HI EVERYONE!!
THANKS SO MUCH FOR ALL YOUR WONDERFUL POSTS!!
HERE'S ANOTHER LONG CHAPTER. WANT TO MOVE THE STORY ALONG...
AND INCREASE THE TENSION...
PLEASE LET ME KNOW YOUR THOUGHTS AND ENJOY!! :-)
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CHAPTER 26: Please read and comment.
At around ten minutes after seven, Chase rounded the corner on 57th street in midtown Manhattan.
As he limped closer towards Nobu, passing other people walking briskly down the crowded street, he could see Cameron waiting for him outside of the restaurant, looking down the opposite side of the street for him.
"Cameron!" Chase called out to her to get her attention.
She turned her head towards her name being called out, her long, blond hair cascading over her shoulder as she did. She smiled immediately and waved when she laid eyes on him and began to walk towards him.
Chase's smile broadened as he reached her in the middle of the street. He kissed her cheek, taking in the scent of her cherry blossom perfume.
"I feel like I'm underdressed," Chase commented with an impish smile as his eyes swept over her.
She was wearing a simple, black sleeveless form fitting shift dress with a scoop neck and a hem above her knee. Her black opened toed pumps completed her elegant look.
"Stop that. You look great," she said, grinning at him, admiring how good he looked in his jeans and button down.
"Are you hungry?" he asked.
"Famished," she replied eagerly.
They walked back up the street and into the Japanese restaurant, which was very crowded. There were many people milling around the bar area, enjoying various cocktails. Chase admired how the simple and clean authentic architecture of the restaurant with it's dark brown woods and black lacquer accents mixed so seamlessly with a chic Manhattan style.
"I've never been here. You come here a lot?" Chase asked her.
"Not a lot. It's very difficult to get a reservation," she replied.
Chase smirked, noting that the tone of her voice seemed more wistful than casual.
"You're gonna miss this," Chase stated.
"There ARE restaurants in Africa, you know," she quipped.
Chase chuckled. "Feel like a drink?" he asked.
"Sure."
Chase placed his hand on the small of her back and somehow managed to lead her over to the bar area around the dense crowds. Cameron gave him a sympathetic smile when they both realized that no one was going to move out of the way for them, despite the fact that Chase was using a cane.
When they finally made it to the bar, they found one empty high backed stool. Chase immediately offered it to Cameron.
"You can sit," she told him.
"I'm fine," he said dismissively.
Cameron sighed as she took the stool . "Someone should really get up and offer their seat to you," she told him near his ear.
"Yeah, well, not everyone thinks like you do," he said.
Cameron smiled at that. She kept her eyes on his handsome face when he proceeded to order them a bottle of Veramonte Merlot, her favorite red wine.
"You remembered," she said softly.
Chase smiled at her fondly and shrugged. "You used to drink a glass of it almost every night, except when you were in the mood for a Pinot Grigot."
She returned his smile a bit shyly, gazing into his aquamarine eyes probably a bit longer than she should have.
"… How come Sophie couldn't make it?" she said, ending what seemed like an intimate feel between them.
He let out a sound somewhere between a breath and a laugh.
"That's… a long story," he said tentatively.
"Is everything ok?" she asked with concern.
"Yeah, everything's fine. We just got into a little argument before I left," he explained.
Cameron nodded, wondering if he was going to elaborate on that. But when he didn't, she looked away from him, her eyes focusing on the bartender pouring a bit of Merlot in Chase's glass from the new bottle he had ordered for him to taste.
Chase immediately slid the glass over to Cameron. "I trust you," he said.
Cameron swirled the glass and brought it up to her nose, taking in the wine's strong aromatic cherry scent. As she tasted it, the flavors of blackberries, mint and oak danced on her tongue.
"Delicious," she told the bartender.
The bartender nodded and poured more into her glass, and then into Chase's empty one.
After clinking their glasses together and taking long sips, they both put their glasses back down on the bar. Chase stared at her, full of anticipation for what he was about to tell her.
"I actually asked Sophie to marry me this past weekend," Chase said.
Cameron's eyes went wide. For a moment, she was too stunned to speak.
"… That's… wonderful!" she finally said, leaning forward and kissing his cheek.
Chase beamed. "Thank you," he said, accepting her kiss.
"Did you set a date?" she asked.
"October 15," he replied, leaning his elbow on the bar and facing her.
Cameron arched her eyebrow. "…Of this year?" she clarified.
"Yep."
"Wow... That was fast," she remarked, looking even more surprised than when Chase first told her the news.
"Why do you say that?" he asked, his brow furrowing.
"You only met her last October. And you only moved in with her a couple of weeks ago," she replied with a shrug.
Chase was pretty sure he didn't like where she was going with this. "So?" he asked.
"You don't think you're rushing things a little?" she asked.
