The room was instantly filled with thousands of twinkling white lights covering almost every surface of the small building. My eyes land on a single table in the center of the room that was draped with a black tablecloth and has a vase with a single red rose set it in, surrounded by small candle votives.
“Um hello?” I call out before whirling around when I hear the familiar husky voice and lock my eyes on Chase.
Chapter 26
Chase
“Surprise, bet you weren’t expecting me, huh?”
“Whats going on Chase I thought I was supposed to me meeting up with Ally. Apparently theres no cleaning of the park going on here today.”
Was that the excuse Ally had used to get Leah here? I’m surprised she actually showed up since cleaning is like her least favorite thing. I’m lucky she’s a good cook.
“Yeah well she sorta helped me out to lure you here, I guess it worked.”
“Well what is all this?” She ask as she motions around the elaborately decorated space that I had worked on for hours and I click on my ipod to add the soft sounds of music flowing around the room.
“For you. It’s our first date Leah. I know you said you wanted to start off slow but I still needed to make it special to show you much I love you.”
“Okkkkk,” she drags out and I guide her over to the table by placing my hand on the small of her back, pulling out her chair for her so she can take a seat.
“I’ll be right back, don’t go anywhere.” I make my way back to the small galley kitchen in the back of the building and grab the two plates that I had already prepared. Luckily Leah showed up exactly when she was supposed to so the food would still be nice and warm and hopefully taste good.
“Here ya go, just to warn you I made everything myself but had my moms supervision, so at least it’s edible.” I sit down across from her and watch as her gray eyes widen and take in the food on the plate I placed in front of her. I’m even impressed myself a little bit.
Leah was always teasing me about how bad of a cook I was and I knew it was true. With my mom I really never had to step foot in the kitchen but luckily after a little convincing my mom helped me out with a plan for my first redo date with Leah.
I watch as she takes a tentative bite and I see a look of surprise pass over her face. “What is this Chase? It’s really good,” she says in between bites.
“Shrimp scampi with a little bit of angel hair pasta,” I reply proudly. Yup I did good.
“My mom said I needed to do something fancy if I wanted to impress you and this was a little simpler, so she said I couldn’t screw it up.”
She quirks an eyebrow at me with a confused look on her face. “So your mom knows what happened between us then?”
“Yeah well that’s where I’ve been hiding out for most of the week. I just needed to get my head on straight before we tried things out again. Our time apart really tore me apart.” I pause and can see the flash of guilt covering her face before I reassure her.
“Don’t worry mom still loves you, I don’t think you could do anything to change that. After I told her what happened she absolutely understood how you reacted after everything you found. It was pretty incriminating.”
She lets out a short musical laugh. God I’ve missed that tiny sound. “Well I should’ve given you the chance to talk to me instead of trying to avoid you even though I found I’m pretty good at it. I’m sorry.”
“It’s in the past now Leah. Let’s just try to move on from here.”
I clear our plates after we’ve both managed to scrape them clean and have a dessert of chocolate cake and ice cream which I can’t help but brag about that I made. Well the cake at least and it was from a box but I got an A for effort and that’s all that counts. I stand up and reach for Leahs hand to pull her up from her seat, I missed having her in my arms.
“May I have this dance?”
She clasps her small hand in mine and steps into my arms as we glide around the room to the soft background music. She buries her head in my chest and I nuzzle my nose into the soft curls of her hair breathing in the faint smell of her familiar strawberry shampoo. I hadn’t washed any of my pillows since Leah left because of that smell right there.
“I don’t think I can do this Leah,” I whisper into her ear and can fill the goosebumps I caused running up and down her arms. Startled, she stops abruptly pulling back from me and looking back at me with her questioning gray eyes.
“What do you mean Chase, what can’t you do?” She asks in a panicked voice.
“I can’t do slow with you Leah,” I reply back. I wasn’t really planning on this, I was gonna try slow with her but after having her wrapped in my arms I knew it’s where she belonged. Always. Now I just needed to convince her of the same thing. This should be fun.
“I just can’t. I want you, I need you. I know you need to trust me again but I need all or nothing.” Hopefully she doesn’t figure out that I’m totally bluffing. She chews on her lip so hard I’m sure there’ll be blood. If only I could be inside that head and put a stop to all of the crazy thoughts that are probably running through it right now.