Rage

Chapter Eighteen

"Well, look who's here." My mother sneered as she looked up from her papers and at Chase and I. Her lip curled and she scowled. Every time she did that (which was more often than I could count; and I barely saw her) she became that much uglier. Stupid bitch.

"It's nice to see you again, Mother. I'll keep out of your way and you won't ever have to see me."

"That sounds perfect." She said, her tone clipped, "Make yourselves scarce. Since it's the holiday season, I have to be here, and I don't want to see you two every where I turn. Show your faces for the Christmas Eve party and for Christmas dinner with Jack and his son and that's enough." She instructed, and Chase nodded, while I just glared hostilely, my arms crossed defensively over my chest.

When we were upstairs, I followed Chase to his room, where he dropped his bags. "Jack's son is this Charlie kid, right? The one who's apparently an asshole?"

"Yeah," I snickered, adding, "You're going to love him." Chase and Charlie, I'd just realized, were complete opposites. Charlie was outwardly nice and a really great person when it came to people within his own little posse, but Chase was much more reserved and maybe even slightly standoffish, but he was polite to everyone once you got past all that.

"Haha." Chase said drily, "Now go get ready. I'm taking you out to lunch."

"Okay, fine." I agreed, heading to my room to change. I was wearing ripped skinny jeans with a Sherlock t-shirt, so that meant I only had to change my shirt. I put on a pink, slightly dressier top and some lip gloss and mascara before I was ready to go.

This town only had really fancy restaurants and smaller places. Knowing Chase, we definitely wouldn't be going to one of the fancy places.

"I'm ready." I told him through the door of his room, rapping on it once to get his attention.

"Great." He opened the door. His hair was slightly wet. How the hell had he taken a shower and gotten ready in less than ten minutes? I was in the shower for at least twenty minutes every day.

We went to the same diner I went to with Chris all that time ago, the same one Julio and I had gone to, too, before we'd gotten together and a few times since.

We sat at a booth in the corner, and the waitress handed us menus, giving me a smile of recognition, which I returned.

I just got some sort of sandwich while Chase got, as expected, a burger, saying that it had been forever since he'd had a nice, proper cheeseburger with all the works.

"You still have to tell me what you were supposed to tell me." I told him, once the waitress had come back with Chase's Coke and my ice water.

"Right." Chase spoke awkwardly, clearing his throat, "Let's discuss this later. In private, okay?" He cast a surreptitious glance at the couple in the table in near ours, who were looking at Chase curiously. I recognized the girl from school, but the guy looked a little older, like he was a college student or something. 

"Sure." I nodded, sipping thirstily at my water.

We made some small talk for a while, before entering a heated, yet very amusing debate over whether fries or onion rings were the better side. Like any sane person, I went with the fries, while insane brother chose onion rings which, admittedly, weren't that bad, but they had nothing on fries.

Someone walked into the diner and, from over Chase's shoulder, I could see who it was. I instantly began panicking. I was not ready for this to happen. No one was ready for this to happen.

Julio's eyes met mine, and his lips quirked up into a small smile. Despite my nerves, I smiled back at him, unable to help it. His smile was just so cute and so infectious and so perfect.