I needed the comfort of the bike and the sense of freedom that came with the revving of the engine and the vibrations on my hands. Chase wasn't enthusiastic about it but reluctantly climbed on the back.
"It's supposed to rain." He said even as he threw his leg over to straddle the motorcycle. "Maybe we should take my car."
"It won't rain till later but if you're so worried about it just take your car. I don't care." With a quick flick of the wrist, I revved the engine to encourage him to make a decision.
"I thought we were taking it next week."
"Won't be here." I turned around and roughly placed the helmet on his head. "Look, if you're going to get off do it now because I'd like to eat sometime soon."
For an answer he placed a hand lightly on my side to keep himself steady. "Are you going somewhere?" He asked as I pulled out, his voice muffled somewhat by the helmet.
"Deep sea diving." I looked over to the right when we stopped at a red light and found a man staring at us with open disgust. His brow was furrowed, giving him the appearance of an ape, and his eyes were narrowed so much in his fat face that they were nothing but little dots. His top lip was pulled up in a sneer that would have been massively impressive had it not been for the beads of sweat that neutralized the effect. Impulse prompted me to open my mouth and say, "You're going to die soon if you don't lay off those triple cheeseburgers, you know." I smiled politely.
Chase groaned. "Oh, God. One day is all I ask." This comment was inexplicably amusing to me that I couldn't help but give a short bark of laughter.
"You're going to die if you don't change your ways." The man growled as he fingered the cross around his neck. "You and your boyfriend."
"I'm not his—" Chase began.
"I like how you assume we're gay. Well, you know what they say about assuming: you become an ass to me." I responded with a smirk. Before he could think of anything to respond, I speed off and turned sharply into the restaurant's parking lot.
"For one day can you try not to insult people?" Chase asked, his voice clearer now as he took off the helmet.
"You forget who you're talking to." I unclipped the cane from bike and placed my right hand under my thigh to help swing it over. "If you had played along we could have had a lot more fun."
"Excuse me for wanting to keep the peace." As soon as he finished speaking there was a loud clap of thunder and a fat drop of rain splattered of the side of my face.
"It won't rain till later." He mocked. I looked over to see him looking sullenly my way and give a heavy sigh as the rain began soaking his shirt in a matter of seconds.
"Technically, it is later." Sarcasm tinged my voice and I didn't try to suppress the smirk that found its way to my lips. I lead the way, albeit slowly, with Chase a half-step behind.
The smell of slightly burnt food and alcohol assaulted my nose followed almost immediately by a greeting of "Hello, Doctors" by two feminine voices as soon as we stepped foot in the door. If there was ever a clearer sign that we ate here way too often it would have to be a billboard. Chase led the way to our usual table near a window that overlooked another restaurant across the street. I sat across from him so that I could see the people coming in and observe the scene on the street. My fingers tapped lightly on the table as if it was a piano while I waited for the waitress to come take our order.
"So you're finally using some of that vacation time." He commented indifferently. He was staring out the window as well with his chin resting on the palm of his right hand, his fingers curled under his lip.
"Don't worry I'll be back to make your live miserable soon enough." I leaned back against the seat with its cracked leather and took a breath. I took comfort in the smell of burnt food and cracked leather seats because of its simplicity, its capacity to exist without having to be analyzed. They just were. There was no reason needed for the seats to be cracked or the waitress to have a pencil tucked above her ear even as she dug in her apron for a pen. It just was.
"The usual today, gentlemen, or something different?" She asked with false cheer as she tucked a stray lock of brown hair behind her free ear.
"The usual is fine." Chase answered. He folded his hands on the table and I saw him glance out the corner of his eye at the waitress as she walked away before resuming his watch out the window. "You never told me where you're going."
"Purposely, of course. There's no reason for you to know."
"It would satisfy my curiosity." He glanced quickly at me with an almost bored looked but I saw the sharp look of interest in his eye before he turned away.
