A hug and a kiss to Moooon for the neat little trailer she made me! ^_^ It made me laugh - sorta like the feeling you get when you see yourself on national TV and its sorta weird, but amazing at the same time. hahaha

35. How’s Friday Night?

The cardigan advertised on the billboard along the side of the road reminded Chase of Krislynn. It couldn’t be helped. She had a shirt just like it.

The car next to his when he stopped in front of the intersection reminded him of Krislynn. That couldn’t be helped either. It was blue – the color of her eyes.

The sun was like her smile. The breeze was like her touch. The setting sky was like her hair. The ocean. The buildings. The palm trees. The clouds. The stoplight. The street signs. There was nothing that didn’t remind him of her. Even the lyrics pumping out of his convertible’s stereo:

I was thinking about her

Thinking about me

Thinking about us

What we gonna be?

Open my eyes (yeah)

It was only just a dream

Everything reminded him of her.

The problem Chase was facing though was the realization that none of it should remind him of her. The sun was nothing like her smile, the breeze was nothing like her touch, and the color of the setting sky was nowhere close to the color of Krislynn’s hair. The ocean. The buildings. The palm trees. The clouds. None of it had any striking resemblance to her at all, yet object after object, his mind seemed to draw the same conclusion – Krislynn – and then after that, the kiss in the laundry room.

Even more frustrating were the lyrics coming out of the car stereo. Chase couldn’t even begin to comprehend it. For starters, he was pretty sure it was a love song – not exactly the way he was feeling or wanted to be feeling towards Krislynn in the first place, and even beyond that, the song was about a man who lost the woman he loves to someone else. If anything, the song should remind him of LaCienega.

But it didn’t.

It reminded him of Krislynn.

A billion thoughts infiltrated his head. Why did every object remind him of her? Why did he kiss her on impulse in the laundry room? Why did her face appear when he was listening to a sad love song? And then, his heart stopped as one single answer flooded his mind, and then another question proceeding right after it. Did he... Could he... actually like her?

Chase’s lungs constricted. His heart hammered so loudly inside his chest, he wasn’t sure which beat –the music or his heart – was the one he was listening to.

I was thinking about her

Thinking about me

Thinking about us

What we gonna be?

“Oh shut up,” he screamed as he angrily turned off the stereo. “What the hell do you know Nelly! You know nothing about that shit!”

The lights at the intersection promptly turned green and Chase pressed his foot to the accelerator. Skilfully, he kept one hand on the steering wheel as he sped down the freeway, gingerly touching his forehead with the other.

Much to his disappointment, he wasn’t suffering a high fever that was causing him to have mild hallucinations, and he was sadly forced to go back to his first assumption. He liked her.

But he couldn’t have! It was such an impossible task!

He liked girls that understood high society – girls that could really appreciate a Versace dress, a pair of Jimmy Choos and an expensive meal downtown accompanied with their favourite wine. Krislynn on the other hand, appreciated trees, and ate organic crap for dinner. Then she kept her leftover organic crap and stored it in Tupperware for the next day. “Lunch,” she’d tell him.

Even just the memory made him cringe, but it oddly brought a smile to his face at the same time.

Shaking his head, he wiped the grin off his face and forced himself to continue with his reasoning. Besides Krislynn’s chaotic personality, her embarrassing country bumpkin habits, and her haphazard fashion sense, her looks were also way below his expectations. There was nothing wrong with the way she looked, but she was certainly no LaCienega. Heck, she wasn’t even Michelle.

Chase nodded, satisfied with his logic. He just didn’t look twice at girls like her so it was impossible for him to have any romantic feelings towards her. But then, if that wasn’t it, why was he thinking about her so much? Why did he kiss her?

He frowned, and then caught his reflection in the review mirror. Suddenly, he got it – why he kissed her. It all made sense!

***

Krislynn angrily kicked over the laundry basket full of clean clothes when the epiphany hit her. “How?!” She screamed. “When?!” Her eyes widened with shock as a more important question came to mind. “WHY?????”

