A/N: Last chapter! I know they were short, but I wanted to break the story up a little. Hope you enjoyed, and thanks for reading and reviewing! I had fun with it :)
XXX
Middle of May, 2 weeks later
There were clouds in the sky, threatening rain. The wind was harsh as it blew by, leaving people with chills. The temperature was cooler, too cool for May in southern California. Gloomy was the only word that could describe the day.
It was as if the weather were reflecting Chase's mood.
He sat distractedly in the girls' lounge with Michael, Logan, and Lola, listening to them quiz each other on dates and facts and formulas, hopping from one subject to another, all preparing for the following week's final exams.
"Chase?" Lola asked, and the boy in question snapped back to the moment and turned to find the other three staring at him, waiting.
"What?"
"I asked you how the Egyptians moved the stone blocks they used to build the pyramids," she replied. At his blank stare, she prodded, "Hello? World history? Fourth period? Yes? No?"
"No," Chase said, then shook his head, "I mean yes. Um, the Egyptians… uh… used… wagons?"
"No," Lola sighed. "They used barges and put the blocks on them and floated them down the Nile River. Remember?"
"Right."
Lola smiled at him kindly and then twisted towards Logan to pose another History question. Michael leaned over to his friend with concern. "Chase, man, you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," Chase said with a shrug. "Just… thinking."
At that, Michael rolled his eyes. He'd been watching his best friend trudge through the days ever since his big fight with Zoey, hoping to learn what had actually happened between them, but never getting a straight response. As far as he knew, no one except Zoey and Chase themselves knew what the argument had been about. He was worried; if Chase didn't start concentrating soon, he was going to fail his exams.
"Why do we always hang out and do homework in the girls' lounge?" Lola pondered, taking in her surroundings.
"Because yours is nicer," Logan replied in a 'duh' voice.
"Then I don't even see why we went through that entire thing of me pretending to be a boy just to use your roof," Lola said. "I mean, we use your roof, you use our lounge, it evens out, right?"
"Can we not get into this again?" Michael interrupted, silencing Logan before he could even retort. "Man, the weather is awful," he complained, his eyes straying outside. "And all we've got to do is study. C'mon, can't we go watch a movie or something?"
Lola was just beginning to fire back with reasons on why they needed to continue studying when Nicole and Zoey entered the lounge. Nicole smiled widely at her friends, who had claimed the couches as their own, while Zoey hung back a little. Both were laden down with textbooks.
"Hey guys!" Nicole chirped, setting her books down on the coffee table. "Whew, that's a load off." She plopped down on the couch beside Logan. "We thought we'd come out here and study with you guys."
"You gonna stand there all day Zoey?" Lola asked with a small laugh, beckoning her friend towards the group. Zoey approached slowly and avoided looking at Chase as she acknowledged the others.
"What subject were you on?" Zoey questioned casually, seating herself in one of the empty chairs after putting her own books down.
"History," Logan replied. "Quite possibly the stupidest class we have. Who cares about what happened twenty-thousand years ago?"
"Um, like, everyone?" Nicole responded. "History is really important, you know."
"Not to me," Logan said. "Now if this was the history of Logan Reese's coolness, then I'd be all over it."
Michael scrunched his face. "Please never use the phrase 'all over it' ever again," he commanded.
"Oh no," Nicole wailed suddenly, whipping her arm out in front of her face and staring at her watch. "I have an English paper to do… it's due tomorrow! Crap, I can't believe I forgot!" She stood and gathered her textbooks once again. "I've gotta go to the library, ASAP!"
"I'm with you, I've got some research I gotta do," Michael said, looking shifty and blatantly lying. "Plus, I am sick of studying." He followed behind an anxious Nicole, slinging his backpack on as he left.
Lola held out her wrist to check her own watch. "I agree with them. Studying can get boring, fast. I've got practice in half an hour, I think I'm gonna see if I can find someone to run lines with me." She gave a pleading look to the other three, but all shook their heads in the negative. "Fine," she pouted, getting her things, "But someday, when I get my Tony award, I'm not going to thank any of you."
"Fine with me," Logan mumbled to himself, sitting back against the couch as Lola exited in a huff. He looked between the restless Chase and pointedly-not-looking-at-Chase Zoey for a few minutes, before declaring, "Man, what am I doing? I don't want to be stuck hanging with the two of you when you're all… in a fight."
