"Kids, you might be surprised to hear this," I start off cautioning, in an attempt to pillow the inevitable blow my next statement will bring, "but I had two great loves in my life."
"One of them was Daddy, right?" Nigel all but yells out in excitement; a blazing fireball personified.
"Of course, honey," I exhale smilingly, running my hand through the taciturn Daisy's hair – the exact colour of her father's. Her eyes shine with innocent hopefulness for the love that her future, too, will bring. It hits me the way lightning strikes, a thunderbolt through your synapses; she's an exact spitting image of me when I was her age.
"Who was the other one, Mommy?" Daisy asks so softly; it makes me think of feathers floating, airborne, and butterflies tiptoeing on pastel petals.
Something akin to what used to be sadness momentarily washes over me. Over the years, the sadness had metamorphosed into what I had now come to recognize as acceptance. A small smile plays on my lips, the memory of him resurfacing, like a float that's been submerged underwater.
"He was the one I'll always love."
The next morning, the earsplitting rapping of hard knuckles against my oak door pitilessly awakened me. "Just come in," I groaned, zombie-like, from underneath my sheets, only now perceiving that I'd somehow managed to change my clothes in my drunken stupor last night.
"Come to the door," a familiar voice called from behind it, laced with honeyed sarcasm – a trademark that had been formed as a result of habit, rather than for purpose.
"Why're you knocking?" I questioned when I finally came face to face with an inexplicably ecstatic Chase, his roughened elbow leaning up against my wooden doorframe, his forehead resting delicately on his forearm. "You normally just barge in," I pointed out, in feigned pain at this fact.
He raised his free hand to knock his knuckles against my forehead; a gesture I had come to find comforting. A remembrance of childhood in a pat against my brow. A sprinkling of nostalgia every time his svelte fingers tapped softly against my skin.
"You look like death," Chase chuckled lowly, knuckles still gently touching my temple. Miniscule gold flecks speckled his amethyst eyes in his excitement.
"Well, isn't that what every girl wants to hear," I deadpanned sardonically. Our difference in height left me having to tilt my head upwards if I wanted to meet his glimmering eyes. "I certainly feel like it."
"You put away a lot last night," he conceded, head slanted ever so slightly downwards to accommodate for my lack of stature. His lips lifted unevenly in his habitual smirk; jaw angling; more teeth on display on one side of his smile than the other.
I brought a fist to my eye to rub the heavily crusted sleep out of it. Inhaling deeply, I prayed to God that when he created oxygen, it was for the sole purpose of healing hangovers. "Come in," I commanded to Chase, "even though I still have no idea why you were knocking."
"I brought you breakfast, smart mouth," he retorted, pulling out a bowl of steamed chestnut rice, accompanied by a shining piece of chargrilled eel, from the bag I'd failed to notice slung between the crook of his arm.
"You brought food for me?" I asked redundantly, seating myself by my kitchen counter as he removed the fogged up container lids on my behalf. "I could just burst into tears."
"Mock me some more and I'll eat it myself," he retaliated smugly, victory shining on his sharp face; bright fluorescent lights reflected in a translucent marble.
"You haven't eaten yet?" I probed, concern spiking my voice.
"It doesn't matter. Eat up before it gets cold," he replied, throwaway.
"Out of the kindness of my heart, I'll share it with you," I joked, making my way over to my kitchen drawer to pick out two sets of matching utensils – ivory china, with intricate midnight blue chrysanthemum detailing running up the sides – "And thanks, by the way."
A faint blush painted Chase's cheeks flushed rose, highlighting the slight bloodshot redness veining his eyes. "What's with the sudden formalities?" he questioned deliberately, a tactic of his I had come to detect, over the years, as a means to deflect attention away from his embarrassment, "Isn't this the same girl who always stole the grilled fish from my box lunches back in kindergarten?"
His ploy worked, as his blush quickly transferred over to my cheeks, settling uncomfortably on them in the form of an orchid-lollipop colour. I bit my lip hard to hold in my laughter, blunt incisors digging into the waxy skin, "You offered it to me!"
