*It's sorta how I picture Katie on the side btw*

53. Taste The Rainbow

            While Adam swept Krislynn away to introduce her to Isla’s husband Isaac, Chase took the opportunity to apologize to his mom. Nothing could explain the weight on his chest as he approached her back at the kitchen sink, but the moment he apologized and his mother gave him a hug, relief was carried all over him. “Not matter what your beginning, you’re my son. I’ve said that and I’ll always say it Chase.”

            Chase nodded as he rubbed his palms over his mother’s back. She still smelled the same as she always did – even so far back to his memories of his childhood – and that gave him a bit of nostalgia. “I know mom. I know.”

            Lenora pulled away from their embrace, but only to give enough space in between their bodies to cup her son’s cheeks in her hands. “I can never give you your biological parents back, but I… I’ve tried very hard to…” Tears welled in her eyes and almost instantly slipped down her cheeks. “I’ve tried very hard to give you a family. I’m sorry it hasn’t been what you wanted.”

            The tears just wouldn’t stop rolling out after and Chase pulled his mother back into his arms. “That’s not true mom,” he murmured. “It’s been great. You’ve been great.” And because he wasn’t sure what else to say or do after, Chase just held her in his arms and rubbed her back. Rub. Rub. Rub.

            When she was finished crying, she dried her cheeks on the back of her hands and then wiped them on her polka dotted apron. “Well now,” she said, offering him an uplifting smile. “Where’s Krislynn? I want her to try my cookie dough before I put it in the oven.”

            Chase smirked. “Yeah, okay. I’ll go get her. She’ll love that.” Flashing his mom one more killer smile, he started out of the kitchen feeling invigorated. Even though he could hardly call his circumstance resolved, there wasn’t much he could do about it; it was an incomprehensible feeling rooted deep inside his heart. The one thing he did want to do of course, was the real reason he had stopped contact with his family for so long. He had wanted to tell Krislynn about it previously when they were out talking on the deck, but had decided against it last minute due to extreme embarrassment. If he told her, Krislynn would only laugh at him. Chase was sure of it.

            It wasn’t something she needed to be aware of anyways. It had nothing to do with her.

            Moving out into the living room, he couldn’t seem to find Krislynn anywhere, or Adam or Isaac or even Isla or Amy for the matter. The kids were there though. Ronnie and Glen were playing cards across from each other at the coffee table and little Katie was playing with some letter blocks and Barbie dolls.

            Chase made a face when he saw the young child playing happily by herself. The last time he saw her, she was only several months and now she was so big compared to over three years ago. She must be close to four if not four yet, he figured, but didn’t pay much attention to her after that brief thought.

            Instead, he leaned against the archway of the living room and nodded towards the boys. “Hey,” he shouted. No reply. “Hey! Hey, I’m talking to you. Ronnie. Glen.”

            They looked up at him expressionlessly from their game and Chase continued, “Have you seen– ” Not even waiting for him to finish his question, the two boys got back to their game.

            “Do you have a five?”

            “Go fish.”

            “Brats,” Chase muttered. This was why he hated kids. He was never going to have them. Ever!!! Heaving a huge breath through clenched teeth, he stomped into the living room, about to give them a piece of his mind. Nobody – nobody – ignores the mighty Chase Evans.

            Stomp. THUD.

            Wait. Chase made a face as he slowly lowered his gaze. What was with that thud sound earlier he just heard? That didn’t sound anything like the bottom of his feet meeting the plush carpet. In fact, he was sure he felt something underneath his right foot. Peering down, he arched in eyebrow when he found Katie splayed out on her stomach, her green eyes looking up at him big and wet. Chase studied her carefully, followed the one extended arm toward him until he reached her wrist. Then it just stopped. In fact, her hand seemed to disappear under his foot. His right foot.

            Sighing, he looked directly below him and there it was, right between his two feet – this wooden block with the letter ‘B’ on it. “Crap,” he hissed. “Crap. Shit. Damn it kid, are you okay?”

