Author's Note: Chapter 4! Hope you like it! Please let me know what you think!

Zoey POV

Chase turned to unlock the door and let me in first, just as he had always done. I stepped in and sat at the breakfast bar, while Chase pulled out the tea kettle and a couple mugs for our tea. After setting the kettle on the stove, he kept his back to me while he hunted the tea I had requested. I decided I should say something before he turned around and I forgot what words were.

"What a day, huh?"

Seriously, Brooks? That's what you come up with? You haven't seen this man, your best friend and the only man you've ever truly loved, in months, and that's what you say at a time like this?

I tried again before he could say anything.

"I mean, that earthquake was pretty serious… I'm glad that you're okay. I…I was worried about you." And terrified that I had lost you forever.

"Yeah, I know what you mean," he said. "I was worried about you, too. I even went by your boutique and your apartment to look for you."

Right at that moment, the kettle began to whistle.

"Really? You didn't have to go running all over the place to find me… You could have called." It felt good to know that he had been concerned for my safety though.

He turned around with a mug in each hand, each with a thin string hanging over the side, indicating there was a tea bag steeping inside.

"Oh, I did. Several times. None of them would go through though. Didn't even ring before I got that stupid robot message that the call could not be completed," he finished with a small shrug of his shoulders. I thought I even saw a tiny little smirk on his lips, that lopsided smile I've always loved so much.

"Right. I forgot I haven't been able to make or receive any calls or messages without WiFi. My cell tower must have taken some damage. Sorry." I don't know why I apologized. It's not like any of this was my fault. Well…

"It's not your fault there was a major catastrophic earthquake this morning that caused millions of dollars of damage and killed who knows how many people across the city of Los Angeles and the surrounding areas. I'm just glad that you're safe." He took a sip of his tea between thoughts. "I had pretty much come to the conclusion that you were somewhere else in the city, maybe with someone else, though I had no idea where that might have been. I came back to get my car so I could go search for you." Another shrug. Another smirk. Another sip of tea.

I just stared at him, dumbfounded. What had I ever done to make him care so much about me? What had I done to deserve that?

"Where would I have been?" I asked slowly. "I'm always at home or the boutique," I stated bluntly with a small laugh.

"I know. But when you weren't at either of those places, my mind went wild, Zo. We haven't talked in months. Anything could have changed in your life that I wouldn't know about. You could have been at your new boyfriend's apartment across the city, for all I knew." He said it quickly, then looked down into his mug like he wished he hadn't said it at all.

"I don't have a new boyfriend. And you know as well as I do that if I did, you would have heard about it from Michael or Lola or one of the Reeses by now," I stated matter of factly. Maybe a little harshly.

"They might not have told me." Another shrug. "Plus, I haven't talked to any of them that much the last few months. Work has been really crazy. We just got picked up for another full season and the producers want the rest of the scripts for this season by the end of the month, so we can start on the next one. We've been working wild hours trying to finish all those scripts."

I used to love listening to him talk about his job. He's always been such a good writer, ever since I met him, and it made me happy to see him doing something he enjoyed so much and had wanted for years. But in that moment, something about the way he spoke, maybe something in his voice, just didn't sound the same.

"In a way," he continued, "it's been good that I've been so busy. Kinda helps me keep my mind off…things, ya know?"

Oh, yeah. I knew. That was part of the reason I had decided to do another special collection so soon after finishing the last one. Most designers only do one, maybe two major collections in a year's time. I finished one and began sketching the next one less than a month later. Keeping my hands busy helped keep my mind busy. And that was what I needed after Chase and I decided to take a break. Well…I decided to take a break, and Chase graciously agreed, as he always does.

"Yeah, I get it. Look, Chase, I'm sorry," I started, but he jumped in quickly.

"You don't have to apologize for anything. You didn't want 'us' anymore. That's okay. It hurt, yeah. Still does. But if that's what you wanted, then I accept it." He looked down at his feet with a heavy sigh.

"Wait, what? I didn't want 'us'? I never said that. All I said was—" He cut me off again, snapping his head back up to look at me.

"You were the one who wanted to take a break. You came here and asked me to take a break! It was your idea. I just figured you had changed your mind about our relationship and couldn't figure out how to tell me that you wanted to go back to being just friends."

Chase and I started dating in high school, after three years as best friends and a handful of international moves. We finished high school with our best friends at PCA and continued dating throughout college at USC and even after. Not once had I thought about going back to being "just friends."

"Chase, I asked to take a break. I did not ask to break up! We were both so busy with work and so much was changing all around us. You had already been working crazy hours, even before you got the job at Moody's Point. And I was crazy with all the work at the shop and the new collection. Then Logan and Quinn had the baby. Lola was running all over the country for different filming projects. And Michael and Lisa were busy doing the 'soccer mom' and 'daddy coach' thing with the kids."

I felt like I was rambling and making terrible excuses, but everything I had said was true.

"You and I had already started drifting, Chase. I was starting to feel like you were the one who had changed your mind about our relationship…"