“Please, don’t tell me this is all still over Gia.” He didn’t so much ask but assumed which pissed me off.
“Why the fuck would you think that?” I countered back as he shrugged his shoulders as if the answer was right in front of me.
“You haven’t drank this hard since your freshman year, on top of that you’re never home and when you are I’ve found you out here or sleeping on the balcony. If it has to do with her, just tell me, bro. I’ll help you out.” His voice was pleading, telling me that even though he had warned me away from her and this was no one’s fault but my own− he still cared how I felt. Something about that made me understand his concern. We were twins after all, and when it came down to it, we channeled one another’s emotions.
Placing the bottle to my lips, I took another swig letting the whiskey burn a path down to my stomach.
“Chance…” my voice trailed off as my mind spaced out while that day hit me full force.
“I know it wasn’t the most ideal situation, but I wanted to say thanks for having my back with my dad.” She stood at the entrance of my room, looking as if she was afraid to approach me. My heart had taken a beating the second I heard her tell her parents I was her boyfriend.
Lies. We would never be anything more than a lie to them when they did find out the truth, and that pissed me off the most. Add in the fact I had been threatened by her very real FBI agent father and I wasn’t looking forward to when the truth did come out.
“I saved your ass.” The words fell from my lips without hesitation. There were a million other things I wanted to tell her, but what I was feeling right now was not the perfect time to say them.
She smiled at me and my breath stilled, she was beautiful. Like a sunset against the ocean.
“I know, and I wanted you to know that it means a lot to me that you went along with it. I just…” She stopped midsentence looking at me with uncertainty. “I don’t want what happened today to happen again. We need to distance ourselves, we need to be…” I couldn’t say I wasn’t angry because I was, but I couldn’t say that I didn’t expect it. We both had vowed to one time, one chance. One moment. That had already turned into two, and if we didn’t distance ourselves now it would turn into three. I wasn’t good at loving someone. I could care for them, take them in and treat them right, but love… love meant something completely different. It meant being blind to another person. To allowing them into all the small parts that make you who you are. It meant secrets being told, feelings being revealed.
“Just friends?” I finished her sentence for her, already knowing what it was that she was going to say. I could see the sadness in her dark eyes and the hesitation that she felt to step away from the pull we had towards one another.
“Yeah, just friends.” Darkness surrounded me in the most surreal way as I watched her look down at the ground and walk away.
“Chase!!!” Chance’s voice brought me back from the memory, and the anxiety on his face told me that I had seriously scared him.
“You know me, just daydreaming.” I lifted my hand to take another drink but realized it must’ve slipped from my hand in my incoherent state.
“Come on and get up. We’re going in the house. This being a loner bullshit is getting old. You have got to get the fuck over this. She’s just a girl,” Chance yelled, and of course it was then that she would make her appearance.
“Who’s just a girl?” Her singsong voice met my ears instantly, making my heart beat a little faster. God, if only I could feel hers beating against mine once more.
I looked up briefly, even though I knew I shouldn’t. She was wearing a pair of insanely short shorts and a tank top that showed her lower belly.
“Oh, no one,” I answered sternly, allowing Chance to help me up.
Gia’s nose snarled up in concern. “I thought I would ask since I heard so much commotion down here.” She seemed slightly hurt that I had acted so rudely, but I didn’t care. I wanted her to feel sad, angry… livid even. After all, that’s how I felt every day that I had to wake up and be in the same house as her.
“If we wanted your help we would’ve asked for it,” I stated nonchalantly as if her concern meant nothing to me.
“He doesn’t mean that.” Chance stepped in, attempting to twist my words around.
“He does.” I corrected him without a care in the world.
Her eyes grew wide and her fists clenched together as she drew them to her side. I had never felt so much satisfaction for pushing someone away before in my life.
“He’s been drinking a lot. You can’t take anything he says right now to heart.” Chance seemed to continue with the excuses, which in turn caused me to burst out in laughter.
“Yes, you can, Gia. For everything a drunk person says while drinking, they truthfully mean to say while sober.” I grinned at her, humor in my voice. I watched her eyes narrow as she barred her teeth between her lips. She was furious, so mad that I could all but see the steam flying from her ears.
Good, I thought.
Chance’s elbow dug into my side painfully, but I continued to smile even as we left her standing down by the pool. I felt nothing, the whiskey having melted away any and all my feelings. I didn’t want to go back to my playboy ways, to the party boy Chase, but I didn’t think I could stay away from her unless I gave her a reason to. She needed to hate me.
“She hates me.” The confession seemed to come out as a whisper, yet Chance heard it, telling me so with a sigh from him.
“Hate is an overused word. I would more so say annoyed. I’m certain she doesn’t understand why you’re distant. Then again, she made you pretend to be her boyfriend so her dad wouldn’t chew her ass out.” I paused mid-step, hearing Chance say it just made it worse.
“Exactly. It’s kind of common sense why I would be distant with her. Not once in my life have I ever been friend zoned by a girl.”
Chance tilted his head at my words before reaching for my belt.
“What the fuck, Chance?” I pushed him away as he laughed.
“I was just going to check and see if you had a pussy since you’re acting like one.” I flipped him off, steadying myself against the brick of the house.
“Let’s go in. I’ll make you something to eat, you can sleep this off, and then I’m hiding all the whiskey in the house from you.” Before I could make my way inside, Taylor was walking through the sliding glass door. I watched as Chance backed up leaving her enough room to slide by. Their eyes collided in a way that fire and ice would, but in the most secretive of ways. Taylor broke the connection first, picking up a light jog as she went to the pool, leaving Chance staring at her until she was out of sight.
“You totally want her.” I laughed, going through the sliding glass doors.
“I might have a slight nagging in the back of my head that says take her and make her yours, but I’m not as dumb as you are. The line was drawn in the sand far before I came along. That and she’s a freshman, and I’m a senior who lucked up and got a TA position. I can’t, nor will I fuck that up.” He seemed composed with his decision, but I knew my brother better than anyone. If a Winchester wanted something− anything, they always went for it, no matter the consequences.
“I was born to break the rules, Chance.” My words slurred, and I realized I truly was drunk off my ass.
“Believe me, I know.” He laughed my comment off, heading towards the kitchen to get me something to eat. I stumbled into the living room, flopping myself onto the leather sofa.
Time seemed to drift in and out, my thoughts circling around Gia as if she wasn’t the one person I thought about all the time.