            Immediately lifting his foot off Katie’s hand, Chase kneeled down and lifted the estranged girl up and sat her down on her bum. Her cheeks – which she hadn’t lost her baby fat for – were quivering as tears rushed down and dripped onto her yellow sundress with the daisy patterns at the ends. Her light brown hair – a mix of Isla’s bright blonde locks and Isaac’s dark brown ones – was stuck onto her face because of the moisture, and her mouth was parted wide despite the fact that no sound came out of it.

            For a second, Chase was relieved, but then it happened. The silent crying was pushed to the point where she didn’t have enough air in that little body of hers, and the girl quickly parted her mouth wider, sucking in a long, rigorous breath of air before she let it all out. “WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!”

            Chase instantly covered his ears at the shrieking noise; it was so loud people half way across the world could hear it. “Uh-oh,” someone mumbled in the background, but Chase wasn’t sure who the voice belonged to at that point, Ronnie or Glen. “Auntie Isla’s gunna kill you.”

            With that little push, Chase acted right away, smacking his palms over the child’s mouth to muffle the noise. “Shut up,” he cooed. “Oh shut up, shut up, shut up. Please shut up. I’m begging you. Your mother would kill me if she knew I hurt you. Please Katie, please! Here. Here. I’ll give you fifty bucks okay? I’ll give you fifty bucks if you stop crying and don’t tell your mom.”

            Hoping the young girl would understand, Chase slowly uncovered her mouth, which had slowly turned to sobs instead of deafening wailing since he covered it, but as soon as his hand lifted, Katie automatically turned the volume back on max. “Oh my god,” he cried, covering her mouth again. “What do you want? What do you want from Uncle Chase? How about a hundred bucks huh? A hundred bucks?” He lifted his hand off her and despite the volume of the cries, quickly shuffled for his wallet before bringing out a shiny one hundred dollar bill.

            Smirking, he turned to her and waved the money in her face. “Here Katie, here. Take it sweetie. It’s yours! It’s yours!” The paper bill laid limp in the child’s hands and the crying continued until Chase couldn’t stand it anymore.

            “What do you want from me?!” He cried. “Do you want my wallet? Here, take it!” He shuffled around his pants for more things and then he got to some weird package in his back pocket. He tugged it out and then frowned at it when he remembered why he had it. On the plane hours earlier, Krislynn had made him buy her a ton of candy for the trip and he remembered getting into some petty argument with her before angrily snatching the last bag of unopened treat from her lap.

            Now he was sure his eyes must have been glowing at the sight of them. Skittles. The candy of Gods. At the sight of them, Katie’s cries immediately softened into hiccups. She stared intently at the package in his hands and Chase heaved a breath of utter happiness as he slowly turned to her. “Have you had these before Katie?”

            She nodded, followed by a hiccup.

            Chase smirked evilly. “Would you like one?”

            The girl nodded and Chase quickly ripped open the corner of the bag before pouring out a small amount of rainbow coloured delights into his palm. He took one, sucked on the pebble like candy in his mouth and then offered it to hiccupping child who was no longer crying, but whose eyes were still big and wet.

            Katie took two, one red, one yellow and Chase could hear the sound of the candy clacking against her teeth as she flicked it around with her tongue. “Do you like it?” He asked. “Is it delicious?” When she gave him a nod of approval, Chase poured the candy in his palm into hers. “Would you like the rest of the bag Katie?”

            “Yes!” She yelped, a smile on her face like she could no longer even remember the pain Chase inflicted on her moments before.

            “Okay then. It’s yours if you want it, but you can’t tell mommy I hurt you. If she asks you why you got a boo-boo, you tell her you fell, okay?”

            Katie stared at him with a confused expression, but one more glance at the pack of Skittles in his hand was enough to convince her otherwise. “Okay,” she shouted. “I fell!”

