Crazy Love(47)

“It’s okay. I get it. I would be the same way.”

“I mean…it’s…Chase Malone,” Amber said. It wasn’t so much a question as it was a statement, but Krista got her point.

“I know.” Krista nodded in understanding.

“Did you guys keep in touch?” Amber asked.

“One of them did,” Jessie offered. She had a habit of speaking out of turn after she’d had a cocktail or two. Her sister was a private person, but get some liquor in her and she liked to talk—at least about other people’s lives.

“He would call and text sometimes.” Krista didn’t want to make it more than it was. It wasn’t like he’d shown up on her doorstep (which she’d fantasized about happening more times than she wanted to count).

Jessie leaned forward, brushing her blond hair off her shoulder, and said in a loud whisper, “Sometimes meaning every birthday, Christmas, Valentine’s Day and their”—her sister wagged her perfectly arched brows up and down—“bow-chicka-wow-wow anniversary.”

Sometimes Krista really regretted telling her sisters everything. This was definitely one of those times.

Chelle, Amber, and Jamie all looked at each other and in unison sighed, saying, “How romantic.”

Krista had to laugh. Her cousins’ wives were like three peas in a pod. Once she started laughing, they all did.

“So, Amber, how are things at Bella?” Becca asked about the clothing store Amber owned, subtly—or not so subtly—steering the conversation away from Krista and Chase once the laughter had died down. Krista wanted to kiss her youngest sister.

As all the women jumped into discussing Amber’s newest designs, which most of them were wearing tonight, Krista took the opportunity to scope out where a certain rock star was. It was like playing ‘Where’s Waldo’—if Waldo were the sexiest man alive. She easily spotted him across the room talking to her cousins Alex, Jason, and Seth. The four men were laughing about something.

She hadn’t actually talked to him yet tonight, so she hadn’t been able to implement her new plan. At the thought of having a real conversation with him, her heart jumped in her chest and butterflies raced around in her stomach like they were Olympic runners on a track. The irony wasn’t lost on her that now that she actually wanted to have a conversation with him, he was the one keeping his distance. Several times during the night, he’d caught her staring at him or vice versa but they hadn’t yet uttered a single word to each other. Their only interaction thus far had been a nod or a smile from across the room.

Watching him now with her cousins, she got that same niggling feeling she’d gotten in the pit of her stomach after she’d spoken to Jamie in the hospital room the other day. It was the feeling of wanting more, of wanting the happily-ever-after, of wanting forever.

She could so easily picture him being her husband, and not just because she’d had hundreds of hours of playing that very scenario over and over in her head. No, it was also because he looked so comfortable with her family. That was not an easy feat. Most of the guys she’d brought around, even casually—or more accurately, always casually—had not fared so well. In fact, even Chris, who’d been friends with her cousins before she’d started seeing him, had never seemed completely relaxed around them after he and Krista had started hooking up.

Chase had never once seemed uncomfortable around anyone, including her parents, her sisters, her cousins, and her uncle. He always fit. Just like now, telling a story the guys seemed riveted to.

She watched as he used his arms to describe the size of something. His dark gray button-down shirt pulled taught around his biceps as he lifted his arm in the air. Her eyes traveled up his shoulders to his neck. God, she’d always loved his neck. Not only because when she’d kiss it he’d grow hard (or in most cases harder) instantly at the touch of her lips, (it made her feel so powerful to have that much control) but also because he would make the sexiest sounds as he breathed heavily through his nose. Just thinking about those sounds, while her eyes hungrily gazed at the exposed skin of his neck, was making her tingly in all the right—or wrong, depending on whose side you were on—places.

“Well, well, well. You must be Miss Krista.” An older man’s voice snapped her out of her lust-fogged state.

Looking over her shoulder, she saw a good-looking older gentleman smiling down at her. He wore a fedora and had a gleam in his dark brown eyes.

“I am,” Krista smiled, immediately taking a liking to the man.

“Well now, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Chip Jones. Chase’s driver.”