Holding Her Breath (Indigo) (13 page)

“Fall weddings are so beautiful,” Whitney said.

“Know a lot about weddings, do you?” Aunt Cheryl snorted.

“Not tonight,” Jo said, turning to face her sister.

“Jo, I don’t know what I did to you for you to be treating me like this,” Aunt Cheryl said as she piled her plate up with food. “You never want to listen. Even when it’s for your own good. Especially when it is.”

“Don’t start that again, either. I don’t need you to lecture me. Quinton is not your business. Nothing to do with me and him is,” Jo said.

“Shorty, what do you think about this?” Aunt Cheryl said.

“Same as Jo does,” Shorty said quietly before turning to Whitney. “Baby, would you pass me the greens?”

“Sure, here you go.” Whitney passed the white ceramic dish containing the leafy boiled greens across the table.

“Nobody in this family has good sense,” Aunt Cheryl muttered, poking her chicken with her fork.

“Why don’t you get out of here then?” Devon said.

“What did you say to me, boy?”

Jo held up a hand to Devon. “That’s enough.” She said to Aunt Cheryl, “Yes, if you’re going to keep this up, you should probably leave. I don’t know what’s wrong with you lately, but I’m tired of you taking whatever it is out on me.”

“Lately?” Devon snorted. “How ’bout all her life?”

“That’s enough,” Jo said.

Cheryl fired a string of choice words at Devon.

“You’re going to stop that right now,” Jo said. “And you’re going to get out. Now.”

Cheryl jumped up from the table. “I can’t believe you’re kicking me out of your house.”

“Believe it.”

“Well. I hope nobody here never needs anything from me. I’m done with all of you. Fools.” Cheryl left the dining room and Jo followed her. They argued all the way to the front door. Then the door slammed. Shortly after that, Jo ran past the doorway and down the hall.

Whitney went after her. She found Jo in her bedroom. She sat next to her mother on the bed.

“I’m so sorry your dinner got ruined, baby,” Jo said.

“Don’t you worry about that.” She rubbed a hand over her mother’s back.

“I just can’t—that woman gets under my skin so bad sometimes.”

“I know.”

“She keeps at me. I know how she is, and I try not to let her get to me, but there’s only so much I can stand. Especially right now. It seems she’s on the warpath every day, always trying to pick a fight with me about something else ’cause things aren’t going right in her life.”

Whitney nodded, patting her mother’s shoulder. “She can certainly work a nerve.”

“That’s like saying Warren Buffet has a little money.”

They laughed and Whitney hugged her mother close, feeling guilty about the fact that she had to leave soon. She never seemed to have enough time with the people closest to her and, ironically, that was because she was working so hard to make them proud and help them.

Chace came back from the Goodwill juggling a bag of takeout Chinese food, the pile of mail he’d retrieved from the post office before closing his P.O. box, and a couple of DVDs he’d bought for him and Whitney to watch later. He’d picked up a couple of movies that she said she’d never seen and he couldn’t believe that anyone in the world hadn’t. He would make her watch them some time after they got to D.C. There’d be plenty of time since he planned on spending a lot of time with her up there.

He was so busy trying not to drop any of the stuff in his arms that he didn’t notice Amy until he almost ran into her. On top of him being distracted, she was a small and sneaky one.

“Ah!” he cried, startled. “Didn’t see you. What are you doing here, anyway? Kelly got all her stuff, didn’t she?”

Amy sighed, running a hand through her short blonde hair. “That’s why I’m here. I want to talk to you about her.”

“What?” Chace was going to drop something if he didn’t set everything down soon. “Hold on.” He managed to get the door to his apartment unlocked and open without dropping anything. He then walked into the apartment. Amy followed him.

“She really misses you.”

He set everything on the dining room table and then turned to face Amy. “What?”

“It’s really immature, the way you’re ignoring her calls. What if she had something important to tell you?” Amy said, crossing her arms over her chest and tapping a foot against the floor.

“She can leave me a voicemail. Which she’s been doing. I check my messages.”

“Still, she really wants to talk to you. Why won’t you just pick up the phone? Just once?”

“She left me. Not the other way around. And weren’t you the one who told me I was better off? You were right. So why are you trying to get me to talk to her?”

“What if she has something really important to tell you?” She avoided his eyes as she spoke.

“Are you trying to tell me something right now?”

Amy looked around the apartment. She ran her hand over the empty bar counter. “Where’s all your stuff?”

“In my car.” He flipped through his mail. “I’m getting out of this place. You know I was only ever here for Kelly, so I don’t see how you can be surprised.”

“But you just—and your lease—when are you leaving?”

“Later today,” he said. He crossed the room and sat down on the edge of the sofa. “Ethan is coming to get my furniture for his place when he gets back into town. My new roommate’s place is fully furnished. January’s rent is paid here, and I’m breaking the lease after that unless Kelly wants the place. If she does, tell her to call the landlord. I told him she might be calling.”

“Okay, not commenting on how messed up that is that you would leave town without even saying anything to her,” she said.

He shrugged.

“If I hadn’t caught you today, how were you planning on letting Kelly know that?”

Chace snorted. It wasn’t like he had to tell her anything. “I was going to send her an email after I got to D.C.”

“Why not before?”

“To prevent a scene like this with Kelly instead of you.” He sighed. “Or maybe even both of you. But looks like I didn’t really do that anyway.”

“You really want to talk to her. Trust me.”

“I don’t want anything to do with her, Amy.”

“You’re making a huge mistake right now. You don’t even know how—disastrously huge.”