Zoey sent him a scornful glance. "Nobody said you had to stay."
"You're right," Logan nodded, and then he stood quickly and hurried to the door, leaving without so much as getting his books or saying goodbye.
Chase read and re-read the same theorem over and over again in his Algebra book, trying to make a word or two stick, but it wasn't happening. Zoey was flipping through her French notebook, once and a while mouthing words to herself. Chase didn't understand how she could study right this second when there was so much palpable tension between them.
She turned her head towards him slowly and, she thought, quite stealthily, so he ducked his own head quickly, his nose practically touching the page of his book that explained radicals and how to reduce them.
"This is stupid," Zoey sighed out, though her words got lost somewhere between exiting her mouth and the breath that followed them.
"Did you just call me stupid?" Chase asked, whipping his head towards her. It was the first time they'd really looked at each other, held eye contact for longer than two seconds, since their big fight over… who knew anymore?
"No. This, us not talking, is stupid," Zoey clarified, though a smile was tugging at her lips as she added, "But you're kinda stupid too."
Chase had to avert his gaze from her as he replied, "Yeah… I know I am. But so are you."
"I guess," she agreed slowly, softly, and it made Chase look at her fully again, surprised by her sudden camaraderie.
He spent a long moment working up the courage to apologize, forming the words and sentences and speeches in his mind, imagining himself getting on his knees and clasping his hands together, begging for forgiveness, or walking over to her and kissing her, or shouting 'I love you' at the top of his lungs.
When he finally felt confident in what he was planning to say, he opened his mouth, but instead of declarations of love, all that came out was: "I'm sort of an ass."
At first, Zoey seemed confused, but then her frown loosened and began turning up, and soon her face was developing a brilliant glow of happiness. "Yes. You are."
"And I'm… sorry," Chase stumbled out, apologizing much harder than he had expected. Especially when it was directed towards the one person he never wanted to have a reason to say 'sorry' to. "For the whole fight we had. I… actually don't remember what we were even angry about, now." Except I do, he thought, glad Zoey wasn't some sort of mind-reader or a freaky ESP-type person (if those even existed).
Zoey nervously tapped her pen against one of her numerous notebooks and bit her lip before responding: "I'm sorry too, Chase. I didn't mean to get so mad and upset. It was dumb." Because you probably never liked me in the first place, so I freaked out at you for nothing, she added, but only in her head.
"So we're… both sorry," Chase summarized for the sake of saying something.
"Yeah, we're both sorry," Zoey repeated. "Friends?" she asked, sweetly, the weight almost completely lifted off of her shoulders. Almost.
"Definitely," Chase said with a grin, resisting the urge to get off the couch, go over to her chair, and hug her tightly. "I don't like us fighting," he stated. "It's just… not right."
"I agree," Zoey said with her own special smile. She looked back down at her notes, but it was impossible to concentrate now. When she glanced back up she noticed Chase still looking restless. "What's on your mind?"
Chase's eyes widened. "Uh…"
"If you say nothing, I swear, I will hurt you," Zoey threatened, and though her tone suggested it was a joke, in truth she was sick and tired of hearing the phrase 'it's not important' come out of her best guy friend's mouth.
Chase swallowed, hard. This was it. He could do it now. The lounge had emptied out; they were the only ones left. At some point in the course of their reconciliation, the rain-threatening clouds had vanished and were replaced by blue skies and fluffy, white clouds, and the temperature rose a few degrees, forcing most outside once again to reclaim their nice weather. Chase was going to take this as a sign from above.
He was determined. Today would be the day. Now would be the time.
"Chase?"
"Zoey, there's something I gotta tell you…" he started, his voice almost an octave higher than normal.
Zoey's stomach dropped, but she tried not to look too interested. "What is it?" she coaxed, in her gentlest voice.
Chase cleared his throat nervously and set down the Algebra book that had lain, forgotten, in his lap. "Well, uh, see… the thing is…"
"Yeah?"
Just do it!, his brain yelled, so he finally bit the bullet: "The thing is, Zoey… I… I like you," he said in a rush. "As more than a friend. As more than a best friend. And I've been trying to tell you that for months now but every time I've gotten close something has come and screwed it up." Chase let out a breath, keeping his eyes down to avoid her own. "So there. I've said it."
