going to clean up, and then he was going to call her and ask her to come back. He’d beg her if he had to. He didn’t even care if they had dinner anymore. He just wanted her lying next to him, with her hand on his stomach and her head on his chest and her leg thrown over his thigh. He loved lying with her that way; she fit so perfectly against him, like the universe was reinforcing the fact that they were exactly where they belonged.
As Chase knelt down and used a piece of cardboard to sweep the shards of glass into a pile, he took slow, deep breaths, exhaling the bitterness and shame that had been consuming him since Colin’s visit. With every inhale, he focused instead on what it would feel like when Andie was with him again.
Because that feeling was what made all the other shit tonight worth it.
After he had swept up all the glass and wiped the floor down, he put Andie’s groceries away and went to the bathroom to check out his eye one last time.
“Shit,” he exhaled, bringing his fingertips to the lump. It had changed from dark pink to a bluish-purple, and he was still unable to open it fully. It was going to look like hell for the next few days.
Chase sighed as he closed the light and walked out of the bathroom. It was going to be extremely difficult to take Andie’s mind off what had happened with a constant reminder literally staring her in the face.
He grabbed his cell phone and hit the button to call her, closing his eyes when it went straight to voicemail.
He should have expected as much. He wouldn’t want to talk to himself either if he were her. Still, he hit the button to try again, already walking toward the closet for his shoes. And when he heard her voice, asking him to leave a message, he hung up and grabbed his keys before heading out the door.
She could ignore his calls all night, but she wouldn’t leave him standing outside her door for very long. He was sure of that.
Chase jogged down the steps and through the lobby, stopping short as soon as his feet hit the pavement outside.
Her car was still parked in front of his building.
He pulled his brow together and turned, looking as far down the block as he could before he turned and looked the other way. There was nowhere for her to go here, no restaurants or stores or anything within reasonable walking distance. Where could she have gone without her car? His neighborhood certainly wasn’t the type of place someone would want to take a walk around to blow off steam.
Chase decided to make a lap around the block anyway, in case she had taken off in her frustration without really thinking about her surroundings.
But after about ten minutes, he was back in front of his apartment building with no sign of her. Andie’s car was still where it had been when he left, and Chase eyed the surrounding area one more time before he turned to walk down the block toward his car.
He had only taken two steps before his foot came down on something that skidded beneath his weight, causing him to stumble forward.
“What the hell?” he mumbled, turning to look behind him.
His eye immediately landed on the small silver ring of keys attached to a purple swirl in the shape of a heart.
He’d recognize those keys anywhere. He’d helped her when she had locked those keys inside her apartment. He’d used those keys when driving her car.
Chase bent down and scooped them up before eyeing the block again, this time with something like panic in his chest. With the keys clutched in his fist, he dug his phone out of his pocket and dialed her number again.
It went straight to voicemail.
“Shit,” he hissed as he walked briskly to his car and jumped inside.
There had to be a reasonable explanation for this. She must have dropped her keys. She must have walked home. She was probably curled up on the couch right now, eating ice cream and lamenting her douchebag of a boyfriend.
Chase held on to those thoughts as he sped to her apartment. He called her number again and again as he drove, keeping one eye on the road and the other scanning the sidewalks and surrounding areas. Every time her voicemail picked up and Andie’s lilting voice asked him to leave