"No, I didn't," he retorted, faux anguish manifesting itself in his features, "and the fish was the best part too." An exaggerated sigh drifted out of his mouth; his eyebrows formed upturned smiles. He couldn't have played his part better if he'd laid his palm against his forehead and broken into a melancholy monologue.
"Alright, alright," I conceded tiredly, shoving the pretty porcelain chopsticks and spoon into his hands, "you can have the whole entire eel today."
"Please, you'd have to catch me one hundred fish to so much as even the score," he smirked, laughter tugging at the corners of his eyes, creating a crease where his skin drew up his angular cheekbones.
I attacked the chestnut rice with vigour, relishing the sweetness of the seasonal crop. It dawned on me, the way water washes over you, that Chase had purposefully cooked my favourite foods. I smiled inwardly at his subtle sweetness, thinking of the appropriately sugary yellow chestnuts as I did so.
"Jeez, slow down, I'm not going to fight you for it," he berated smilingly, elbow on my wooden-paneled kitchen counter, pointed chin resting in his palm.
If people were foods, Chase was crème brulee. He possessed a tough, burnt exterior that came in the form of his honeyed sarcasm and defensive smugness. But, once you'd broken through the blistered topcoat, he was all creamy velvetiness that engulfed you in his concealed ways of taking care of you.
"Do you even remember anything from last night?" he asked nonchalantly, keeping his gaze vigilantly fixed on me.
"I'll be lucky if I can even remember my brother's name, after last night," I groaned, dull heaviness of my head weighing down like a bag of charcoal.
His glee quickly receded, like waves being sent away after kissing the ocean shore. Pulling an insulated metal thermos of steaming milk tea out of his bag, Chase dutifully unscrewed its cap and planted it in front of me. "Drink up and thank me," he grinned loosely.
"But if I thank you, you'll just get all embarrassed again."
Elbowing me playfully, I was forced to retract my words, for fear of choking on the home cooked treats I was devouring in the midst of my laughter. "Aren't you going to eat?" I commanded, under the crumbling guise of a question.
"I'm good," he murmured with a slight shake of his head, eyes transfixed on the smooth golden chestnuts suspended in the sea of rice grains.
"Do I have to feed you myself, or do I have to wait for you to start drooling?" I teased, before proceeding to shove a piled spoonful of rice and barbecued eel forcefully into his mouth.
"Did Chase and you have a fight?" Kathy sprinted over to me the second I walked through the Brass Bar's doors, her words reaching me before the suspended entrance bell had gotten a chance to make so much as a tinkle. Her dangling earrings swayed erratically in her dash.
"Not that I know of," I replied, recoiling slightly at her overly close proximity. Her perfume smelled of a cocktail between saccharine sugar and pressed limes. "Why?"
"It's like he's been carrying a black thunder cloud around with him the whole entire week," she sighed exasperatedly, pouted lips quivering ever so slightly in torment, dim bar lights gleaming in the high beam shine of her lip gloss, "All he's been doing is sulking and moping around. Dad and I are at our wit's end, having to tread on eggshells around him all the time."
"That bad, huh?" I sympathized, reminiscing back to the time I'd been on the receiving end of his cold shoulder. We were ten and I'd beaten him in a game of wrestling, and I'd been brandishing my bragging rights far too liberally. He wore the expression of having just drunk sour milk for days on end. He wouldn't even come out of his house, which lay nestled directly opposite the street from mine. The only reason he'd finally given up the silent treatment was because I'd burst into tears in front of him, as rapid as raindrops racing down a car window. A small smile travelled up the contours of my face in nostalgia, as I remembered how he'd baked me his favourite orange cookies to apologize. Even back then, Chase had been nothing but a softie.
