“What's the matter?” he asked, moving like he was going to put his hand on my thigh.
I scooted away, noticing his severe frown and completely disregarding it. I needed to get my shit together. I was acting like some middle school girl with a crush on the boy a grade higher because he smiled at her once. I wasn't that girl. I needed to get some space between us to remember that.
“Nothing,” I said, feeling my guards slip back up. My back straightened, my nerves surfaced, not strong, just powerful enough to keep reminding me that I needed to keep my wits about me. At least if I was ever with him outside of his office.
“Don't lie, Ava,” he scolded, but it was soft, almost sad. “If you don't want to tell me, that's fine. But don't lie.”
“Fine,” I said, snapping my menu, and turning my head to him. “I don't want to talk about it.” But my sharp tone and glare didn't have the effect it usually did, and he was chuckling slightly, shaking his head. “What?” I asked, unable to stop myself.
“Kitty has claws,” he murmured as the waiter came back to take our order.
Where I had originally had my eyes on the huge heaping platter of baked ziti that sounded like heaven on Earth, my little realization stole away the better part of my hunger and I just ordered a Caesar salad, knowing I was only going to pick at that too. Chase ordered my ziti and I felt unreasonably annoyed by that.
“Alright,” he said, taking a sip of his wine, then turning his attention back toward me. “What happened?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, feeling on edge. Because when he got that tone, that 'I'm a licensed psychologist and you can't bullshit me' tone, I knew I was in for it.
“Well, each step you took from the car to the booth, you got more and more tense. And then, sitting here, staring at that menu but not actually reading it, you got positively ramrod straight. Something was going on in that head of yours.”
“Are we on my time right now?” I blurted out, my tone still cold.
“Your time?”
“Yes, my time. Like... is this part of the whole... experience?”
His eyes got darker, imperceptible if I hadn't been watching him so closely. “What? No.”
“Then maybe you shouldn't be trying to analyze me.”
One of his brows lifted. “I'm not trying to analyze you, Ava. I am trying to understand why you are looking at me like I am suddenly a different person,” I opened my mouth to object, but he cut me off. “A person you hate.”
“I don't hate you,” I said immediately, and meaning it. I meant it. I didn't hate him. If anything, I liked him way too much for someone who I was paying to be nice to me. And that was the problem. I hated myself for liking him when I knew nothing he said was personal. He wasn't courting me. He was coaching me. There was such a huge difference that it made me sick that I had been confusing them for each other.
“There. Right there,” he said, watching me. “What are you thinking to make you look at me like that?”
“Maybe it's just my face,” I said, smirking, trying to guide the conversation away because it felt like it was heading toward a confrontation, and I did not handle those well.
“No, your face is soft and sweet and gorgeous enough to launch a thousand god damn ships,” he objected. “Why won't you talk to me?”
“Do you do this to everyone?” I countered, watching him, suddenly very curious.
“Do what to everyone?”
“Try to brow beat them into telling you what they are thinking. Not all our thoughts are meant to be shared, you know.”
“I'm not...” he started, looking away from me and I could see the muscle in his jaw ticking in his tension. He let out a loud, long exhale, shaking his head, then turning back to me. “Okay. We are just going to let that go. All of it. Time for a subject change.”
He left it at that, making it clear it was my job to come up with the new topic. Which I sucked at, but anything was better than trying to continue that awful discussion. “Do you have any siblings?” I went with, cursing myself.
“Ten or fifteen close ones.”
“Wait... what?” I blurted out, half choking on my wine.
He offered me a humorless smile. “I was in and out of foster care most of my life. One year with my mother, then they would decide she wasn't fit again and pull me out, throw me into another home with other foster kids. You cling to them when you're young and confused. I've kept in touch with a lot of them.”
In and out of foster care? It was hard to imagine Chase young and powerless, but he had been. And I had been in that job, watching kids get ripped away from their families and thrown into the shitholes that were foster homes (often no better than the houses they were being pulled from). I knew how awful an experience that must have been for him. What was wrong with his mother that he needed to be taken away from her so often?