No sooner had he turned his gaze to the window his shoulders tensed almost without being seen and he quickly turned to face me with an almost undue amount of attention. He rapped his knuckles once on the table and bit his lip as if deciding whether or not to say what was on his mind. "I've had a thought." He said suddenly with more animation in his voice than I had heard in a long while.
"And that thought would be?" I tried to look out the window, curious of what had given him such an idea that made him so animated but he rapped his knuckles on the table again and I found myself staring into his eyes. They were so wide and bright with sudden fervor that I found myself slightly unnerved by it.
"There's a jazz festival coming up in a couple of weeks. I had planned it out when Allison was here but, well, you know how that went, obviously. If you like, Wilson could come too." Chase sat back with lips pursed to suppress a self-satisfied smile. His quick glance outside did not go unnoticed.
I shrugged a response, wondering what was real the reason for his words but let it pass as the waitress came with our food. Curiosity prompted me to look outside where my eyes fell upon the window of the other restaurant. My own shoulders tensed and I dropped my hand onto the table with a dull thud.
It was raining and my eyesight had dimmed somewhat over the years but I knew that man in the window. He leaned to the right and propped his right elbow upon the table, a characteristic of a left-handed person. When he laughed, he leaned back a little and rubbed the bridge of his nose every few minutes. Also the disgusting yellow shirt was a dead giveaway and I knew it could only be Wilson sitting with the pretty blonde nurse, still in her lavender scrubs.
I rose from the table so quickly that I hit my thigh on the edge and the pain was so nearly unbearable that I nearly collapsed back onto the seat I ignored the pain, shoved it as far into the deepest corner of my mind as I possibly could to limp toward the door. I had to know for certain, I had to see him up close.
"House." Chase called my name before I even made it to the door but I ignored him because he knew and he lied to me. But I reasoned that I had lied to myself too. For a week and three days I had suspected but never let my thoughts rest on the possibility, never questioned his sincerity or his devotion.
Chase caught up to me a few steps from the door and not for the first time did I loathe my inability to run. In my periphery I saw him motion to the waitress to give us a minute and followed me out the door.
"House, wait a minute." He yelled over a monstrous clap of thunder.
"You bastard." I snarled, pivoting on my good leg. "You knew. That's what you were hiding today in my office and just now. I wonder, how much did he pay you to cover for him or did you do it just to make me look like an idiot?"
"I wasn't covering for him and I wouldn't want to make you look like an idiot." He said indignantly.
"Do not lie to me right now. Why are we even here? You don't even like me."
He threw up his hands and let loose a breath laced with frustration. "Why would I lie? It would be a lot more trouble than it's worth. Besides that, believe it or not, I actually do like you. Why do you think I voluntarily spend time with you? You're the only misanthropic person I know that makes life not completely miserable."
I tried to ignore him but he followed right beside me even as I crossed the street without bothering to wait for the light to turn red. Cars screeched to a halt, some inches from me, and I wished they would hit me just so I could be spared the utter desolation that was bound to come.
"What if it's not him?" Chase asked. "You can't be sure."
"You obviously thought it was him, that's good enough for me."
He stopped me at the door with a hand on my forearm. "What are you planning to do?"
"Oh, you know, break a few glasses, pull some hair. Maybe I'll even use my cane for good measure." I pulled away from his touch and went inside.
I spotted them immediately and she saw me a heartbeat later. I couldn't remember her name but then again I felt no need to. She obviously recognized me by the way she smiled and waved with bubbly good cheer and pointed me out to Wilson. He had been seated with his back to the door and twisted around to see me. The smile on his face fell and his lips parted slightly as his eyebrows rose in surprise. As I stood there, dripping wet in his shirt, I realized that this was a far more devastating blow than I had initially thought and words that I had wanted to say disappeared like paper in a fire.
"Fucking fantastic." I whispered, unaware that my hands were shaking and my eyes stung until I was back standing in the rain.
AN- I felt it right. Wilson just wouldn't be Wilson if he didn't cheat.