up a little today?” he asks, rubbing the back of his neck and squinting into the sun. “Maybe we could eat lunch down at Pizza House?”

Crap, I think, anywhere but there. With my luck Nick will be working. Chase isn’t my boyfriend or anything, but Nick got to know me well enough that he’d probably pick up on my attraction to Chase. Why rub it in Nick’s face? Not to mention, I certainly don’t want my intuitive friend to catch on that I have a sort-of history with the manager at Pizza House. There’s too much of a chance our entire lunch could turn completely awkward.

I tell Chase I’d rather just stick with the diner. “Besides, it’s like they know us there. They might miss us if we don’t make our usual lunchtime appearance.”

The crap I’m spouting is just that—crap. I highly doubt the employees at the diner care whether Chase and I show up every day. Chase looks like he’s thinking exactly the same thing, but he humors me and we end up sticking with the diner, potential trip to Awkward-Ville averted.




I don’t know how it happens, but the next day I find myself divulging to Chase that I haven’t had a relationship with anyone since college, not since Doug Wilson. I don’t count last autumn with Nick. It was something, sure, but not the kind of relationship Chase and I are currently discussing. This discussion is about serious relationships, meaning ones that involved sex.

Chase confesses his longest relationship, one he had with some girl back in Vegas, lasted only a couple of months. Then, his dad died, and his life—as well as that relationship—fell to pieces.

That sure doesn’t mean Chase hasn’t had sex since then. Quite the contrary. He knows I’m well aware of this, so he spares me any further details of his past beyond his two-month girlfriend.

I tell him about Doug Wilson, my only real boyfriend and the only guy I’ve ever had sex with. Chase watches me with interest. Unlike him, my lack of a boyfriend for the past four years means I’ve also gone without sex for just as long. I hint at that, but don’t come right out and say it. I give Chase a minute to figure that one out for himself as I line up my shot and prepare to putt a bright pink golf ball.

Chase and I are playing miniature golf at a course behind an ice-cream parlor/putt-putt golf course that just opened across the street from the church. It was Chase’s idea to come here this evening. We both finished work at the same time and ran into each other out in the parking lot. Not literally, like our first meeting, but as I was opening my car door Chase was walking up to his truck. We smiled at each other and laughed about a stupid joke the waitress had told us earlier during our lunch at the diner. Chase then said he didn’t feel like going straight home, it was too nice an evening. The sun was still high in the sky and the breezes blew warm as they whipped around us. I asked what my restless boy felt like doing.

“How `bout a game of mini-golf?” Chase asked as he gestured to the newly opened place across the street. “I heard the ice cream is good and their putt-putt course is fun.” He raised an eyebrow. “What do you think? Golf first, ice cream after, and winner buys the cones. You game, baby girl?”

And that’s how we ended up here under sodium lighting, hitting golf balls through rotating windmill blades and, just last hole, a blue whale’s mouth. All the while talking about relationships and sex. Oh, boy.

My club makes contact and the pink ball flies through a metal loop-the-loop on the green before coming out on the other side. The ball does a little hop and I get my first hole in one. I don’t mutter “f*ck, yeah” like Chase did when he got a hole in one at the last hole.

But I do execute a little spin, making my flouncy skirt flare out as I yell, “Yay!”

Chase gives me a high five and starts to write my score down on our scorecard. I notice he seems distracted. I figure he must still be thinking about what I told him right before I putted—that I haven’t been involved with a man for four years. I discover I am absolutely correct in three-two-one…