"The other day he made Candace cry just by glaring at her," Kathy whispered melodramatically, breaking me out of my reminiscing, eyes darting from side to side to check for traces of either party eavesdropping – evidently proving me wrong about his kindheartedness. An image of the poor introvert breaking down under Chase's intimidating scowl flashed through my mind, like a mouse being cornered by a cobra.
"The poor girl," I commiserated, shaking my head in disapproval of his dour behaviour, "I'll apologize to her."
"If anything, he should be the one apologizing. But his tongue's gotten twenty times sharper than usual, " Kathy sighed despairingly, perching herself heavily on the rounded edge of an empty table, like a sack of bricks was weighing down on her sloping shoulders. "Please, just talk to him?"
"I'll try, but don't be surprised if I come out crying," I joked lightheartedly. It was apparent that long exposure to Chase's sour mood had beaten the humour out of her. "I'll do what I can," I assured her, patting my hand on her anvil shoulder in an act of comfort. Gratitude swirled in her pleading emerald orbs, high ponytail sagging in defeat. Even her platinum blonde highlights seemed dulled by the entire ordeal.
If Kathy's unnerved narrative hadn't convinced me, the image of Chase standing in front of his wooden cutting board – shades of latte, mocha and cappuccino swirled together – with a sharpened knife in hand certainly did. A heavy, dull smashing of knife against board followed each torturously slow slicing of the guiltless carrot.
"Did that carrot wrong you in your past life?" I teased cautiously, afraid that I could just as easily be his next victim. Even the ends of his peach hair seemed to be on edge, split into filed blades that could effortlessly split an atom. There was nothing honeyed about him today.
"It might have," he replied abrasively, turning around brusquely to face me; his amethyst eyes like hardened gemstones frozen over. A chill jolted through my spine.
"I heard you made Candace cry. I don't know if we went to the same preschool, but there we were taught that it's not nice to make other people cry," I berated lightly, never having the heart to truly embark on a full blown tirade on Chase.
A tiny smile seemed to tug at his lips – a spoon cracking the blowtorched layer of solidified sugar over the crème brulee – but it was as useless as trying to use a strand of thread to lift a boulder.
"Well, what's wrong?" I probed inquisitively.
"Nothing," was his icy reply.
"Can't say I wasn't expecting that," I sighed, eyelids partially lowering in exaggerated agony. "Come on, tell me what's been bothering you. Kathy says you've been pouting around all week."
"I was not pouting."
"I've known you a long time, and I'm pretty sure that you were pouting," I goaded, chuckling to myself at the memory of a five year old Chase crossing his arms determinedly across his chest and sticking his flushed bottom lip out in a noble endeavour to stop himself from crying. "Seriously, what's wrong? Or am I going to have to tickle it out of you?" I badgered on annoyingly, "But maybe after you put that knife down. I'm not so sure that dying by an accidentally fatal stab at twenty-one, during a tickle battle, is the way I want to go."
"Who says it'll be accidental?" the unsympathetic chef let slip. A mental slap for breaking his toughened exterior flashed over his face; his eyelids flickering as an invisible hand swatted past. He set the knife down on the chopping board.
"Now you're just inviting me to tickle you," I joked, inching closer like a crab scuttling about. Gingerly, I placed my hand on his arm – clothed in a faded black button down rolled up neatly at the elbows – like approaching a bashful rabbit that might flee at any moment. The frost coating his eyes thawed; the harsh edges of his silhouette watered down. My heart flitted mellifluously. "I'm being serious now. Are you okay?"
"I didn't know you were capable of that," he smirked, the final melting of the impenetrable icy shell he'd temporarily constructed. As if to pile on the insults, he continued, "I thought your only ability was to make lame jokes and annoy people."
"I'll just pretend that you meant I brighten people's days," I replied carelessly, breaking into a smile, cheeks pushing up against gravity in elation. "Anyway, I'm glad you're back to normal. And you don't have to tell me what was bothering you, if you don't want to. Just quit shortening Kathy's and Hayden's lifespans," I tittered, vividly remembering Kathy's nerves stretched taut as a sheet, and Chase heartlessly playing jump rope with it, "And apologize to Candace."