            “Good girl,” Chase cooed. “You’re definitely my favourite girl here. Uncle Chase is going to take you to Disneyland next year for your birthday, okay? Now Katie, let’s do a little test just to make sure, okay?” He cleared his voice. “Katie, were you crying earlier?”

            “Yeah!” The little girl bubbled. “I hurt-ed my hand when I was playin– ” She stopped suddenly, her green eyes shifting left and right mischievously before she continued. “Because I fell!” She shouted.

            “Good girl,” Chase cooed, proudly handing the rest of the candy to her. “What do you say?”

            “Thank you!” She shouted.

            “You are so darn adorable,” he muttered, shoving his wallet and his money back inside his pocket before drying Katie’s cheeks with his sleeve. He brushed her damp hair aside, slipped some strands behind her ear and shook his head at the simpleton. “You should have just taken the money,” he said to her. “You could have brought like, a hundred packs of them.”

            Either the girl didn’t understand him or she wasn’t even listening anymore, but somebody else did hear and did see, and she was pissed. “Chase! Did you just bribe a little girl?!”

            Chase stood up and turned to Krislynn as she stormed towards him. He smirked when he saw her despite the fact that she gave him a good ear full for his misdeed. “It’s fine,” he retorted. “Katie’s happy. I’m happy. You’re just pissed off I gave your candy away.”

            “A-hem!!!” Chase turned to the opposite direction at the cough, but had to lower his gaze in order to see Glen standing in front of him.

            “What brat?” He muttered.

            Glen opened his mouth, but paused and stared at Chase hesitantly before turning around to look at his older brother. Ronnie stood in front of the coffee table where they were playing Go Fish earlier and nodded, waving him on. “Katie may not tell Auntie Isla,” he mumbled, turning back to Chase. “But we will.”

            “What did you say?!”

            “Ha! Do it! Serves him right! Tell Isla to come and beat him up!”

            Glen cleared his throat again. “So in order to shut us up, you have to give us a hundred dollars…” He hesitated, turned back to look at his brother again, and again, Ronnie nodded and waved him on. “Each.”

            For a while, Chase’s body was paralyzed and he just stared at his nephew before reaching for his pockets and shoving two hundred bucks into Glen’s hand. “I will never – never – forget this,” he grumbled.

            When the whole transition was over and Krislynn had her fair share of boisterous laughter, she finally told him where she was for the last little while. Apparently, Jace had shown up along with his mother, Lenora’s best friend. “What?” Chase muttered. “Jace is here?”

            “Yes!” Krislynn shrieked. “And he looks so spanking in his cowboy outfit! He’s just so freaking’ adora– ” Her mouth clamped shut immediately and she rolled her eyes and crossed her arms when Chase shot her a death glare.

            “Is he here really?”

            “I don’t understand why you always look at me like that when I talk about him,” Krislynn muttered with a sly grin. “Is it because you’re jealous? You’re jealous, aren’t you?”

            Chase snorted with laughter. “Jealous? Why would I be jealous of Jace?”

            Wrinkling her button nose at him, Krislynn poked his washboard abs and made a face. “You’re jealous,” she taunted. “You totally are!”

            “I’m not!” He growled, pushing her hand away. “I’m not jealous of him okay?!”

            “Jealous of who?”

            Immediately Chase turned around and slapped Jace on the arm. “Jace! It’s nice to see you!” He shouted. “I love your… cowboy outfit.” He made face after. “Why are you wearing that anyways?”

            “Oh…” Smiling eccentrically to himself, Jace peered down at his outfit, which looked more or less like an adult Halloween costume of Woody from the Toy Story series. His glasses slipped as he looked down and he had to push it back up when he lifted his head. “I haven’t been at the farm for a while,” he laughed. “Thought I’d dress up.”

            Chase pressed his lips together and nodded. See? Why should he be jealous of Jace, but then he felt it, the moment he turned to Krislynn and saw the way she ogled him like Jace was the cutest thing. This overwhelming desire to strangle Jace invaded him and he had to shake Krislynn out of his thoughts. “Not that you’re not invited to join us for Thanksgiving Jace, but where’re are you parents? Or LaCienega? I thought… ”

            “Naturally, LaCienega is with her parents for the holidays… and my dad’s with them.”