By now, his smile had completely faded.
"No," he stated.
Just then, the host called out the name "Cameron," over the din of the restaurant. Catching the host's eye, she waved at him, took her glass and got off the stool.
"Our table's ready," she told Chase.
Chase exhaled and took his glass with him as he and another waiter carried the rest of the wine bottle and followed her to the table.
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A few moments later, Chase and Cameron had settled into their small rectangular table for two. A lotus flower floating in a small round vase lit from the bottom adorned the center of the table, adding even more ambience to the dim, romantic lighting of the room, as did their Merlot bottle and glasses. Chase's rosewood cane was hanging over the back of the chair.
Chase was peering over his menu at Cameron curiously.
"You have to try the Yellowtail. It's the best I've ever had," she told him, reading over the sashimi choices.
"Why do you think I'm rushing things with Sophie?" he asked.
Cameron looked up from her menu. She pressed her lips together, thinking of the most diplomatic way to tell him what she was thinking.
"Marriage… is a big step. I just think you guys should get used to living together before you jump in with both feet," she said.
"It's really not that much different from what we're doing now. Just a piece of paper," he replied.
"And a promise to spend the rest of your lives together," she reminded him, looking back down at her menu.
"And I WANT to spend the rest of my life with her," Chase reminded her, trying to keep the defensive edge out of his voice.
Cameron exhaled, looking back up at him again.
"I know you love her," she began. "But she's only twenty- four. She's still in school—"
"People can't get married when they're in school?" he interrupted her.
"… I just don't see why you should rush into marriage," she commented, looking away from him for the third time.
If she was anyone else, Chase would dismiss her comments as just opinionated crap and ignore them.
But he knew her way too well to think that her own situation didn't have something to do with her viewpoint about his engagement.
"What's going on?" he asked her pointedly.
Cameron looked up yet again from her menu to see Chase waiting patiently for her to tell him once and for all why she insisted on meeting him for dinner tonight.
"…I don't know if I can do this," she admitted meekly.
Chase wasn't surprised. He gave her a crooked smile.
"Yeah, I figured you were having second thoughts," he said.
"I've been thinking about everything you said at the painting party… about the immunizations, about how there's no modern medical facilities…" Cameron began, gesturing with her hands as she spoke, a worry line forming on her forehead.
"Are you're scared that you're gonna get sick?" he asked.
Cameron shook her head. "… Not… me…" she said, unable to look him in the eye.
Chase's smile became softer as the realization dawned on him. But he waited until she finished to give her his opinion. Cameron leaned forward across the table.
"When Sebastian was our patient, we treated him for a resistant strain of TB. He almost died. The only reason why he didn't was because House was his doctor," Cameron reminded him.
"You were his doctor, too, if I remember," Chase said.
"What if something happens to him again? House won't be there this time," she argued.
"But YOU'LL be there," Chase told her.
"I'm not House and there's no MRI, no CT, no high- tech lab—" Cameron went on.
"You're in love with Sebastian," Chase stated simply.
Cameron stopped in mid sentence, staring at him.
"You're in love with him… and you're petrified that you're gonna lose him," Chase clarified.
Cameron drew in a breath and exhaled, nodding slowly in agreement, still amazed at how perceptive Chase was.
"So you think it's better if you don't go with him to Africa… and then you'll break up… and then if something DOES happen to him, you won't feel the same pain of losing him like you did with your husband, because you won't be together," Chase said.
Cameron felt her embarrassment creep up her neck. She could only give him a tiny, sheepish smile, which quickly faded as his correct assessment of the situation sunk in.
"That's very logical thinking," Chase commented, witnessing her embarrassment.
Cameron snorted. "Yeah, well…" she trailed off, reaching for her wine glass.
He then reached across the table and took her hand before she could touch the glass.
"The problem is…love's not logical," he told her, looking into her bright, yet saddened green eyes.
"I already lost someone I loved to a terminal illness. I don't know if I can do it again," she admitted, her voice quavering as she gripped his hand a bit.
"I understand that you're trying to protect yourself… but you can't hold your life back for what MIGHT happen," he said, rubbing the top of her hand soothingly with his thumb.
"But things DO happen. Look what happened to you," she pointed out, jutting her chin at his leg.
"And you think that's why I proposed to Sophie so quickly. That I'm scared about being alone and in pain for the rest of my life," Chase said.
"…Am I right?" Chase asked.
Chase paused momentarily, thinking of Sophie and how he regretted leaving the hospital without resolving their argument.
"I'm gonna be in pain for the rest of my life," he said plainly, taking another pause.
"…But I'm not scared anymore," he admitted.
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Around two hours later, Sophie was still at Danny's apartment, playing Texas Hold 'Em with Danny and his poker buddies.