“You can ask me, Ava. I have no secrets.”
“Why did you keep getting taken away?”
“My mother was bi-polar. She didn't know that. I didn't know that. The social workers didn't know that. All they knew was that she would drown it in bottles or at the bottoms of pill bottles, or even, later, in needles. And because of all that, she would forget to clean my clothes or buy food for me for days or weeks at a time.”
“Oh, Chase,” I said, my voice sad, my hand going out to rest on top of his.
“Don't feel sorry for me, princess,” he said softly. “I wasn't abused. And the school fed me when I was there. I had it a lot better than a lot of the kids I got to know in the system.”
He looked down at my hand, turning his underneath it and lacing my fingers in through his. I looked up at him, knowing without a doubt, that my heart was in my eyes, because all I could think about was poor little Chase hungry and dirty and in need of someone to take care of him. He looked back at me with what I could only describe as wonder...
And then our plates were dropped down on the table, making me automatically pull my hand away... like we had been doing something obscene. I thanked the waiter, pulling my bowl toward me and focusing on it like my life depended on doing so.
“Are you going to eat or just keep pushing the lettuce around?” Chase asked, sounding amused.
I stabbed an enormous fork full and shoved the contents into my mouth, licking my lips slightly. “Happy?” I asked, trying to chew and struggling with how much I had jammed in my yap.
But it was worth it to watch Chase throw his head back and laugh like a little kid. The sound so happy and amused that it made my belly flip flip again.
He reached out with his thumb, brushing my lips. I imagined, wiping some stray dressing. Then he brought his thumb to his mouth and licked it off and I mean...
Panties. Soaked.
Then a slow, knowing smirk toyed at his lips. “Having some dirty thoughts, huh?” he asked.
My eyes flew down to my food. “You wish,” I tried, knowing it was juvenile, but not caring.
“Damn straight I do.”
I let that one slide, focusing on my salad which was great, but it wasn't what I really wanted. My eyes kept drifting over to his plate, cheesy and saucy and so good smelling it was practically orgasmic.
The next thing I knew, there was his fork in front of my face. My eyes went to his and he was smiling. “Go on. I know you want to.”
And I did.
So I did.
We ended up sharing both plates, me eating more of his ziti than he did, but he didn't complain. We talked casually about his college years, skirting around the topic of sexual surrogacy. We talked about my family. Safe, tame topics.
Then, too soon, he was driving his car and parking it next to mine, getting out and opening my door for me.
There was silence, words needing to be said, but both of us reluctant to say them for our own reasons.
Chase's hand reached for my face then let his hand fall, sighing hard. “Monday. Seven,” he told me, getting into his car and, once I got in my car, he pulled quickly away.
Monday. Three and a half days away. Which was good. Or, at least, I tried to convince myself of that. I needed space. I needed to get a hold of myself.
As I drove home, stopping at a red light, I had a realization that felt like a kick to the gut.
I didn't ask him before he left so I didn't know what the hell the next session was.
No fucking idea.
Which was just wonderful. I could spend the entire weekend freaking out about that. Now that naked was the thing, I was sure it would be the thing again. And with naked... came other things. But what other things? I had no idea. So there was no way to prepare. There was nothing I could except but work myself into knots about it. Which was just lovely.
Third Session
Alright. Monday was a bitch. There's really no other way to put it. After a weekend of Jake telling me to chill the fuck out, I was no more... chilled out. Actually, I was just frazzled nerve endings and sleeplessness, walking around my office jumping when anyone brushed against me, but at the same time...in a weird sleep-deprived fog.
“Yo,” Shay said, snapping in my face. “What the fuck girl?” she asked, lifting up the edge of her lips in... disgust, that was really the only way to put it. Shay was a lot of things, not the least of which is blunt. She's six feet of gorgeous, flawless dark skin, her crazy long hair twisted into dreadlocks and pulled back into a huge ponytail at the base of her neck. Shay's father was a veteran. And her uncle. One of her brothers. Seven of her cousins.