“Riss, he didn’t know, so give him a break.” I stood at the bottom of the stairs and looked up as I told them everything that led up to what happened last night and everything that happened this morning; the ache in my chest growing as I relived it all. “I can’t lose her. But she basically just threw last night in my face now that her boyfriend is coming back, and once again, I’m nothing to her.”

“God, Chase,” Brian said, “when did you become such a fucking girl?”

“I know”—I sighed—“I freakin’ feel like it.”

“Screw you, babe!” Marissa shouted, and suddenly she was talking loud enough I figured I was off speaker. “Chase, she loves you. You aren’t nothing to her, she’s just confused. She doesn’t know what to do. Her boyfriend is coming back, and she just admitted to his best friend that she’s in love with him too and lost her v-card to him. She’s probably freaking out. If she said she needs a few weeks, then give the girl a few weeks. But don’t just leave her, Chach.”

I snorted at her nickname for me. “Do you think this is all one big game to her?”

“No way. If it were, she wouldn’t have a problem leaving you.”

Just before I could ask how Marissa was sure she wouldn’t, the worst sound in the world sounded over the running water of the shower. “Fuck.”

“What? What happened?”

“I can hear her crying.” I ran a hand through my hair and grabbed a fistful as I pushed off the wall. “I gotta go to her, Marissa.”

“Damn straight you do! This is just as hard for her, probably harder because she’s the one who has to choose.”

I stumbled halfway up the steps at that. “I don’t know what I’ll do if she chooses him,” I said honestly. “I need her.”

“I know, Chach.”

“Gotta go, thanks Riss.” We said good-bye, and I tossed the phone on my bed, which just that morning had been a major part of my favorite moment in my life, and, I was afraid, would only ever be a memory.

I opened the door to my steam-filled bathroom, and the pained sobs that filled the room pierced my chest.

Oh, Princess.

Harper was holding herself up against the tile wall when I stepped in behind her, and I didn’t know how my heart could break any more. Grabbing around her waist, I turned her toward me and pressed her close to my body as hers shook with hard sobs. The thought of losing Harper had tears falling down my face for the second time that morning—before that day, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d cried. But after that night with my princess, I didn’t know how I was supposed to go through life without her. I gripped her harder to me when her sobs quieted, and looked down at her puffy red eyes when her head tilted back to look up at me.

She looked at me for what felt like hours before speaking, her voice rough and scratchy from crying. “Why are you in here?”

Where else would I be? My whole world was crashing down, and I was trying to hold on to it for as long as possible. “Because you need me, and if this is my last hour with you, I’m not going to waste another second of it.”

I bent to touch my lips softly to hers and was met with a hungry kiss that quickly escalated. I hadn’t taken the time to get out of my jeans when I got in there, and they were soaked, but we furiously worked at getting them off, all the while bringing our mouths back to each other’s and pressing our bodies closer. The hot water pelted down on us as I pushed Harper against one of the shower walls, the steam so heavy in the bathroom that there was nothing but my princess and me. Slowing down so I wouldn’t ruin, or ever forget this, I pulled away to look at her. Her bottom lip was trembling, the tears still falling from her passion-filled eyes as she watched me memorize every bit of her. I cupped her cheeks, wiping away tears and water from the shower before sucking on her bottom lip and taking her mouth with mine.

Her hands went up my chest, around my neck, and into my hair as I used the wall for leverage in lifting her up, wrapping her legs around me, and positioning myself at her entrance. I groaned, and a muffled cry left her when I pushed in and began to slowly make love to her for what I prayed wasn’t the last time but had a sinking feeling would be. Like I’d told her, if this was my last hour with her, my last time with her . . . there was no way I’d waste a moment of it. She climaxed, gripping the tensing muscles in my back and shoulders seconds before I followed. Not willing to end the moment, I just stood there with her in my arms, our foreheads pressed together, eyes locked on each other, and I hoped she understood that I was hers, completely and undeniably, forever. That if I had all of this to do all over again, I would change everything. And that in any life, in any situation, I’d choose her. Every time.