She was up almost two grand, but between the filthy stench of the cigars that all the guys were smoking and the fact that she still hadn't heard from Chase since their fight in the Clinic earlier, she wasn't enjoying herself as much as she thought she would.
And she also knew that she had to get home before Chase did to strip out of her clothes and shower to get the smell of cigars off her skin and hair.
The air was so thick with smoke that she even felt it in her mouth and on her teeth. She'd have to brush and rinse, too.
Danny was having a particularly good night at the table. He was up six hundred dollars, mostly won off his friends. Sophie had actually mucked a few hands during game play, trying to convince herself that the smoke was distracting her.
But she knew that it was really her guilt about coming back to Danny's place that was to blame.
"All right, sweetheart. You've been check raising for too long. I'm All In," Danny stated, pushing all his chips forward into the center of the table.
The rest of the guys, who had folded early on, turned to Sophie to see what she would do. Already knowing what she had in the hole, she glanced at her cards anyway, as if she was contemplating a move.
She then scanned the five community cards in front of her. The river had already turned, and she could tell by Danny's confident expression that he had at least a pair in the hole, possibly making three of a kind with one of the other cards on the table.
"You know… they say that there's only two scenarios that you should go All In. When you've got the nuts… or when you're bluffing," Sophie said casually.
Keith, one of Danny's friends, grimaced. "What's 'the nuts?'" he asked.
"Best possible hand in a round," she explained.
"Well, how do you know if you've got the nuts?" Keith asked.
A smile curled at her lips.
"You'll know," she said vaguely.
She then pushed all her chips into the middle. "Call," she said.
Danny then turned over his cards, which were a nine of spades and a nine of hearts.
"Trip nines," he announced in an overly suave manner, gesturing to the nine of diamonds in the community cards. "Sorry, babe."
"Yeah, I figured you had the nines…" she said.
She then slowly turned over her cards, revealing that she had an Eight of spades and a Jack of Spades.
Danny's triumphant smile quickly faded when he realized that with the community cards, she had a straight, which beat his three of a kind.
He glanced up at her. Her lips were still turned up at the corners.
Keith leaned over to Danny, who was still staring at his hand, wondering how he could have possibly lost.
"Guess you don't have the nuts," Keith commented, causing the other guys to laugh at Danny' expense.
Just then, Sophie's cell phone rang in her pocket. She took it out and felt her stomach rise into her throat when she saw that it was Chase calling her.
"Excuse me," she said, getting up from the table.
"You can go into my room if you need privacy," Danny offered.
Sophie nodded gratefully and headed into Danny's room, which was sparsely decorated and surprisingly neat. Once she closed the door behind her, she flipped open her phone.
"Hi," she said softly into the phone.
"Hey baby," Chase replied.
She tried to swallow the achingly guilty feeling inside her at the sensuous, loving sound of Chase's voice over the phone.
"Aren't you at dinner?" she asked, hoping that her own voice wasn't betraying her.
"Yeah… I just wanted to tell you that we're stopping somewhere else for dessert…" he began.
"…And that I'm sorry that I didn't tell you about dinner and that I walked out of the hospital angry…"
"And that I love you so very much," he finished sincerely.
She pressed her lips together. "I love you, too," she said, a bit apologetically.
"Are you ok?" he asked with tender concern.
"Yeah… I just miss you," she whispered.
"Well then how do you feel about make- up sex?" he asked hopefully.
Sophie laughed. "I'm generally in favor of it," she told him.
Chase grinned. "Glad to hear it," he replied.
"You're really an opportunist, aren't you?" she teased.
"And you love it," he said.
"Yeah, I do," she admitted, the warmth of his love mixing in with the guilt churning inside her.
"I should be home by eleven thirty," he said.
"Ok. Drive safe," she told him.
"I will," he replied.
They said their good- byes and hung up. Sophie hadn't even realized that while she was talking to Chase, she had sank down onto Danny's neatly made double bed.
She looked around the room and realized that this was the last place she wanted to be.
She got up off the bed, walked out of Danny's bedroom and back to the poker table, where Danny and the rest of the guys were waiting for her.
"Sorry guys. I'm cashing out. I'm afraid I'm calling it a night," she stated.
"…I'll walk you out," Danny said, trying to hide his disappointment.
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"You really slow rolled me with that straight," Danny said as they walked together in the warm, night air towards her car, which she had parked in front of his building.
"'Slow rolled?' I'm impressed," she said with a laugh at his use of a poker term.
"Hey, I've been paying attention," he told her playfully.
"You didn't have to walk me to my car," she told him as stopped in front of it.
"What kind of gentleman would I be if I let you go to your car alone this time of night?" he said gallantly.
Sophie checked her watch, avoiding how he was gazing down at her.
"Chase doesn't know you came here tonight, does he?" he asked, his eyes penetrating hers.
