Pieces of Summer (A stand-alone novel)(30)

He laughs under his breath.

“What happened to always stocking up on the necessities? You used to be a little crazy about having extra of everything.”

I tense, but he doesn’t notice as he pulls a candle off my table. I used to be a control freak. It’s a far cry from crazy. He hasn’t seen crazy.

Explaining to him that I can’t buy things in excess anymore isn’t an option. Running out of things happens often. Aidan will have to replace the batteries, because that’s something that seems to be a trigger for me. I can’t shop for very many things.

“Um… Things changed,” I mutter.

“So I’ve noticed.”

He turns back around, and his eyes move from my head to my toes in a slow, deliberate motion. I swallow the lump in my throat and head into the living room, tripping over one of my stray shoes in the way. Away from the windows, it’s a lot darker, and I fumble around to sit down.

Something clicks a few times, and I look over as Chase walks toward me with a lit candle in his hand.

“I have no matches and no lighters. How’d you do that?”

“Magic,” he gasps, then snickers under his breath when I roll my eyes. “I always have a knife and a lighter on hand. You used to collect matches. What happened to that?”

Again, with the past. I didn’t know I was collecting habits instead of just articles back then. Habits are compulsive behavior mechanisms that normal people can deal with. I miss being able to have habits.

He sits down on the chair across from me with nothing illuminating us but the lone candle.

“Things change, Chase. You didn’t have any tattoos or express any interest in them when I knew you. Now you’re covered in them and you work in a tattoo parlor.”

“I own it,” he says, flashing that boyish grin that I haven’t seen since I’ve been here.

A touch of pride hits my heart, and a surprised smile spreads across my face.

“You own it? That’s great.”

His grin only grows as he sits back in the seat, getting comfortable.

“Yeah. I moved to Nashville for a while and met some guys who owned their own place. They liked my art, and before I knew it, I was working to get my license. They took me under their wing, and I eventually moved back and opened my own place. It’s still fairly new, only a couple of years old, but it’s mine and it pays the bills.”

We’re glossing over the uncomfortable past we’re avoiding, and talking about the good things in life. Maybe this won’t be an unbearable storm after all.

“So you write? I tried to find your name, but couldn’t.”

I shift uncomfortably, but at the same time it gives me an oddly good feeling that he tried finding me. It felt like he wanted nothing to do with me.

“I use a pen name.”

“What is it?” he asks, seeming sincerely interested.

Wish he hadn’t asked that.

Sighing, I stand up and use the glimmer of light to find a book from the bookcase. Then I walk over and hand it to him. Our fingers touch briefly, but I ignore all the stir of emotions that one touch provokes as I withdraw my hand.

He studies the book for a second until his throat bobs.

“Mikayla Chase,” he says quietly.

“It’s a little weird, since I killed a Chase in my books twice.”

His eyes come up in surprise and a slow smile spreads over my lips, killing some of the embarrassment I’m suffering.

“You killed me?” he asks, amused.

“Yes. In some rather brutal ways, I might add. I also killed a James a few times.”

He snorts out a laugh while scrubbing his hand over his face.

“I would have kept on, but my publisher said it was time to kill someone who wasn’t a James or a Chase.”

“What did you do?” he asks, smirking.

“Switched to your middle name.”

He bursts out laughing, and my smile grows as he shakes his head and puts my book down beside him.

“Why murder/mystery?” he asks. “And why writing? I thought you wanted to be a doctor.”

Again with the doctor thing.

“I did want to be a doctor when I was like fifteen or something. Most kids do. Then they do the math on actually becoming a doctor—a surgeon, in my case—and realize it’s a lot of work with little guarantee you’ll do more good than harm.”

I deliberately skip over the reason I started writing. I’m not ready for that conversation.

He frowns as he runs his finger over his lips. I can’t take my eyes off that motion, watching with rapt attention as my thighs squeeze together. Wrong thought process.

“Your dad said you wanted to be a doctor. It’s one of the reasons I let you go, Mika. You couldn’t have gone to college if you had come here. The closest good college is at least four hours away.”

“Guess you should have asked me what I wanted,” I mumble.

“I knew what you wanted,” he sighs. “Me. Us. The damn bowling alley. But those were my dreams when I was stuck here. I didn’t want you stuck here with me and hating me like your mother hated your father.”

He doesn’t understand, and I can’t explain.

So my father told him I wanted to be a doctor? No doubt he included my mother’s lost dreams of being an actress, even though she couldn’t act for shit. She couldn’t even do real life, let alone act.