They sat in silence for an almost comical extended period of time as Zoey attempted to digest this new revelation, though at this point it wasn't so much a revelation as a confirmation. She could hardly believe it. He really liked her? Chase Matthews, her best friend, really liked her?
Chase's eyes, meanwhile, were bulging, his heart was beating loudly in his ears, his pulse was racing like crazy, and his palms were so sweaty he could feel the perspiration on them. He'd done it.
He looked everywhere but her. "Oh man… oh man, oh man, oh man… oh man," he repeated, doing this a few times, until he felt a hand on his bare arm and saw that somehow Zoey had gone from the chair to next to him on the couch without his even noticing.
Her expression was unreadable, except for her eyes. Though her face was that of obvious uncertainty, her eyes betrayed her emotions. "You… like me?"
"Don't hate me," Chase pleaded.
"How long have you liked me?" she asked slowly.
"Uh, since the first time I saw you, I guess," Chase estimated bashfully. He stood up and clapped his hands together. "Okay, so, you wanna pretend that never happened? Because I am all for that idea! Just save me the embarrassment and let me leave in peace, and the next time we see each other, it's forgotten! We never have to speak of this again! And no one needs to know. And I'm sure I'll be able to get rid of these feelings soon enough… well, maybe not soon, but… hopefully-"
"Chase, will you stop rambling for one second?" Zoey said with exasperation, standing also and placing her hands on his shoulders. She turned him towards herself and looked him in the eye. "You like me?"
"Don't make me say 'yes' again…"
Zoey let her arms fall back to her sides, though she still kept her gaze on him. And then, randomly, she began to giggle, and she wasn't completely sure why. She supposed the absurdity of this entire ordeal was making her crazy.
Chase was not amused. "Zoey, what are you laughing at?"
"Us!" she spluttered.
"Why?"
"Because I like you too, you doofus!" she told him, ending the chuckles but keeping the smile on her face.
Chase blinked. "You… you do?"
"Yeah!"
"Are you serious?"
"Yeah!"
"Why didn't you tell me!" Chase interrogated, distressed.
"Because I was waiting for you to tell me!" Zoey fired back. They were standing in front of the couch in plain view of everyone, and had garnered a small audience at the windows. People outside were whispering over what Zoey Brooks and Chase Matthews could be fighting about now.
"Oh my God," Chase muttered. "This is…"
Zoey smiled, a little shyly, aware now of what exactly they had just admitted. "Insane?"
"I don't… know what to say," Chase confided, also apprehensive.
"Well… we like each other," Zoey stated logically, though her cheeks were bright red. "So… where do we go from here?"
Chase shook his head. "Uh…" He stopped any fidgeting and stared at her.
"Chase?"
Instead of giving her a verbal answer, he cautiously took small steps towards her, inching his way closer. Zoey watched him, confused, until it became clear what was happening as the gap between them became merely inches.
"I've wanted to kiss you since I got distracted the first day you came to PCA and I ran my bike into that pole," Chase said, his voice almost a whisper.
Zoey wasn't sure how to respond to that. She'd kissed boys before, but never ones she'd had such strong feelings for as she did for Chase. "Then what are you waiting any longer for?" she asked, her volume matching his.
It was all the invitation he needed. By the time their lips met, the crowd outside the windows were cheering. After a moment, the couple broke apart to turn mortified faces towards the windows.
Chase coughed uncomfortably, but he couldn't keep a grin off of his face. "Okay…," he said, "Alright, um, okay, I think I'm gonna, um, go, because there's, uh, a crazy audience out there…"
"Right," Zoey said with a nod, her face flushed but her eyes sparkling. "See you… later?"
"Definitely," Chase promised. He was heading for the doors when he spun around and asked, "Hey, uh, can I go out the back door?"
Zoey laughed. "Yeah. Down the hall, to the right," she instructed.
"Okay. Cool," Chase said, going in the direction she'd just specified. "We'll continue this… later."
"Later," she nodded.
After he had left, Zoey collapsed on to the couch with an elated feeling floating inside of her. This made all of the awkwardness and tension and fighting she and Chase had gone through over the past two months worth it. It was all leading up to this.
Thank God for spring break.
XXX
End.