            “And your mom’s here?” Chase asked. Jace nodded before peeking over at Krislynn. There was obviously something going on and he respected the fact that Jace didn’t want to speak to him about it in front of Krislynn so he shook his head and pulled Jace in. “Are you staying for the weekend then? Do you need help with bags or something?”

            Jace beamed at him. “Thanks Chase.”

            Chase gave him another pat on the arm. “No problem bro.”

            Thanksgiving dinner was booming, vibrant and lively, but mostly due to Ingrid, Jace’s mom, after she had one too many glasses of wine. “You know what I’m not thankful for,” she muttered. “Marrying that husband of mine! Oh lord!”

            Luckily, the kids were put to bed before then, and Chase and Krislynn went to bed soon after, both exhausted from their earlier flight. Almost as soon as Chase’s body touched the bed, he fell asleep and slept soundly until six the next morning when Isla, ever the shameless one, burst into the room screaming bloody murder. “Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!” She cried and immediately got cursed at by Chase.

            Krislynn rubbed her eyes as she sat up on the bed. “What’s going on?”

            Isla laughed. “Well, mom’s making breakfast, and you guys have a chore. C’mon, get up.”

            “But I’m still sleepy.”

            Relentless, Isla tugged Krislynn out of bed and helped her to the washroom, buying Chase a few more minutes of sleep before she returned. “Chase! You know how it works at this place. The rest of us were up at five.”

            “Just because you guys are insane doesn’t mean I have to follow you.” He grumbled, but once Isla ripped the entire blanket off of him, and the chill of the morning air hit, he was up. Almost forty minutes later, the both of them were showered and dressed, Chase in a long sleeve shirt and jeans, and Krislynn in sweatpants and a long, white sweater.

            Isla was like a military commander, lining the two of them up in front of the door before handing them a bucket with a couple of glass jars inside it. “Since we each have our own job, this morning, this will be yours. You guys will be in charge of getting the milk.”

            Chase let out a frustrated yawn, but Krislynn was wide-awake and feeling upbeat after her shower. “Oh my god cows!” She shouted. “Do we get to milk them?”

            “That’s what you’re going to be doing,” Isla beamed, obviously glad one of them was excited for the experience. “Anyways, I’m going to see if Jace is out of bed now… and maybe check to see if Auntie Ingrid is okay with her hangover so you guys get on it, okay?”

            Krislynn nodded eagerly, loving the idea of milking a cow and loving the idea of being able to put effort into breakfast that morning. Hard work, she thought, she was going to be able to eat hard work for breakfast. “I’m so pumped,” she cheered, but then frowned as Isla disappeared back up the stairs. “She didn’t show us where the cows are.”

            “I know where they are,” Chase grumbled. He was standing beside Krislynn, one hand holding his bucket, his head nodded downward, his eyes shut, trying to get back to sleep.

            “Well, let’s go,” she ushered, tugging his arm along.

            “Can we not?” He mumbled. “We should just not do it. No one is going to die if they don’t get their milk this morning.”

            “Chase! I want to do this!” Krislynn stomped one foot childishly on the ground. “Please! Plus I’ve never tasted fresh milk right out of a cow before.”

            “Well I have,” he snapped. “And it’s disgusting.”

            “C’mon! Why aren’t you pumped for this? You should be ecstatic over this. You’ll get to touch nipples won’t you?” Playfully, Krislynn elbowed him gently in the ribs, trying hard not to burst out into laughter. “I thought you love nipples.”

            Smirking, Chase opened his eyes and arched an eyebrow at her. “Depends what kind,” he said.

A/N.: This was actually only half of a chapter... But it's long and it's 1AM so I'm posting the second part as a separate chapter.... tomorrow maybe? Just bc it's the better half of the chapter so I will rush it out! Love ya guys~