Chapter 22

CHASE

“Party is over!” The music cuts off. “Party is over, everyone out!” I can hear how pissed the guys are.

I turn my attention to Natalia. “What the hell is your problem? The fuck did you kiss me for?”

“Oh, come on. Don’t act like you didn’t enjoy it. If that bitch never walked in here, you would have taken it a bit further, you always do.” She tries to wrap her arms around my neck, but I take a step back.

“Stop it, Nat. I don’t want you anymore. I don’t want you.” I run my fingers through my hair. She is frustrating the hell out of me. I don’t know what her problem is, and I don’t care to figure it out.

Like she keeps pushing herself on me, and I never wanted to choke a female before, but she is pushing my limits here.

“You don’t mean it.” She pouts.

Vincent walks into the kitchen with Austin right behind him. Vincent’s face is screwed up and he is giving me the mean mug. Yup, he is pissed as well.

I know what the guys expected of me when it comes to Charlotte, and I totally respect that. Each one of them had a talk with me over the last few months regarding her.

The message was clear across the board with them: if I get with her, stick with her. Don’t break her heart or lead her on. Something I promised I wouldn’t do.

I love Charlotte and always have since we were young. She was and still is the most beautiful woman I have ever met.

“Natalia, the party is over you need to leave,” Vincent says through gritted teeth.

“Chase doesn’t want that. Right, Chasey-Pooh?”

“I don’t give a fuck what Chase wants at the moment. You need to leave now.”

“And if I don’t?” She raises her eyebrow at him, challenging him.

“Nat, don’t do this, just leave. You’re only making yourself look ridiculous.” I tell her, shaking my head.

“You know you don’t want me to go. That kiss alone told me all I needed to know.”

Dove walks into the kitchen shaking her head. “Good God Nat, how pathetic can you be? He doesn’t want you, and it’s clear no one wants you here.

“How about you leave or a certain photo from the Slivermist sleepover will get out? I would hate for the campus to see you that way. Wouldn’t you?”

I’m not a fan of Dove at all, but this time I am thankful for her. She had her way with the people on campus. She knew everything, and that was one of the reasons I didn’t like her.

She knew a lot but never offered up any information if it didn’t benefit her, and also because she screwed over Vincent last year.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be? Like behind bushes fucking someone?” Natalia asks. The guys and I are taken aback by what she just asked.

“Who the fuck is fucking behind bushes when we have all these dorms? Dove, who the fuck have you been fucking?”

Everett looks so baffled and offended at once. “Listen, I don’t like you, but you deserve better than a bush fuck. Just saying.”

“Look,” Vincent cuts his ass at Everett before staring at Natalia. “You have got to go. No one wants you here. I’ll let Dove show you out.”

“My pleasure, baby.” Dove winks at him and walks toward Natalia.

“If you touch me, I will slap the hell out of you.” Natalia’s voice is sharp and hard.

Dove doesn’t even flinch. These two always had it out for one another. It was a girl thing to me. Dove doesn’t like Candace and Denver, and since Natalia is best friends with them, she gets thrown into it, as well.

I thought we all graduated high school, but nope, it’s like wherever you go there is always a little bit of high school lingering.

“I wish you wou—” says Nat.

“You know what? This is too fucking much for me. Natalia, I don’t want to be with you. I don’t want you in my life anymore. What we had was fun. I love Charlotte. I want to spend my life with that woman, and you are fucking it up.

“Tonight, I will be upstairs with Charlotte making sweet love to her and you will not be a thought. Let me be clear once again. I don’t want you!” I snap. “Now fucking leave.”

She cuts her eyes at me, and I see the wheels in her head turning. “You know what?” She pauses, shaking her head.

“You are willing to throw me away for some virgin. Charlotte isn’t as innocent as she claims she is. She is a bitch in every sense of the word. A lying, dirty bit—”

The slap comes as a shock to us all. Natalia’s head turns to the right due to the impact, and Dove stands there slowly dropping her hand to her side.

“I’ve told you more than once, Natalia Cumbler, my bite is much more deadly than my bark. You might want to leave now, and you can tell Denver and Candace what happened here. I would love to have a chat with those two as well.

“You Aspendove bitches are really starting to bug me.”

“You fucking bitch.” Natalia lunges for her, but I get to her quicker.

“Vincent, take Dove out of here,” I say as Natalia is clawing at my arms to let her go. “Now.”

Vincent picks Dove up, tossing her over his shoulder. “Come on, little firecracker. I think it’s time for you to call it a night.” I hear his footsteps going up the stairs before the slamming of his bedroom door.

“Natalia, let’s go.” I walk her to the door and usher her out. “Don’t come back here. Stay with Wolf.”

“Wolf?” She looks at me as if she has been caught red-handed.

“Yeah, you know what I am talking about. Have a nice life.”

I slammed the door in her face. I wanted to relax, but I wasn’t in the clear. I had some angry guys waiting to talk to me.

I make my way to the kitchen and everyone—almost everyone is in attendance. Vincent was still upstairs.

