Falling For A Criminal

Falling For A Criminal - Chapter Fifteen

A few hours had passed since my kiss with Haydn, and I hadn’t seen him since. For some reason, kissing me set something off in him because as soon as we stopped, he stormed out of the house and he has yet to come back. Chase keeps coming in to check on me—which I don’t understand because nothing all that big really happened—and he even helped with the bruise on my face.

Apparently, when he was younger, his mom would put cotton balls in white vinegar and then rub them over the bruises to make them lighter. The bruise isn’t completely gone, but at least I don’t look like I was abused in a street fight anymore. Don’t get me wrong, it still hurts like crazy, but at least I look a little presentable now, though, I with I could say that about my clothes.

Chase ‘accidentally’ spilled vinegar on me when he came in, so I had no choice but to change into the clothes he gave me—and I really couldn’t call them clothes because they barely covered my body. The smallest part of the outfit would be the ‘shorts’, and those were accompanied with an extra large t-shirt that just barely reached my mid-thigh. Since I showered and washed my hair before getting dressed, my hair was lazily cascading down my back and if anyone knew any better, they’d think I was trying to impress Haydn! I could barely tolerate him, so why try to impress him?

‘Because you like him. . .’

Stopping what I was doing, I looked up at the ceiling and blew out a sigh. Yeah, I kissed him, and yeah, at the time, I liked it, but now that I think about it, I couldn’t even have a stable relationship with Haydn. He and I were too different to even maintain a friendship, so even considering a relationship was crazy! It has nothing to with class or money or anything like that, but Haydn is. . . Complicated.

Still completely lost in my thoughts, I hadn’t noticed that the door had been opened and someone walked in until the person cleared their throat. Looking up, I saw Chase staring at me with a strange look in his eyes, and it caused me to raise a brow. He gave me strange looks all of the time, but this one was kind of different. ‘He’s probably drunk.’ Sitting up from my spot on the bed, I crossed my legs Indian-style and looked at him. “Do you need something, Chase?”

“Um,” he scratched the back of his head, “not really. I just don’t want to drink alone.” Holding up a bottle of what looked like Whiskey, he smiled sheepishly at me and began to walk over. “Since Haydn is gone and my girlfriend isn’t here, you should drink this with me.”

I didn’t know how to answer him.

I wasn’t one of those girls who went to church every Sunday and found everything fun to be sinful, but I wasn’t some teenage alcoholic either. Sure, I’ve had an occasional drink here and there—who hasn’t?—but I was still unsure. Two drunken teenagers alone in a house is kind of asking for trouble.

Of course, when I looked up at Chase’s face and saw that he was giving me a somewhat drunken puppy face, I couldn’t help but give in. ‘He already drugged me; what’s the worse that can happen?’

Taking a deep breath, I nodded and stood up from the bed, following Chase out of the room and down the hall to the small living room. I didn’t really get a good look at it the first time around, but now that I’m actually getting a good look, it looks pretty cozy. There were two black couches—one against the wall and one with its back facing the other wall that lead into the kitchen—a coffee table with a glass top, a flat screen hanging off of the wall and several video game consoles were on the floor. A small rectangular carpet was underneath the table, and all in all, the room seemed pretty nice; a home-y feeling that I never felt at my own house.

The air conditioner was on full blast—which I didn’t understand since it was freezing cold outside—and I guess even in his drunken state, Chase noticed that I was cold because he ran into the room and took a blanket off of the bed to give to me. Once we were settled on the couch, he handed me the bottle of whiskey, which I reluctantly took, and held it in my hands for a second. Even with it in my lap, I could smell how strong the substance inside the open bottle was, and it made my eyes water. “Do I really have to drink this-?”