Hey, so I know everyone kind of misses the romantic vibe between the characters, and I'm sorry for not having much of it in some chapters. But I promise that in the end, I'll make up for it in a way you'll love! I swear.

But I'm totally not giving away any secrets. You'll just have to read until the very end.

November 13th 2013

Chase's Pov

I managed to go a whole day with the Jackass in three of my classes without Spike ever rearing his ugly head and screwing everything up. But, man, was it hard.

The only thing that made my day slightly better was seeing Callan laughed at for getting beat up and yelled at by a bunch of girls. And of course he didn't say anything because he was afraid that tattling on a bunch of girls have his height would make him look like a baby. (Not that the large handprint as big as my girlfriend's hand on his face made it any better.)

After school Christine and I walked home, well behind the others as we did.

"You know, we need a break," Christine suddenly exclaimed, slowing our swinging hands.

I stopped in my tracks. A break? I had enough teasing from Bree about such words to know what they meant. And I didn't like it.

"A break? You want to break-up?" I cried, startled by this. I knew the drama in our life was bad and all, but it hadn't been because of each other—or at least, not as much as it had been other people…

Christine blinked at me, what she said finally dawning on her. "Oh, God, no!" she protested, throwing her hands up. "Of course not! I meant a break like, from everything else." She leaned closer, her minty gum breath fanning over my cheek as she stood on her tiptoes. "I love our friends, but they are really good cockblocks."

I laughed, pulling my girlfriend closer and snaking my arms around her waist. "Want to have a date night?" I asked slyly, leaning my forehead against hers. "We could sneak off, have a cozy bookstore date with some coffee and maybe a movie."

She hummed, closing her eyes. I felt her small, delicate hands play with the hair on the back of my neck. "That sounds amazing," she whispered, smiling, "I can already hear that pack of Skittles calling my name."

I chuckled, placing a kiss to her lips. She was deepening it, pulling me closer, when she suddenly tore herself away from me. I made a noise wanting to protest, but she ignored me and spun around on her toes, eyes wide and bright. "Oh!" she said happily. "We should see Man of Steel! I've been dying to see that movie!"

I couldn't resist making a face. "You're obsession with Superman concerns me."

Christine rolled eyes, pecking my cheek as she started skipping down the sidewalk, her cruddy mood lifted. "Oh, Chase," she called to me, giddy. No doubt high on the promise of Skittles and Superman—her favorite combination. "Your jealousy for fictional characters I fantasize about really amuses me at times!"

"Hey! I am never jealous!"

Her laughed drifted behind me and engulfed me warmly as she continued her way down the sidewalk.

God was I in love with her.

We spent an hour or so at my house, Christine taken away from me by the girls after she proclaimed our date to them. They were knee-deep in magazines and several of Bree's Doc Martens the last time I knew. How loud they were playing Ed Sheeran annoyed me to no end, but it did no use for the more I complained, the louder the music was turned.

Seriously, at times that dude could get very depressing.

I was at the table studying (Davenport having made the lab off-limits, and the sad music and gossip only being maximum volume from my bedroom, Leo and Adam playing video games in the living room didn't seem that bad.) when Tasha came downstairs, her phone in hand.

"Oh, Chase," she called out to me. "Rem just called. She was wondering if I could give Christine a ride to the hospital to visit her father. Would you like to come?"

I slammed my Geometry book closed, marking my spot with my pencil. "Yeah, just let me gather my girlfriend."

Reluctantly I started upstairs and to the right to Bree's room. The door was closed, but I visibly winced at how loud they were playing their music. I opened the door, seeing Janelle sandwiched between Ashley and Sammie, several magazine spread out in front of them on the queen-sized bed.

Bree and Christine were lounging in beanbags near the TV, watching, by the looks of it, Teen Wolf. Rachel was nowhere to be found.

"Okay, I'm positive there were six girls the last time I saw you," I said, leaning against the doorway and making my presence known.

Bree launched a pillow at my head, which I narrowly dodged.