"All I did was look at her. She didn't have to cry about it," Chase muttered under his breath, spitefully.
"Except the way you were looking at her was probably the way a lion looks at an antelope."
"Not like I was going to chop her up and cook her," he continued bitterly, glancing in my direction, "I have you for that, after all," he smirked, sarcasm emerging in all its magnificent glory.
"It's like you always know just the words a girl wants to hear," I retaliated, equaling his level of sarcasm. Noticing his gaze flittering transiently over my hair, a self-conscious hand shot up instinctively to run through it. I wondered for the seventieth time whether the blonde highlights I'd gotten had been a mistake – the only thing they highlighted was the dryness of my straw-like hair.
"They look fine," Chase reprimanded, lightly brushing my busied hand off.
"How'd you know about the highlights?" I wondered aloud, appalled that a guy could so much as detect them. Asking a guy about a new hair colour was the same as asking a dog for their opinion.
"You wouldn't stop talking about them last week," he moaned tiredly, "Every few sentences was interspersed with, "Does my hair look okay?" Even when we –" he abruptly broke his sentence off, leaving it hanging precariously by its fingers on the edge of a colossal cliff.
"When we what?" I asked anxiously, scrambling through my mind for memories of what had happened the night we'd drank ourselves blind.
"It was nothing," he concealed hurriedly. Going back to his chopping, his motions were deliberate and swift, a definite attempt to deflect my question; the defensive flippers in a pinball machine.
"Did something happen that night?" I pressed, reaching my hand out to impede his manic chopping. Precipitously, it dawned on me, "Is that why you've been in a sour mood all week?"
"Get your grubby hands out of the way," he sidetracked, reaching the hand that had been holding the scythed carrot down to shove mine away, "You'll get cut."
"So quit your chopping and tell me what happened," I insisted, pushing my grubby hands further into his way, blocking his line of vision. In our tussle, a hand must have slipped or a limb gotten shoved; but either way, before I knew what was happening, there was a sharp smarting on the tip of my index finger and blood dripping down onto the coffee coloured chopping board.
"Shit," Chase swore, quickly dropping the knife, now stained with a smear of my apple red blood, and grabbed my injured finger. Before I could react, the bleeding underside of my cut finger found its way to in between his lips, his tongue pressed against it, putting pressure on the wound. "Sorry," he murmured out quietly, after a few seconds had passed.
My face burned magenta at the sensation of his warm tongue rolled against my finger and the knowledge that my finger was in his mouth. We'd been close as children, undeniably, wet fingers in ears, mischievous biting of one another, mortifying saliva balls stuck in the others hair – infantile impishness. But this time around was different.
"Kathy, can you get me some antiseptic?" Chase called out, silky voice muffled, from inside the kitchen. The voluptuous blonde wandered over worriedly. Any relief she felt from seeing Chase's harsh edge gone was replaced by unadulterated shock, almost dropping her tray of fruity, perfumed cocktails when she came face to face with the sight of my finger between Chase's lips.
"God, just date already," she teased under her breath – when she hastily got it back – just audibly enough for us to detect, "And here you thought you'd be crying." Sauntering away, she left to find the antibacterial ointment Chase had requested for.
"Sorry," I whispered to him, when he finally replaced the pressure of his tongue with the pressure of running tap water, "I shouldn't have pushed you."
He remained silent, flashing guilt evident in his eyes. His gaze felt like a boulder on my sliced finger.
"Damn it, Moll," he exhaled lowly, amethyst rings encasing violet spheres rising up to meet my concerned hazel eyes, "What are you doing to me?"
Author's Note: Before anything else, I'm so sorry for the unexpectedly long hiatus! I won't bore any of you with the details, but in short, I'm back and I'll be updating regularly. I'm really excited to see this story through to the end. Hope you enjoyed this chapter, please review/like/follow and let me know what you thought! Thank you for any continued support I've received, I appreciate it greatly!