no idea things were that serious. Shit, they had only just started dating when he met her, which meant they couldn’t have been together for more than a year and a half. He didn’t expect that either one of them would already be thinking about marriage.
It was shitty enough to want Colin’s girlfriend, but to want his wife? To take that away from him?
He exhaled a puff of smoke as he brought the bottle to his lips again. Chase had no idea their relationship was there. If he did, he would have tried harder to rein himself in. How could he have been so selfish? How could he have done this to his friend?
How could he have done this to Andie?
He swallowed, feeling the heat glide down his throat, and he leaned forward, putting the bottle on the coffee table before he ran his free hand roughly down his face.
He shouldn’t have gone to her apartment the night she left Ripley’s. Up until that point, everything was manageable. Everything was under control. He should have just left well enough alone. But no, he had to follow her. He had to invite himself in under the bullshit pretense of giving her a piano lesson. And with one selfish move, he had managed to ruin her entire future.
He stared down at his hand as he rolled the cigarette between his thumb and forefinger, and with a dexterous flick of his wrist, he watched the ember disintegrate, raining down on his carpet and speckling it with little dots of gray. Chase brought the cigarette to his lips once more, jumping slightly as a loud, frantic knocking sounded at his door.
He stilled for a moment before he closed his eyes. Only one person would be coming to his apartment at this time of night, knocking with that sort of frenzied determination.
Colin.
Mother fucker. He did not want to do this now.
With his eyes still closed, he fell back against the couch, exhaling the smoke slowly through his nose. The banging on his door sounded again, a little louder this time, and the muscles in Chase’s jaw flexed.
He had never been the type to run from consequences. In fact, few things turned him off more than a person who couldn’t own his mistakes. And as questionable as Chase’s integrity had been over the past couple of months, he would not show weakness of character now. He ran his tongue over his teeth, laughing humorlessly to himself at the pathetic irony of it all, as if he’d be showing some type of moral fiber by facing his friend after he had furtively lured his girlfriend away from him.
Despite the fact that he could not even wrap his mind around having this conversation right now, he knew he would open the door out of principle. Colin deserved an explanation just as much as Chase deserved some type of repercussion.
The thumping on his door sounded again with such ferocity that Chase was sure the person on the other side had kicked it, and he sat up slowly, reaching lethargically for the bottle on the table and taking one last swallow.
Chase knew, on some level, that this was coming. He knew it the second the words left Andie’s mouth earlier that night. He just didn’t expect that it would be this soon. But maybe it would be better to get this over with. Maybe it was early enough that something could still be salvaged.
He stood from the couch, bending to duck out his cigarette as he placed the bottle back on the table, and he finally straightened, rubbing his eyes roughly with the heels of his hands before running them up through his hair.
Chase approached his door, feeling the instinctive set of his jaw as he steeled himself for whatever was coming now.
But as he pulled the door open, his mind went completely blank.
There was nothing that could have prepared him for this.
She stood at his threshold, her eyes red and swollen, and although her face was still streaked with tears, it was expressionless; her eyes were impassive, her posture perfectly still.
Chase stood frozen, staring at her. It seemed like an hour had passed before any coherent thought returned to him, and at that moment, he realized he should probably say something. But as she met his gaze from behind that blank expression, Chase found himself struggling to find words. A simple apology would never be good enough for what he had done, but it was the only thing he