"Chase? Don't you dare be peeking!" Rachel's muffled voice cried from the depths of Bree's closet. There was some rustling and cursing as Rachel, hair mused and clearly frustrated, yanked on the front of one of Bree's old shirts she stole some time ago from Adam. "The last thing the world needs is an inside peeping Tom instead of one outside your window!"

"Right here, Rach," Christine commented flatly from her bean bag as she continued to flip through channels.

I smirked, walking inside the room and dragging her up. "We have to get going," I said, wrapping an arm around her waist. "Tasha is taking us somewhere."

Christine looked at me, leaning close. "Having your mom chauffeur us around?" she whispered. "How romantic."

Our lips met, coming with several protests from our unwilling audience.

"Gross!" Ashley cried, managing to clock our heads with a nearby pillow. "Get a room!"

My girlfriend pulled away, rolling her eyes and pulling me out, singing, "No funny business while I'm gone girls!"

Tasha was already in the car when we slid into the backseat. Christine immediately turned on her charm, smiling and asking polite questions about how Tasha's reporter career was doing, smiling and nodding in all the right places.

"You don't have to keep trying, you know," I whispered as Tasha droned on about a boring case of a mentally unstable man being found in a tree after being there for three days, believing he was a squirrel. "She already likes you."

Christine giggled softly, smacking my arm with her hand playfully. She had her right leg swung over mine, our hands intertwined on her lap as we rode along, on our way to the hospital.

We when we arrived, Tasha pulled up front, dropping us off before going to find a parking lot. With just a sweeping glance, I could tell that it was going to be quite a walk getting back to the car.

"Let's get this over with," Christine grumbled, leaning in to my side as we walked inside.

The kind faced nurse behind the counter smiled at us, asking for the room number and relation before giving us visitor badges to clip on to our clothes. Christine smiled in a way that looked pained, handing me mine before stalking off to the elevator. I clipped mine to the belt loop of jeans and jogged to catch up with her.

"No biting off innocent doctor's heads, yeah?" I whispered to her, hugging her from behind. In the steel of the closing elevator doors I could see the pout etched on her face. I buried my face in her hair as she punched the third floor button with more force than necessary.

"I wouldn't exactly call them innocent," she snorted, rolling her eyes at me. "But whatever."

She sunk in to my grasp as the ding went off, sharp and loud in the small space as the door slid open, signaling it was our stop.

We hurried off, starting down the hall to her dad's room, politely smiling at teddy-bear scrubbed nurses with clipboards as we past them.

"Oh God, he's still not up," Christine groaned when coming to the door, which lay open and showed all the room's contents. Which at the moment was a pale-faced man in a crisply made hospital beds with beeping machines around him.

We quietly entered the room. Christine gingerly perched herself on the edge of the seat next to his bed, taking his hand while I knelt by her side. She wasn't crying or screaming or making her face express any signs of emotions. She wiped herself to a clean slate.

Grant looked like he was sleeping. If he weren't in a hospital with an IV poking out of his then I could've believed he was just sleeping, about to wake up any minute.

Christine gripped his hand a little tighter, before standing and brushing greasy hair from his face and stomping out the door.

I sighed, looking back at Grant. Why the hell did he have to let his lover destroy his heart?

November 15th 2013

No One's Pov

That Friday, Christine saw it best to take a mental health day. In all honesty seeing her father in the hospital like that was not something she looked forward to doing every time she went to visit him, especially when idiotic doctors told her things she already knew: that it would be a while before he woke up.

She tromped through Thursday in a snappish mood, making her feel bad for putting everyone around her on edge with what her next move was going to be. After expressing that she didn't want to repeat this on Friday, Rem allowed to let her stay home and gather her bearings.

Gladly accepting this, Christine locked herself in her room Thursday night, not appearing until well after noon Friday.

Christine felt foggy and was acutely aware of little dried bits of drool on the left corner of her mouth, but slumped on the couch, pulling her quilt around herself tighter.

"Oh no," Rem clucked disapprovingly, pulling on the quilt with a rough yank. Christine, deep inside the cocoon, made a whine of protest. "You did not come all the way down here just to mope more." She lugged the loosely wrapped girl into a slouched sitting position.

Christine fought her way through the makeshift hood the quilt had made over her head, crazed pieces of hair instantly poking into the air and twisting over itself.

