Chapter 14

The ride back to the airport had been a silent one. Chase had pretended that she was asleep while Jeff drove. Neither of them could let the thought of what had happened go.

Jeff thought a lot about it as he drove. Maybe I should leave her alone. Maybe this is all too much for her. But I can't, I care too much about her. But then again, her father's gonna have fuckin' cow, if he finds out. But, fuck him. She's an adult, if she wants to be with me, then I'll be with her; with or without his approval.

I just wish she would talk to me. I didn't mean for things to go that far; she's so just beautiful. Damn Nero, you should have controlled yourself. You don't know when the next time you'll see her again and you had to go fuck it up.

He heard Chase stir in her seat and looked over at her.

Her head was still turned toward the window. She hadn't looked at him since they left his living room. It didn't help that he hadn't talked to her either. She couldn't get the words he said out of her head. 'I want more than your hands on me.' She didn't know if he was mad because she was teasing him; not that she meant to. She just wanted to give him some kind of pleasure, even if she couldn't actually have sex with him.

But he didn't seem mad when he held her and told her he'd wait. That was a good sign, right? It implied that he still wanted to see her. And he didn't seem like the kind of guy that she found John to be. He didn't make empty promises. Every time he said he would call her, he did. Every time he agreed to meet her, he did. But that was before this. Now that sex was thrown into the kitty, was he going to change? 'He's just trying to get in your pants' she heard her dad's voice say. What if he were right? What if she did it and he changed? That would break her heart. She couldn't chance it, she liked him entirely too much.

Before she had the chance to say anything to him, she felt the car stop. She kept her eyes closed because she didn't want to look at him. She felt his hand gently touch the side of her face.

"We're here." His soft voice and warm hand made her smile inside. He smiled when she turned her head and looked at him. He looked down at the gear shift, but never moved his hand from her face. "Chase? I didn't mean for that to happen. I don't want you to do anything you're uncomfortable with." He couldn't look at her. His eyes were going to tell her too much.

"I didn't do anything I didn't want to. I'm glad it went as far as it did. If it went further, then that might be a different story. Besides, I asked you and you were just probably being polite..." His laughter interrupted her rant. "Sorry." She said looking down at her lap.

"Why're you nervous?" He asked looking back up at her.

She thought of how she should phrase it. "If I have sex with you, are you going to change? I mean, I don't want you to. But there's a part of me that feels like if I do it, if we do it, then you're not going to like me anymore." She couldn't read his face; shock, disgust maybe? He didn't interrupt her, he let her finish. "I saw the way John treated that woman he was with; he made all these empty promises to her and laughed about it when she was gone. I don't want that to happen. I know that you're probably taking this way slower than you've ever taken it before and I appreciate that… I really do. But I just need to be sure, because I really like you. I never felt like this before...and if you don't stop me from talking I'm going to keep on and say something that will either really embarrass me or I'm going to turn you off from me completely."

He smiled. All he could do was lean over and kiss her. He pressed his forehead to hers and spoke into her mouth. "I thought you knew me better than that." He pulled back and looked at her beautiful face, so full of hope. He tucked the strands of blonde hair on her face behind her ear. "Do you really think I would be takin' my time with you, if all I wanted was sex? I've had plenty of sex before, but I wanna make love to you. There's a big difference. I don't want to ruin this by goin' too fast."

"I asked you before, what is this?" She couldn't figure it out. Were they dating, going out, what? She was a person that dealt in definites, she liked things to be clearly defined for her. Must be the scholar in her; there was no grey area.

He sighed. Boy was she hard to understand. But he knew he had to be careful with her. "What do you want this to be?" Maybe giving her the option to decide would put her mind at ease.

"I want you to be my boyfriend, I guess. Do they even call it that anymore? God, this is stupid." She turned in her seat and looked him square in the eye. "I want to be in a relationship with you. I don't want to have to guess if you're sleeping with someone else or if you're going to call me because you've found someone that you like better. And I don't want you to be with me because you're still pissed at my dad. I want you to be with me because you want to be with me." She nodded her head to signal she was done.

He put his hand out toward her. "Done." She shook his hand and smiled.

"So do we get to walk with our hands in each other's back pockets?" He joked. Why was it so hard for her to trust him? Maybe now she would know that he was serious about her. "Can we kiss?" He smiled leaning in toward her.

"Definitely." She touched his face as he kissed her.

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Hunter made sure to pick the seat directly across from Jeff Hardy at the staff meeting. He watched as his wife handed out the new scripts, story lines and assignments. Everyone on Raw, hated these meetings, but they only had them every other month.

"We're making a little change to the roster." Everyone turned to look at Stephanie, setting their papers aside. "To start, Adam and Amy, you'll be going to Smackdown. We're going to create a feud between you two and Matt and Ashley."

Hunter watched as Adam's face turned red. "Didn't we do that already? This is bullshit. We're all finally getting to the point were we can speak to each other and you want to drag this shit up again?" Adam looked over at Hunter and closed his mouth. He noticed the glare he was getting and for a split second he hadn't realized he had raised his voice at Hunter's wife.

"Who we gettin'?" John asked, looking at the notes on his pages.

Stephanie smiled at Hunter. "Dave Batista. He's coming back, and we're reforming Evolution."

Hunter looked over at Jeff, who was sinking into his chair. Fuck he watched Jeff's mouth move and couldn't help but to smile. This was going to work out better than he planned. If Jeff was that upset, that could only mean one thing...he hadn't left Chase alone. Everything was falling right into place.

"Aw, shit. GQ's comin' back? Hell yeah." John said slapping hands with Randy. It would be good to have the team back together.