She paced around the laundry room in downright shock, the sound of her heart thumping violently like a tumour inside her head. How could she have fallen for such an obnoxious guy like Chase Evans? This was completely unlike her! She didn’t like guys like him. She liked guys who were more humble about themselves and had an outrageous amount of problems and flaws. She liked to help them – fix them!

She paused and nibbled on her lower lip. There was absolutely no way she could ever like Chase!

But wait! Wasn’t the fact that Chase was so obnoxious a flaw? And his narcissism – that repulsive habit he had with bragging about how amazing he was – wasn’t that a flaw too? Throw in the fact that he was totally gorgeous and had no physical flaws whatsoever – wasn’t that the biggest flaw of all time?!?!

Krislynn’s face instantly morphed into a horror show. Her reasoning sort of made sense, but it also sort of didn’t at the same time. She couldn’t wrap her head around it, and finally decided she would sleep it off, having been completely defeated by her obscene logic.

After quickly cleaning up the laundry room, Krislynn found herself snuggled comfortably in her bed upstairs. She stayed still underneath the covers, holding the panda bear she got from Jace close to her body, but her mind didn’t think about Jace once. Her thoughts were plastered everywhere inside her head like a picture of a bloody crime scene. She wondered about the tiny crack over her head on the ceiling of her room, to the brand of cologne Chase had on tonight, to whether a person can die from their heart beating too fast. Wasn’t that the same thing as a heart attack? Was she having a heart attack?

For hours, she twisted in her bed and developed thoughts in her head. Most of them were random and insignificant, but through the lot, she had managed to grasp two important concepts. The first one was that it didn’t matter why or how it happened – she had feelings for Chase. Krislynn was positive of it. The second, probably the more important concept of the two, was that she could never tell him how she really felt. The reason was simple. Krislynn had promised Chase she wouldn’t develop feelings for him, and even though she had already broken it, she was determined to uphold it to at least some degree.

Krislynn had no idea how long she stayed in bed contemplating for, but at the dot of ten, Chase came home and knocked on her door with such urgency that she didn’t feel like answering him. “Krislynn, are you awake? I need to talk to you!” She turned to her side quietly – listened. “Open the door if you’re still awake. We need to talk.”

She continued ignoring him, and his soft knocking gradually grew louder and more annoying until he stopped all together and starting kicking the base of her door. “Open the door!!!”

“Shut the frick up,” she screamed, sitting up on her bed with irritation. “Can’t you tell I wasn’t awake the first few times you knocked on the door?!”

“It was just a form of speech,” he replied, not a trace of guilt in his voice. “I didn’t really care. Besides, were you actually asleep?”

“That’s not the point.”

“Exactly what I thought. Your lights were on the whole time. Open the door. I need to talk to you. It’s about...” His voice softened. “...what happened earlier in the laundry room today.”

At the mention of the unspeakable event, the atmosphere instantly grew tense. Inside her room, Krislynn flustered from the memory. “Can’t we talk about it tomorrow?” She murmured.

“No. I want to talk about it tonight.”

“Why?” She complained.

“Because I don’t want to leave it the way it is now.” He grumbled childishly before giving the door another kick. “And also because it’s important.”

She frowned and then sighed. “Fine. Come in.”

“Open the door then.”

“It’s unlocked.”

There was a long pause on the opposite side, and then the doorknob slowly turned and Chase walked in, his face scrunched up in a scowl. “Seriously?” He grunted. “This whole time! It was unlocked!”

 Krislynn made a silly face at him. “Should you really be surprised that you’re an idiot?”

He responded with a glare. “Be serious for a minute alright?” He looked nervously around the room before deciding to have a seat on the edge of her bed. “I’m not here to argue with you. I just want to talk about what happened earlier. Why I kissed you.”

Krislynn gripped her panda bear tighter around her arms as if it would somehow lessen the icy slash of her words. “Isn’t it just because you were horny and I was available?” She rolled her eyes. “Come on Chase. This is you we’re talking about. Why else would you kiss me?”