An hour and a half later we were sitting in my truck, outside my house, and I was gripping Harper’s hand like a lifeline. We hadn’t said a word since I’d told her why I was in the shower, but there wasn’t anything to say that we hadn’t been showing each other—that I loved her, and always would. And I had no doubt she loved me, too. It had been there in her eyes; but so had that look like someone had just crushed her heart, and I was terrified that her love for me wouldn’t be enough to keep her with me. But now, I knew I had to let her go for however long she needed to make a decision that could potentially change everything.

All too soon, she reached into her purse and grabbed the keys to Brandon’s Jeep, so she could go pick him up from the airport.

When she grabbed for the door handle, I said, quietly, “Harper, I will love you for the rest of my life.”

She sucked in a quick breath but didn’t turn to look at me, and before she hopped out of my truck and away from me, she whispered softly, “You will always be in my heart, Chase Grayson.”

I felt like I was dying as I watched her start up his Jeep and leave me sitting there. I tried to tell myself that we would figure this out, and she would come back to me. But as I turned my truck back on and headed toward the beach, I found it harder and harder to convince myself that she would be mine; and after an hour on the beach, I ended up talking myself into begging her to choose me instead.

Brandon’s Jeep was outside my house by the time I’d come back, as was most everyone’s, and after hearing Princess’s voice coming from the kitchen, I headed toward her and the smell of Chinese food, fully intent on pulling her to my room and showing her why she should be with me instead. I rounded the corner into the living room and saw Brandon and Harper, Harper in nothing but one of his shirts, laughing and flirting with Brandon.

My footsteps faltered, but I couldn’t make myself stop anymore; it hadn’t even been three hours since I’d been making love to her up against my shower wall, and she was wearing nothing but his shirt? Harper’s laugh instantly cut off when she saw me, and I watched as her jaw dropped, and her eyes got wide. They flashed quickly to Brandon, then back to me, and that was all I needed to know. Apparently, she hadn’t needed a few weeks, just a few hours. Brandon nodded at me, and with a hard nod back, I forced myself to my room and away from them so I could grab my board, sketchpads, and as much of my other shit as possible, so I could avoid seeing them like that again.

So I could avoid seeing them—period.

Chapter Nine

“CHASE, HONEY?”

I closed my sketchbook and sighed. “Yeah, Mom?” I swear if she brought up—

“Sweetheart, we really should talk about whatever is going on.”

Yep . . . she was bringing it up again.

“You’re not even mostly living out of our house, you’re living here. Granted we don’t see you much since usually you’re surfing when we get up, then at the shop at night, but I’m not that dumb. You’re living here.”

“You’re not dumb at all, Mom.”

She set two mugs of coffee down on the table and sat next to me. “I was hoping you’d say that!” She laughed and pushed on my shoulder, but her laugh died when I continued to sit there with my arms crossed over my chest, “Okay, well since I seem to be awesome enough to be graced with your presence today”—I snorted when she rolled her eyes—“I’m gonna make you sit here and talk to me.”

“You’re gonna make me,” I deadpanned, and raised an eyebrow at her.

“Don’t push me, Chase Austin Grayson. In all seriousness, your father and I are so worried about you. I was less worried when you were at your own home, but with you here and seeing how you’re pushing yourself—”

“Shouldn’t you be the one telling me that I need to push myself?”

“Not the way you have been! With the exception of three days, including today, over the last few weeks, you get up at dawn to go surfing, come home only to shower and change, then go to classes. Then you go straight to the shop, and you’re home after your dad and I are already asleep! And throughout all of this, you’ve just . . . lost you. The few times I have seen you, you look dead. You disappear completely on family days; Bree said she hasn’t even seen you in weeks and that Brad, Brandon, and the rest of the guys are really getting worried about you because you don’t talk to them or surf with them anymore . . . ? Chase, what is happening with you?”

I made a mental note to tell Bree to shut the hell up. “Mom, I don’t know what you want me to say. I’ve just been busy.”

“I call bullshit,” Dad said as he joined the conversation, looking like he was about to leave for work.

“Morning to you, too, Dad.”

“And you can drop the attitude, too. She said we’re worried about you, and we are. You’re an adult, you have your own house; so trust me when I say I have no problem telling you that I love you, but if you don’t tell us what’s going on and start respecting us, you can move right back out and into your house.”

Is he serious? I just sat there staring at both of them for a few minutes before deciding that he was and sighing heavily. “I’ve been thinking about moving.”