"But there's a catch. You and he will be battling for your title." She said to John. He didn't seem to care. He knew his contracted time with the belt was almost up. And if he had to lose it to someone, he was glad it would be Dave. Plus that meant that John would still be in a prominent story line, especially since his current story would be ending with Edge going to Smackdown.

"When does this all happen?" Amy asked, sitting back in her chair.

"This Monday." Stephanie responded. "Now, that that's out of the way, I'd like to go over some other things with you."

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Jeff looked across the table at Hunter whose smile made him sick. That bastard's fuckin' enjoyin' this. No matter how nervous he was about the prospect of Dave's return, he refused to let Hunter see that he was worried. He could hardly concentrate on anything that Stephanie was saying, because he was in a Mexican standoff of the eyes with Hunter.

He noticed everyone else getting up, he assumed they were done. He collected his papers and started out of the room. His phone had been vibrating on his hip during the entire meeting. He checked his missed calls log and saw that it was Chase.

He rounded the corner, making sure no one else was around before he called her back. He leaned against the hospital white wall listening to the phone ring in his ear.

"Hey." He said when he heard her voice. Somehow just hearing her voice made all of the uneasiness of Dave's return and Hunter's glare go away.

"Jeff. Have you seen Scraps?" She had tried to remain calm. But in the midst of her packing, she hadn't been able to locate him.

"Scraps? What's that?" Jeff asked sliding down the wall, to sit on the overly polished floor.

"My stuffed dog. I always have him. I had him when I was at your house." Her voice started to panic as she tore through the suitcase she just packed.

Hunter rounded the corner, but halted when he spotted Jeff sitting on the floor talking on his phone.

"Did you have it in the guest room?" He tried to remember if he had remembered seeing the dog. He had slept in that room the night that Chase left, just because the bed smelled like her.

"Yes, but I thought I packed him with my other stuff." She said almost in tears.

Jeff closed his eyes and tried not to smile. He could tell she was upset, but it was a stuffed dog. It must have meant a great deal to her, or she wouldn't be so upset. "Calm down baby. I'll check when I get home." He sucked in his laughter and looked down the hall when he saw Randy walk past him. Randy nodded and Jeff nodded back. "Chase?" He said once Randy was out of earshot, "Did you know your father's coming back to Raw?"

She almost dropped the phone. "What! Why?" She couldn't get the words to formulate. How could he be coming back? He was going to ruin everything that they were starting to build.

"I don't know. I think Hunter's got somethin' to do with it." He sighed. He could kill Hunter.

Chase panicked. "What are going to do now? My dad will never let me see you. I thought it was going to be easier, when I got to school. But now..."

Jeff sat upright. He was not going to let Hunter or Dave stop him from seeing Chase, no matter what they tried. "Don't worry about it. We'll be ok. We'll just be careful, until he understands how we feel about each other." He wanted her to believe his words, even if he didn't.

His voice was so calm, it soothed her immediately. "Look, I gotta go. My dad's here. Can you call me if you find Scraps?" She tried to whisper, because Dave was coming into her room to get more bags for the truck.

"If I find it, I'll bring it with me when I come out on Friday. Have a safe flight." He smiled at the prospect of seeing her again. He knew that he only had two days until he saw her and he couldn't wait. He would have the whole weekend with her to do whatever they wanted, without the fear of getting caught by Dave.

"I'll see you then." She said trying to hurry. She hung up the phone without hearing him say goodbye.

Hunter smiled as he walked up to Jeff, his shoes squeaking on the floor with every heavy step he took. "Hey Rainbow." He voice was sugary sweet almost like you would use with a child when you wanted to win their affection. Jeff knew right away that he was up to no good. "Any interesting phone calls lately?"

Jeff stood up, and looked Hunter in the eye. "You gotta problem?" He asked seeing John walk up behind Hunter. Great, now there's two of them.

Hunter smiled again and let a slight laughter touch his voice. "No, no problem at all." He turned and walked down the hall. "But you will." He said turning around laughing and wagging his eyebrows.

Jeff stared at John, who stared back at him. "Yo. I don't know what's up, but don't fuck with Hunt. He can get crazy sometimes." He patted Jeff on the shoulder and walked away.

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"I love you." Maddy said hugging her sister. "Have fun and say hi to Jeff." She whispered before she kissed her on the cheek.

Chase was sad to go, but she knew she had to. She had said goodbye to her mom, who was crying in the kitchen and even got a hug from Alli. She turned toward the door to see Dave waiting for her in the truck. She looked back at her sister and peered over at her mother with tears freely flowing.

"I love you. I'll call you when I get there." She said putting on a brave face. Emily began to sob and Chase went over to her. "I'll be home for Thanksgiving, Mom. I'll be fine. You've done this before remember?"

She hugged her mom again and walked out of the door.

As she got in the Suburban, she noticed Dave's face. "You ready?" He asked. He had told himself he would do without getting emotional. All he had to do was go with her and help her with her boxes, then he would be back home and so would Britain and he could sulk then.

"When will my car be there?" She asked latching her seat belt.

She loved her car and was upset that he wouldn't let her drive to school by herself. It had been her birthday present from the year before, a 2005 black BMW 330ci convertible. Granted it was a little much for a then nineteen year old, but it also doubled as a gift for making valedictorian of her graduating class. "That's a 38 hour trip. You are not making that drive by yourself. We'll fly and I'll have the car flown out later." He had told her after listening to her whine about how she had to have a car in LA.

"Monday." He said turning on the ignition.

I can do this. He said as he pulled out of the driveway.