“What the hell is going on?” Miguel enters the kitchen after me, fixing his pants. “Where’s the party?”

“Chase over here was caught making out with Natalia in front of Charley.” Austin looks over at me, ready to tear my head off.

“Bruh, really? I thought we had this talk already? Do you like being an ass?” Miguel hops on the countertop, sitting down. “I think you don’t know what you want.”

“I know it’s hard settling down with one chick, but if you want to mess around, let Charles know. You can’t fuck with her heart like that,” Austin chimes in.

“What Everett and Charlotte saw wasn’t what it seemed. She came onto me. I didn’t know she was going to kiss me.

“I really did mean it. I love Charlotte, I always have. I knew her a long time ago, but people grow up and apart sometimes.” I tell them, pleading my case.

“Dude, you always seem to be caught in the worst situations, and it pisses me off because it looks like you’re playing Charles. Like, we really do like her, and I think she is a nice girl.

“She can be annoying at times but overall, Charles is a good girl,” Darren adds.

“Chase, man, you really need to figure this shit out. Do you want to be with her or not? I am not sure if you watch her, not in a creepy way, but you can just see how she lights up when she sees you.

“She does this girlie thing with her hair and…”

“She magically trips over her own two feet.” Vincent walks in finishing Everett’s sentence. “I see it every time.”

“You guys are fucking pervs,” Miguel jokes, and the guys start laughing. I don’t even crack a smile because if so, they are going to get on me for taking it as a joke. I know these guys and just how brutal they can be.

I’ve noticed the way Charlotte looks at me since she first walked into the frat house. I know all her tell-all signs when it comes to me and the other guys. I am just observant if not more than the other guys.

I’ll let them have their moment.

“No seriously, she does it every fucking time. I won’t point out that I thought she couldn’t walk without tripping over nothing.” Everett laughs.

“That’s normally what chicks do. Trip over nothing.” Tristan shrugs his shoulders. “So, Chase, what are you going to do? I would hate to kick your ass over a chick. But see, Charles isn’t just a chick. So, what’s it going to be?”

“Wait, before you answer that, can we please talk about what Natalia said to Dove.” Everett starts to laugh all over again.

“Bruh, what was said?” Miguel asks.

“That Dove is out here getting bush-fucked.”

The guys burst into laughter, and I couldn’t hold mine in either.

“Bush-fucked?” Darren asks as if he heard the wrong thing. “What the fuck is that?”

“She must be getting her back blown behind bushes,” Austin answers. “Do you know how disgusting that is? Guys piss in bushes all the time. No bush hasn’t been pissed in on campus.”

“Guys,” Vincent gets everyone’s attention and his facial expression says it all.

“Dude, it’s you fucking Dove in the bushes. You have a bed for a reason. I know she fucked Tristan last year, but daaaaaamn. She doesn’t have to be treated as a bush-fuck,” says Austin.

“Assholes, it was one time. Now can you guys drop it?”

“Wait, are you two seeing each other again?” Tristan asks.

“Yeah, we kind of are. I think she has changed, and I really do love her,” Vincent says, and I believe it.

He was always smitten with Dove, and it really destroyed him when she was caught with Tristan. I think he just broke up with her because it was something I and the guys were telling him he should do.

I always had my suspicion that he didn’t want to do it, but peer pressure can make you do a lot of shit you don’t want to.

Darren says he is about to call it a night, but first he goes around handing out beers to us.

“Guys, I would like to make a toast. To the most stupid dick in the house, Chase. You have a good woman upstairs, and hell she is probably your soul mate.

“Don’t go after her tonight. Give her some rest, but speak to her—who the fuck is that?”

We turn to see the girl I helped upstairs to my room earlier stumbling towards the foyer. She stops and looks at us.

“Hi,” was all she could get out before she puked all over herself and the floor.

“Fuck this shit. I am out.” Miguel puts his bottle down. “Call one of the girls to deal with her.”

“Bro, are you serious?” Austin looks at him crazy.

“Hell yeah. So tomorrow she can cry rape? Got me fucked up.”

“True.” We all said in unison. It was sad we had to think this way, but we have seen so many of our friends get kicked off the team for incidents like this.

Not every girl has it out for us, but we always had to be careful about these things.

We call Charlotte, Dove, and Valerie to come down and help us out with the girl. Valerie recognized the girl almost immediately and said she would take her back to the dorms.

Miguel was torn between taking them back in his car or minding his business. However, Valerie made up his mind by just saying the quicker we get her to her room, the quicker they could get back to his, and that’s all it took.

I looked to where Charlotte was just standing and she was gone.

“She went back upstairs, bro.” Darren pats my shoulder. “Talk to her tomorrow.”

The guys are right. I need to own up to my faults and lay them out on the table for her. I want her, and I don’t want to lose her. I want her to trust me and never have to question where my loyalty lies.

First thing in the morning, I will make my first attempt at getting Charlotte back. Even if that means I have to literally beg on my knees for the woman I love.

I will do it.