Page 104 of Thrown for a Loop
He waves Harp off.
Darcy slides out of the booth. “I’m going to settle up our beer tab and head out. You got this, right?” she says to Chase.
“Got what?” I demand.
Chase gives Darcy a salute, and my so-called best friend leaves me alone, drunk, with the love of my life.
Beer makes me a little melodramatic.
Chase drains his drink. “Come on. Time to go home.”
I guess he’s right, so I put on my coat and follow him out of the bar. When we get to the corner, I expect him to head west. But he waits at the light with me instead. “I haven’t forgotten how to get home, Chase. I can take it from here.”
“I’m sure you could,” he says, his voice humoring me. “But I’m walking you home anyway. Don’t fight me on this. You’re not at a hundred percent. And someone tried to hurt you today.”
“No, they tried to humiliate me. And they did a fine job.”
His expression softens. Then he reaches over and cups my chin, and I go completely still, waiting for the kiss.Finally!My heart does a happy swizzle.
But then Chase runs his thumb gingerly over the sore spot on my jaw, and I realize he is only inspecting my boo-boo from when I fell today.
Disappointment crashes through me, as well as the realization that if I were, say, 40 percent drunker, this could have been very embarrassing.
The light changes. He drops his hand, and we cross Eighth Avenue.
“You’re an amusing drunk,” he says with a chuckle. “But you used to turn down the beer I offered you.”
“Like I said—calories. Plus, I’d never evenhada beer, and I wasn’t sure I could fake it in front of the cool hockey player. I didn’t want you to know I was such a sheltered kid.”
“And yet I figured that out anyway.” He gives me a sideways glance and a smile.
I sigh. But the night air is bracing. I’m feeling more sober by the minute. “Thank you for feeding me. Again.”
“Like I always said, it’s one of my favorite things to do. There’s another reason I’m walking you home, by the way. Apart from chivalry.”
“There is?” I say hopefully.
He gives me another sideways glance. “Martina emailed us back. I’ve been too chicken to read it by myself.”
“What? You’re joking.”
He shakes his head. “I’m sure she has some more comments about my shitty technique. And, Zoe, you never quite understood this, but I’m also capable of having doubts, insecurities, and freak-outs.”
“Sureyou are,” I mutter. “So are we going to read her email together?”
“That’s the idea.”
We’re on my block already, so I pause. “Right here on the sidewalk?”
He gives me a pitying look. “If you insist. But if you invite me upstairs, I promise I’ll be a gentleman.”
That’s what I’m afraid of. “My place isn’t very well furnished.”
He turns his head to inspect the sooty bricks of my little walk-up. “Not here for the glamour, Zo. Are we going to figure out how not to embarrass ourselves, or what?”
It’s a conundrum, then. Like a bad game of Would You Rather.Would I rather humiliate myself by letting Chase see my apartment, or by skating horribly with Chase at the jamboree?
It’s awfully cold out, though, so I beckon Chase toward the building’s little front stoop, where I unlock the door.