“Are you kidding me? She’s the one who left me for that old lawyer dude. Why should I talk to her if I have nothing to say to her? Why shouldn’t I cut her out of my life after what she did to me?”

Amy folded her hands into the sleeves of her sweater and stared up at him. “Don’t do this. Believe me, you really don’t want to.”

“Why don’t you come out and tell me what you’re trying so hard not to tell me?”

Amy sighed. “It should come from her. Please just call her. Or answer when she calls you.”

“Amy, you’re cool, and I have nothing against you. Your husband’s a great guy and I’m gonna miss playing ball with him. Tell him I said bye. But I’m done with Kelly’s games. My time with all of that ended on Christmas Eve.”

Amy started to say something else and then she just smiled.

Chace ran a hand through his hair, temporarily lifting it from his forehead. “What?”

“She’s a real idiot. I love her, but she is. If I weren’t married…I’d show her what you do when you find a good looking man with a good heart. How could you ask for more?”

Chace grinned. “Thanks, Amy.”

She walked over and hugged him. “Goodbye, Chace. And good luck. You’ll do a lot better with your photography up there, I’m sure.”

Chace laughed off her compliment. “I’ll see you around.”

“That’s right. You don’t like to say goodbye. Well, later, bud.”

He walked her to the door and then slumped against it after closing it behind her.

* * *

When Whitney arrived that afternoon, Chace leaned against his white SUV in the parking lot, hands shoved into his pockets, waiting for her. He had the engine running, warming it up.

“Aren’t you cold?” was her greeting to him, her eyebrows raised.

“A little. More than that, I’m just excited to go. Get out of this place,” Chace said. He breathed in the scent of her perfume, which he could smell over the exhaust fumes from their vehicles.

“Yeah,” Whitney said with a sigh. That sigh contained more than just a little exasperation. Worry was written all across her pretty face.

“Hey. What’s wrong?” He rubbed her shoulder briefly. He made himself move his hand even though he wanted to let it linger there longer than what would probably be appropriate.

She shook her head. “Just family stuff. My aunt’s stressing my mom out.”

“I’m sorry. Wanna talk about it?”

She bounced up and down and hugged her arms to her chest. “Man, it’s freezing out here.”

“Yeah.” He knew what would warm her up.

“We should get going. We’re going out tonight, remember? Let’s get you there and unpacked.”

He couldn’t argue with that, although he would have liked to replace “unpacked” with “undressed.” He pushed that thought aside, though. He didn’t want Whitney to think he was some rebounding creep only out for one thing. There were already signs that was what she thought. And why wouldn’t she think that? But it wasn’t true. Yeah, he wanted that one thing, but he wanted the rest of her to go with it.

“Chace?”

He slapped his driver’s side door a couple times. “What are we waiting for? Lead the way to the big city.”

Laughing, they got into their cars.

Chace followed Whitney north for over two hours out of Virginia and into D.C. She took them through the city to a part of town near the Shaw neighborhood, not far from U Street. They parked on the street. Whitney called him and told him to take the space that happened to be in front of Rob’s building since he had most of his stuff in his car. She parked around the block a bit and came back to meet him.

“Well, let’s go meet your new roomie,” Whitney said, taking his hand and heading to the building.

He squeezed her hand.

“I can’t wait for you to meet Rob. It’s eerie, but you’re actually kind of perfect for each other. It’s like you two were separated at birth.” She rang a bell and Rob buzzed them up.

Chace saw what she meant immediately. The door flew open and a Korean-American man grabbed Whitney, pulled her into the apartment, and swung her around. “Whit!” He then turned back to Chace. “Brother from another mother. What up?” Rob held out his hand and Chace shook it.

“Rob. Hey,” Chace said as Rob pulled him into a half hug, still grasping his hand.

“This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” Rob dragged out the word “beautiful.”

Chace grinned. That reminded him of the night of Beautiful Whitney. “You know it.” He looked around the apartment. High ceilings and hardwood floors. Spacious. The place had originally been built as a factory in the past century.

“So let’s go get your crap so Whit can go home and purdy herself up for the night. Otherwise, we’ll never get her to come out with us.” Rob bounded out of the apartment and was already halfway down the stairs before Chace and Whitney made it to the door.

“I like that guy,” Chace said.

“I thought you probably would,” Whitney said.

“I didn’t think you’d know anybody so…chill.”

She laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“Oh, nothing. Just…he said the same thing about you.”

“Doesn’t surprise me. After all, you’re the girl who plans her planning.” Chace laughed as she pretended to strangle him, savoring the feel of her gloveless hands against his skin. He barely noticed that they were cold.

It was good to be home, back in her condo, surrounded by all her favorite things. The sleek, black television with all the latest gadgets attached. One of her iMacs sat on her desk in the corner. The other one was in her office. She kicked off her shoes and sank her toes into her plush, custom-designed beige carpet. The carpet was a unique feature available only from the developer from whom she’d purchased her condo.

They were just things, objects. It was nice to have them, but that was all. Might as well enjoy what made the golden handcuffs golden.

She sank into her suede couch and placed her hands over her eyes, resting them for a moment. She’d spent almost every moment of her life over the past few days either with Chace or on the phone with him. It was taking its toll. She was feeling all sorts of things she couldn’t afford to feel. She hadn’t thought about work much at all in the past few days, and the fact that she hadn’t scared the crap out of her.

She hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but she realized she had when Erika’s knock at the door woke her up.

Erika had come over so that they could get ready for the night together. They hadn’t seen each other in over a week. So when Whitney opened the door and Erika hopped into the apartment, there was a lot of squealing and hugging involved.