"The whole point of a mental health day is to mope," the brunette muttered irritably. "You can't force me into manual labor on my mental health day! It's unheard of."

Rem chuckled, smoothing the girl's hair down as she whirred her way to the kitchen. "I don't plan to, honey," she laughed, picking up the tray she'd prepared not too long before Christine had come down. "But it's also not right to eat."

Christine sighed, having no other arguments, and took the tray and balanced it on her knees carefully. Rem was still on her sweet kick and made chocolate chip cookie dough pancakes (as always, drenched in syrup), banana nut muffins, bacon, and prepared a tall glass of sugary chocolate milk on the side. Christine gratefully took in the sweet scent of it all, quickly digging in.

"Hunter called," Rem mentioned casually, making the girl perk up considerably. Christine licked her lips, sticky with food and chocolate milk as syrup dribbled down her chin.

"Wha he sa?" Christine asked through a large bite of banana nut muffin.

Rem shook her head, reaching for a dampened rag to wipe at the girl's chin. "Nothing much. He said that his producer was letting him free today and he'd stop by later."

Christine leaned back, thinking about this. It wasn't that she didn't want to see Hunter; she often enjoyed when he visited considering that he rarely stopped by Mission Creek anymore because of being dragged all over California. But with how unpredictable her moods have been lately, not to mention him being the one who found her father collapsed in the first place, it made her anxious about how this could go.

It didn't help that things have been rocky between them ever since she and Chase said their first I love you's to each other.

She took another huge bite of food, stalling. After washing it down with the rest of chocolate milk, she finally said, "Okay, what time did he say?"

Two hours later Christine was dressed, brushed, and anxiously shifting herself on her spot perched on the couch. Her hands kept fidgeting, tugging at her black yoga pants and old Taylor Swift concert T-shirt.

"I hate when you do that," Rem scolded not unkindly as she whirred into the room, gently setting the girl's fast-moving hands on her lap. "It always sets me on edge."

Christine let her eyes bounce around the room, her fingers itching to yanking on her sloppy side braid. So nervous, she jumped when Hunter's signature knock came from the door.

"Oh God, he's here," she said, "God, he's early. Damn him and his impeccable timing."

Rem chuckled, beginning her retreat from the room. "Quit stressing, he's only a boy."

Christine stood on shaky legs and started toward the door, opening it slowly. "Hey, Hunter," she greeted quietly, ducking her head shyly.

Damn, had things really been this awkward between them? Or was her paranoia just making it worse in her head?

Hunter smiled down at her with ease. "Hey, Chris, how's life treating you?" he asked, easily slipping past her and making himself at home.

Christine sighed, suddenly feeling extremely worn. "Took a mental health day," she said, shaking her head, "but it didn't help much."

"Ah, that sucks," Hunter sympathized. "Seen your boyfriend lately?"

"We planned our next date and went to the hospital yesterday—man was that depressing," she shared, leaning back in the Lay-Z-boy and crossing her arms.

Hunter stretched out on the couch, raising his eyebrows at the petite brunette across from him. "Planning a date is depressing?"

Christine, despite her off mood, smiled at him, reaching over to swat at his leg. "Shut up, you know what I mean."

For a while, they caught up. Hunter told her about how crazy and on edge his management was being lately, and how he found the deadline for his new EP album to be ridiculous.

Meanwhile, Christine laughed at his stupid jokes and spilled about the recent discoveries their team had made—including the details about what Callan did to her.

"The bastard," Hunter growled, enraged to hear this.

Christine attempted to calm him down with what she had told herself a couple days ago. "Now, Bree doesn't know for sure what she saw, but she's almost positive that he didn't actually…you know…"

"But are you sure?" Hunter retorted, looking at his best friend with concern. "Are you positive he didn't? Boys are hormone-induced beasts waiting to jump on their prey, Chris, you can't be for sure he left you alone in that way."

Christine looked at her socks thoughtfully. "It hurt, Hunter," she said softly, "when we did it. But when I woke up at home—dad said he brought me—I felt fine. I didn't hurt. And that pain doesn't wear off for at least a day or two. I would've felt it."