Sophie shook her head slowly.
"No," she admitted shamefully.
"There's no reason for you to feel guilty about it. You didn't do anything wrong," he told her.
"I don't know if he's gonna see it that way," she said with a nervous laugh.
"He's not exactly innocent either. He never told you he was going to dinner with Cameron," Danny pointed out.
"Two wrongs don't make a right," she stated.
"…No… but it sure feels good," he said with a wry smile, his dimple making another appearance.
At first, Sophie didn't know what to make of his remark. But when she saw the humor in his eyes, she laughed again.
"Well… thanks for the game," she said cordially.
"I'm glad you showed up," he said softly, tracing her lovely face with his hazel eyes.
"So am I. I had fun," she said with a friendly smile.
As they smiled at each other surrounded by the ambient light of the street lamps, a silence washed over them.
Taking advantage of the moment, Danny leaned closer to her, closed his eyes and brushed his soft lips against hers.
But as she felt his lips, she pulled back from him, placing her hand on his chest to stop him.
"Danny, no—" she began.
"You can't tell me that you don't feel something between us," he said almost pleadingly, barely above a whisper, his eyes full of longing for her.
"Yes. I can," she stated firmly.
She then unlocked her car, opened the door and got inside.
"G'night, Dan," she told him before closing the door and driving away, leaving him alone on the street.
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A little after ten that night, Cameron walked into her apartment, followed by Chase, who was limping behind her. They had gone around the corner to the Plaza Hotel to enjoy dessert, after dinner drinks and past memories in the Rose Club.
"You want a drink or something?" Cameron asked, tossing her beaded clutch purse onto the couch.
"No, I should really get going. I told Sophie I'd be home by eleven- thirty," he said, checking his watch.
Cameron then turned to face him with a melancholy smile.
"…So then I guess this is it," she said in a resigned manner.
"...We both have cell phones. And there's always IM and Facebook," he reminded her, limping across her living room towards her.
"I don't have a Facebook account," she admitted.
"Yeah, neither do I," he replied.
They both laughed at that. "I'll get one," she assured him.
"Me too."
Their smiles faded as they gazed at each other. As Cameron's lips began to quiver, Chase pulled her closer to him and engulfed her in a hug, the smell of her cherry blossom perfume engulfing his senses once more.
"I'm really gonna miss you," Cameron said against his chest.
"I'll miss you, too," he replied sadly.
They stood in her living room, amidst suitcases and cardboard boxes that she had already packed, holding each other as tightly as they possibly could.
Neither one of them was sure how much time had passed as they held each other. Chase rubbed her back softly over her dress, his fingertips grazing her skin every once in a while. He couldn't deny how good her lithe body felt pressed up against his, how well their frames still fit together after all this time.
After a few minutes, Cameron finally looked up at him. Her eyes were rimmed with tears.
"I don't want to go," she whimpered.
"You have to," he whispered gently.
"What if we lose touch? What if I never see you again?" she asked sadly.
"You mean you're not coming to my wedding?" he asked her with an adorable smile, trying to cheer her up.
Cameron sniffed and managed a tiny smile of her own.
"I'll be there," she told him.
"Good," he said, tenderly brushing a lock of her hair out of her face and tucking it behind her ear.
"…Why didn't Sophie come tonight?" Cameron asked.
Chase felt butterflies in his stomach at her question.
"She didn't think that I'd be able to say good- bye to you the way I wanted to if she did," Chase confessed.
"How did you want to say good- bye to me?" she asked, her green eyes sparkling up at him.
Without another word, Chase crashed his lips down onto hers, passionately enveloping her mouth with his own. She moaned against his lips desperately, his kiss moving through every inch of her.
They brushed their lips over each other's hungrily, his hands exploring every inch of her face, then raking through her hair. She wrapped her arms tighter around his neck and did the same, her fingers trying to memorize the feel of his scruff and the soft blond locks that draped the back of his neck.
After what seemed like an eternity, they finally broke off their kiss, the need for air overtaking them. As they gasped, they pressed their foreheads against each other's, closing their eyes. They stood their holding each other, their bodies shuddering with desire and heartache.
"… You should go," Cameron told him softly.
Chase nodded against her forehead, his eyes still closed, not moving an inch.
"Go… before we both make a huge mistake," she insisted.
He opened his eyes and backed up slightly. He regained his composure and backed up.
She walked him to the door in silence. Once they reached it, he gazed down at her one more time.
"Have a safe flight," he managed to say.
"Thank you," she replied.
He then walked out of her apartment, leaving Cameron alone with her boxes and the taste of him on her lips.
And as Chase slowly limped down the hallway towards the elevators, rubbing her lipstick off his mouth, he hoped that he'd have the opportunity to shower and brush his teeth before Sophie greeted him upon his return home.
TBC…