For a second, he was lost for words, but then the truth came tumbling out and it was just as she had expected. “Well, at first I had some pretty messed up theories, but eventually, I came to the same conclusion,” he murmured. “Still, I was going to word it nicer. Now I just seem like a total jackass.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ve never thought of it as anything more than that.” She shrugged casually before putting on a smile for him. “Besides, I know you still like LaCienega and I’m only here as a distraction for you.”

“That’s exactly it.” Chase nodded his head vigorously, his eyes lighting up with excitement. “This is the other thing I wanted to talk to you about.” He paused, as if for effect. “Technically, you’re my girlfriend right?”

“Well, yeah, I guess.” She narrowed her eyes at him, unsure where he planned on to take their conversation.

“So then technically, it’s not wrong for me to kiss my girlfriend, right?”

Krislynn made a face. “Yeah... I guess.”

“So then technically, it’s totally okay for me to kiss you right?” Chase crossed his arms and stood in front of her proudly as if he had just explained to her his newest prize winning discovery. “Right?”

“Noooo!” Krislynn squealed. “That does not make it okay for you to kiss me!”

“But you’re my girlfriend!”

“Only in name!” Krislynn buried her face in the back of the panda bear’s head and muffled a laugh. “I mean, I know I’m playing the role of your girlfriend here, but my job is only to be your date for social events or when you’re hanging out with Jace so you don’t have to be a third wheel because LaCienega is always there. It’s not like we’re actually dating or anything!”

He gave her a dumbfounded expression. “So then... what you’re saying here is, if, let’s say, we were dating... It’d be okay for me to kiss you.”

She stared back at him with equal stupidity. “No!!! Why are you so caught up in this anyways? I’m not mad about what happened in the laundry room. Does it really matter whether it’s okay for you to kiss me or not?” She paused before peering shyly up at him. “Do you want to kiss me?”

“And what if I said yes?” It took one glance for him to pierce her eyes and locked them in place. “What would you say if I said yes?”

Krislynn hesitated and pushed a few loose strands of hair behind her ears. “I would say that you’re an idiot.” She teased and Chase instantly responded with a lopsided grin.

“But that’s not something you should be surprised about, is it?” Almost in a boyish manner, Chase stuffed both hands inside the pockets of his pants. “So then how about it? A date. Friday night.”

“You don’t even like me.” As much as Krislynn wanted to hide her disappointment, it echoed out of her every word. “You’re only up for this because you’re selfish and finally realized you’re a horn-dog and you can’t go on without fooling around with someone. There’s nothing in it for me.”

He shrugged. “Are you sure? I thought this through, you know. Judging from your personality, if you didn’t like kissing me, you would have pushed me away and kicked me in the crotch within the first four seconds.” A cocky smile spread across his face. “You kissed me back Krislynn.”

She made a face. “I’m not going to have sex with you Chase.”

“But how about other stuff?” He smirked. “Would you do other stuff?”

Krislynn couldn’t help but laugh as her cheeks lit up in flames. She wanted to say no, but she couldn’t find the strength to lie to him. “Maybe,” she said.

He laughed. “See, as far as I’m concerned, there’s no problem with this at all. You like kissing me. I like kissing you. There doesn’t have to be a reason for anything. We don’t have to feel anything for each other. We could just have fun.”

He looked at her expectantly, and Krislynn realized it was nothing more than what she always did with every other boy she had ever met. They came to her because they got along and she was available, and she went along with it because she thought they were cute and knew their relationship wouldn’t last. She always figured as soon as she fixed them up and put on the last Band-Aid, they’d leave her, and secretly, she preferred it that way. Her heart didn’t have the strength for them to stay.

This was exactly the same thing. A relationship built completely out of comfort rather than feelings.

She sighed and knew she would end up running at his pace no matter how hard she tried not to. “But what would we even do on a date?” She asked. “Have you even been on a real date where you’re not trying to hurry dinner so you could get laid after?” 

Chase looked down at his feet and smirked.

“Oh good God,” she said.