More Than I Could (60)

He stops in the doorway and looks at me over his shoulder. His eyes shine. “I know I don’t. But I want to. Okay?”

I want to argue with him and tell him it’s unnecessary—that I can clean myself up. But the longer I look at him, the more I decide not to.

Let him take care of you, Megan. What can it hurt?

“Okay,” I say, climbing off the bed. When I reach the doorway, he takes my hand in his.

As I look up and into his eyes, I grin.

I know exactly what can get hurt—me. But that’s a risk I’m willing to take.





Chapter Twenty-Two





Megan




“It’s kind of weird not having Gram and Pap around,” Kennedy says, sipping her butterscotch milkshake.

She sits across from me, next to Chase, inside Melvin’s, a little sandwich shop in Brickfield. They brought me to the town next to Peachwood Falls to get a pair of muck boots. Apparently, it’s a sin not to have good rubber boots in the country.

Who knew?

“Gram called to see if I went to church this morning,” Kennedy says.

“What did you tell her?” Chase asks.

“I told her no.” Kennedy laughs. “I’m not lying to save you—especially about church.”

Chase rolls his eyes. “Oh, come on. You’re going to throw me under the bus like that?”

“Better than me getting thrown in hell.” She slurps her milkshake again. “Sorry, Dad.”

Chase stretches his legs under the table. His eyes hold mine as his foot settles against me. I smile at the contact, and he grins back.

We’ve managed to keep our hands off each other and play it cool. Kennedy came home from Neve’s yesterday shortly after we got out of bed—Chase’s bed. Thankfully, she called before she arrived, and we jumped in the shower and got ourselves sorted before she came through the door.

We spent the beautiful, if not chilly, Saturday watching movies and doing chores around the house. I made cheeseburgers for lunch, and Kennedy wanted a chicken and rice casserole that Maggie makes. She called her gram and got the recipe, and we gave it our best shot.

It didn’t turn out too bad.

After dinner, we took a walk down by the lake, where I managed to slide down the bank and into the water—hence, the need for boots. Because, apparently, I can’t go too long without embarrassing myself around Chase Freaking Marshall.

Chase strokes my leg with his foot. “Do you go to church, Megan?”

“No,” I say, screwing up my face. “I have off and on in the past. I mean, I believe in God—a greater being that created the world. I don’t think I need to sit in a pew one day a week and listen to someone tell me what’s wrong with my relationship with Him.” I pause. “Or Her. Why does everyone assume that God is a him?”

“Right?” Kennedy huffs. “That’s so sexist.”

“What about you?” I ask Chase. “Do you go to church?”

“Not enough to make Gram happy,” Kennedy says, bumping shoulders with her father. “But she picks me up every Sunday. She sits in front of the house and honks her car horn at precisely eight thirty. And if I don’t come out, she comes in and gets me.”

Chase smirks. “You’re getting no sympathy from me. I survived my years with your grandma. It’s your turn.”

“She’s so old-fashioned. I love her more than anything, but she doesn’t get me sometimes.”

“If that means Gram doesn’t understand your need to go to a high school dance at fourteen, then maybe you don’t get her. Because she and I are on the same page.”

Kennedy sticks her tongue out at her dad. He gives her a look that hits its target because she quickly turns back to her drink.

I smile at their interaction. It’s so sweet and honest, yet I can see Chase’s concern. Kennedy is at an age where she behaves just enough to remind you that she’s still a child. Then she wallops you with an attitude, request, or insight that scares the shit out of you.

Kids know way more than I did at that age.

“What about you, Megan?” Kennedy asks.

Her tone for the question tips me off—she will try to rope me into supporting her point.

“What about me?” I ask.

Chase’s gaze is trained on me, probably to warn me about what’s to come.

“Were you allowed to have fun at my age?” she asks.

Chase starts to respond, most likely to bail me out, but I got this. I answer before he can get a word in.

“Yeah. I was allowed to have fun,” I say. “I wasn’t going to high school dances until I was in high school, though. Come to think of it, I don’t even know if you’re allowed to attend high school events until you’re a student there.”

“Well, at Peachwood High, no one cares about that,” she says like she knows everything. “My friends go all the time.”

“Do you want to know what my friends did at fourteen?” I ask. Not that I had many, but she doesn’t need to know that.

“What?”

“They snuck out to meet boys. They told their parents they were at one place, and they’d stay the night somewhere else. They drank alcohol at parties they weren’t supposed to attend and pierced their belly buttons using rubbing alcohol and needles.”