Images of my kiss with Kai burned across my mind, but I refused to tell Chase about that.
“Good,” he replied before leaning down and kissing the line of my jaw. He pressed closer. His lips were hot on my skin.
“Chase, people are watching,” I whispered.
“Let them,” Chase replied before cupping my neck and searing his lips to mine. I wanted to give in. I wanted to part my mouth and moan at the firm stroke of his tongue. I wanted to thread my fingers through his hair. But the attraction felt dulled now. It felt pressured by peering eyes and his earlier anger. Not to mention, I was still feeling confused and angry about Celeste.
“Stop,” I whispered breathlessly while pushing against his chest. Chase frowned but obeyed.
We stood there awkwardly for a moment. The bell rang, but our feet were cemented to the tiled floor. I was locked in his hard stare, feeling guilty but firm at the same time. “We’re supposed to get the rest of the autopsy report this afternoon. Come over. We can talk about what happened with Kai,” Chase demanded. I noticed that there was no question layered in his statement.
“Okay,” I replied. I didn’t want him to have to go through that alone, and his parents were still gone, grieving somewhere that didn’t remind them of their dead daughter.
Chase pressed me against the locker again. “And it might not be today, or even tomorrow, but this,” Chase began while gesturing between us with his index finger, “is far from over, Breezy Baby.”
We sat in Chase’s beautifully decorated living room. His mom had impeccable taste. All of the furniture was oriented toward the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the ocean. The stunning view of the beach made the all-white decor feel inviting instead of sterile. There were a few accents of grays and dusty blues that gave the room some color, but the focus was definitely the water.
Chase brought in a couple of Cokes and a few different snacks. I grabbed a drink and a mini bagel. I started spreading the cream cheese when it dawned on me that I never asked Chase how he was getting by on his own. It hit me that Celeste had dropped by with lunch for him, and I hadn’t even bothered to ask how he was doing.
“Chase, how long have your parents been gone? Are you eating good meals and doing your laundry?” I asked, feeling embarrassed that I hadn’t asked before now.
“Yeah, I’m okay. Mom has our housekeeper coming every day, and she hired someone to make a bunch of food and freeze it for me. All I have to do is heat it up.” He shrugged. Chase acted like this was a completely normal thing to say, that having a small team of people taking care of him instead of his parents while he grieved his twin sister was perfectly okay. My heart ached for him, and I saw him again as the little boy who would make sandcastles on the beach with me.
“You can always come over for dinner at my house, Chase. And you know you can sleep over whenever. My mom wasn’t just saying that. You have a lot of people that care about you,” I assured him. I hated the idea of him being here in this big house all by himself.
“I know that. Some nights, it’s hard to be here. Some nights, it helps me feel closer to her.” I understood that. Sometimes I wanted to run up to Violet’s bedroom and cry in her bed, breathe in the coconut smell of her shampoo. “So, what happened yesterday at the barbecue?” he asked with an awkward cough, trying not to sound too eager and failing.
“Did you know that Violet used to go up there with Kai?” I answered his question with my own.
He looked a little surprised but recovered quickly. “No, but she really didn’t talk to me much about Kai. She knew I didn’t like him, so we just didn’t talk about it.”
“That’s so strange, she didn’t tell me either. I wonder why she kept it from us,” I mused. “Kai’s family was...intense.”
“What does that mean?”
“Lex seemed really interested in me. And Violet. He wanted to know how well I knew her.”
“What did you say?” he asked, leaning toward me.
“I lied. I told him that we used to be close but weren’t anymore. He really freaked me out.” Chase looked murderous, and I quickly amended that statement. “But I stayed close to