"Should we tell?" Hunter suddenly asked quietly, looking at her solemnly. "Doesn't Chase deserve to know?"

Christine looked at him, blinking as she studied him. "Do you think he can handle it?" she asked.

"He'll have to."

Later, after planning on how they were going to gently tell Chase of their sexual past, Christine nervously led the way up the driveway to the Davenport residence. Hunter had been there before, on very few occasions, but it always struck him how big the inventor's house was.

Licking her lips, Christine rapidly knocked for a second before stiffly lowering her hand to her side.

Bree answered the door, much to her relief.

"Hey, guys!" she greeted cheerfully, seeming wide awake and freshly rested. She held a bowl of grapes in her hand, a bottle of water held carefully under her arm. She moved aside, letting them in. "What's up?"

"Hey, champ," Hunter said, ruffling her hair. Bree rolled her eyes, reaching up with her free hand to fix the strands that had fallen into her face. During the summer she finally got over the fact of Christine actually knowing the Hunter Hayes and found him nearly as annoying as her brothers were.

"How's the head," Hunter asked as he and Christine sat down.

Bree shrugged, popping a grape in her mouth as she made her ways to the stairs, no doubt going to her room. "You know, still feeling a little crazed, but that'll never fade." She gave them both a smile before hollering on her way up, "CHASE! YOU HAVE VISITORS!"

"God Bree, I'M RIGHT HERE!" They could hear Chase shout as his sister as they crossed paths in the hallways. His footfalls paused, probably having stopped to bicker with Bree more before he continued descending the stairs.

Chase smiled his boyish charm at them, taking a seat in the orange chair across from the couch. "Hey, what can I do you for?"

Christine took in a deep breath, taking her time with slowly letting it out. "We have something to tell you."

"And I don't think you're going to like it," Hunter added.

Chase remained silent, nodding and showing they had his attention in all the right places throughout the entire time Christine shakily relayed the story to him. She explained how, when she was fifteen and Hunter seventeen, they took the ultimate step and were each other's first.

For the most part, Christine thought he was doing incredibly well.

"So, Chase?" she laughed nervously, hands reaching up to mess with her braid, "anything to add?"

He leaned back, looking at the ceiling. He did that for a long time.

Such a long time Christine unfortunately didn't see the twitch underneath his eye and jaw, or how his eyes suddenly darkened to the fierce color of steel.

"Chase?" Christine said again, startled as he suddenly jumped to his feet, his chest heavily rising. She could understand him being upset, but he knew how to contain himself. Her boyfriend was the model child for self-control. Where was that side of him when she needed him?

He stalked toward Hunter, muscles tense, red creeping up his neck and resting on his face as he grabbed the boy's shirtfront.

"Hey man, calm down and let's just talk," Hunter tried to reason.

He received a powerful growl in his face, loud and low. "I don't want to just talk!" roared Chase, his voice suddenly deeper and his strength tripled as he toss him rough into the wall.

Christine watched, stunned as her boyfriend landed harsh fists into her best friend's stomach, making him crumple to the floor as his face banged against the floor's surface.

"Stop! Chase, knock it off!" She finally jumped into action, trying meekly to keep his fists from moving by yanking on his arms.

He easily shook her off, having the physical advantage and swung around, looking even more furious than before.

"Chase, stop it! Please."

Christine tried to get around him to Hunter, who was looking bent of shape with the river of blood running of his mouth and the odd angle his wrist was laying at. Not to mention the large bruises around his left eyes or the limp way his leg laid.

Chase blinked feeling confused as his angry faded, leaving him left with a deep feeling puzzlement. He slowly sat down on the couch, taking in the way his girlfriend hovered over the horribly injured country star lying unconscious on the floor, then looking at his hands. He took in the feeling of how sore they felt, like connecting with bone.

It was then Bree chose to grace them with her presence, her grape bowl now empty.

"Well, damn," she sighed.

I hope that was enough romance to keep you satisfied. I didn't plan for it to be this long or take forever, but I promise I'll try to work harder on getting the next one done.

But for now, I must rest because writing so much moodiness into a chapter is mind-boggling for me.