Elect

Chapter Thirty-four Chase

When we got home, I was torn between searching for Trace and just letting her be alone for a while. I mean, I couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror. Guilty, guilty, guilty, my conscience screamed at me.

I should have done something.

But no, I was too stuck in my own drama and jealousy.

And now my best friend was dead.

And the love of my life’s heart was broken. Damn, I wasn’t even sure if she knew where the pieces had fallen, and the worst part was, I still wanted to find every damn one and fix it—fix everything. But you can’t fix what refuses your help, and right now it seemed all Trace wanted to do was suffer.

“Chase?” Trace was walking toward me in the hallway. She looked how I felt—like shit.

“Yeah?” I put my gun on the table and met her halfway. “Have you eaten anything?”

She shrugged. Her eyes were sunken and her hair looked somewhat matted to her head. It looked like she hadn’t showered or done anything outside of staring at the wall since I’d been gone.

“Trace, you need to eat.”

She was like a ghost. If she shrugged one more time I was going to lose my shit. Instead, she did nothing. There was no expression on her face, just emptiness.

Did I get it? Hell yeah, I got it. I was hurting, too, but she was precious; she’d been everything to Nixon. What kind of person would that make me if I let her go down that road? If I let her sulk? This was about tough love—shit, she was going to hate me—but she needed to snap out of it and take care of herself. There was mourning and there was burying your soul with the one you’d lost.

She was doing the latter.

And damn if I was going to let her do it.

I grabbed her hand and dragged her down the hall.

“Chase.” She pulled against me. “What are you doing? Chase!”

Good, let her be pissed.

I dragged her into the bathroom and slammed the door. In one swift movement I had the water on in the shower. The bathroom was massive; the rain shower was one you could walk into without having to step over anything. It was the best therapy I could think of, other than getting her drunk, and I was pretty sure that would just make her suicidal.

“Get in.” I pointed to the shower. “Or so help me God I will strip you naked and toss you in there myself.”

She met my eyes. A slow-burning fire radiated from them, and then extinguished as she shrugged one last time.

“That’s it.” I grabbed her by the elbow and dragged her, literally, into the shower, both of us with our clothes on.

Once we were under the water, I held her there. Hot water ran down our faces. She tried to jerk free from my grip but I held her there. Pissed at her for not fighting—for not being strong like I needed her to be.

“Snap the hell out of it, Trace.”

Her nostrils flared, but at least she didn’t shrug.

She tried to jerk away from me again but I held her firm. She started kicking at my shins. I ignored the slices of pain radiating through my bones and yelled, “Who are you?”

“What?” She squirmed under my touch.

“Who. Are. You?”

“An Alfero,” she whispered.

“What do Alferos do?”

She said nothing.

I shook her a bit. “Damn it, Trace! What do Alferos do?”

“We fight!” she yelled and tried to push at my chest. “But I can’t. My heart, it’s broken. It’s so damn broken, I feel like I can’t breathe.” She hiccupped and struggled against me.

“Then breathe in me.” I released her and took off my soaked black t-shirt. “Breathe in my atmosphere because then at least I know you’re breathing. At least then I can hear you inhale and exhale. Trace, I can’t fix what’s been broken, and I’m not trying to take his place. God knows I can’t, no matter how badly I wish I could.”

She slumped against me and wrapped her arms around my neck, clinging onto me so tightly that I could feel her heat through her clothing.

“I’m sorry.” She sighed. “I’ll eat.”

“And what else?” I pried her away from me. “What else are you going to do?”

“Fight.”

“And why are you going to fight, Trace?” I whispered.

She took a deep breath. Water fell across her full lips. “Because that’s what he would have wanted.”

“Damn right.” I grabbed her hand and kissed it.

She gasped and then, somehow, I don’t even know how it happened, we were kissing. No—we weren’t kissing—I was devouring her.

Was it wrong to be thankful? To be so damn lost in another person that even though what they were offering were their broken and used pieces—you still grasped at them for dear life and wished that somehow if you loved them enough, those pieces would magically fuse back together?

“I’m not him, Trace,” I said against her lips.

“I know.” She sighed into my mouth. “I know.”

Our lips broke apart. Both of us stepped away from one another. Damn if it didn’t feel like a part of me was dying right along with Nixon.

She looked down.

Our relationship was going to be complicated; that much was sure. But I wasn’t letting her go—it would take an act of God for me to let her go.

“Take off your clothes.” I sighed.

“What? No! Then I’d be naked!”

I tried to hold in the laughter, tried and failed.

She swatted me with her hand and then joined in. Tears streamed down her face; I wasn’t sure if they were from amusement or just exhaustion.

“Kinda the point, Trace. I promise I can control my urges. Now take off your clothes, we’ll shower on different sides, I’ll be turned around the entire time. Even though, I have always imagined what you’d look like naked…”

“Ass.” She lifted her shirt over her head.

“Always.” I winked. “I’ll always be an ass for you.”

“How sweet.” She stepped out of the workout shorts she was wearing and stripped herself of the rest of her clothes. And as much as I was wanting to slam her against the wall, I couldn’t. Because I was pretty damn sure the last person who had seen her that way had been Nixon.

I wouldn’t take that memory away from her. I wouldn’t replace it with pieces of me—that, in my heart, would be the final betrayal, so I turned around, took off my own clothes and showered with her.

We didn’t touch again.

We didn’t mention the kiss.

And in the end. I made her laugh twice.

Which basically meant I was badass. I needed her laugh more than she realized.

Her laugh told me that even though it hurt like hell… we were going to be okay… One day, maybe not today, we would recover.