12. Love at First Sight
When Chase and Seth made their way inside the house, Krislynn and Michelle had already been somewhat acquainted. With her exotic mixture of Japanese, German, and Portuguese Michelle was definitely a sight to behold, but her chaotic personality had always bugged the crap out of Chase.
Michelle was as ruthless as a viper when she wanted something to go her way. Worst, her mood swings were crazier than any rollercoaster Chase had ever been on. One minute she was all sunshine and rainbows, and the next her Jimmy Choos were so far up his ass that he had absolutely no idea what hit him. He had only two words to describe her and they were crazy and bitch.
“So,” she said in that usual snobby manner of hers. “I hear that you guys are dating.”
Chase inwardly groaned. Leave it to Michelle to be the most judgemental person in L.A. “Well actually,” he growled, throwing Krislynn a glare. “We’re–”
“Ewww...” Michelle whimpered as she gave Krislynn a look from head to toe. “Whatever do you see in him?!”
Krislynn rolled her eyes. “Right?” She snorted. “I’m only dating him as a favour!”
“What the hell is with this conversation?” Chase boomed. “What do you mean ‘whatever do you see in him?’ What don’t you see in me? I’m literally perfect! And you! Didn’t I just tell you not to go around calling yourself my girlfriend? I didn’t even agree to it!”
“Oh you’re such a nice girl,” Michelle bubbled before turning to smile at Chase. “I like her. She’s a keeper.”
“Well why don’t you keep her then,” Chase grunted. “Take her. She’s all yours!”
Seth sighed and shook his head at the both of them. “Moving on with the topic,” he muttered. “What’s your whole deal with LaCienega?”
“Yeah,” Michelle added before throwing Krislynn a glance. “Wait. Does she know?”
“Is that the girl you slept with?” Krislynn asked. “Lassie-what’s-her-face?”
Michelle and Seth gasped right away. “So you did sleep her,” Seth screamed in disbelief. “That’s Jace’s fiancée man! How could you?!”
“Yes!!!” Michelle shrieked as she danced around in a happy circle. “I knew it! I called it! And we’re totally having our wedding in Hawaii next year!”
“Damn it Chase! Not Hawaii!” Seth growled angrily as he pretended to rip out his blonde hair. “You let the whole team down!”
“What?” Chase said in confusion before the realization sank in. “You guys were placing bets on me?!”
“Well everyone could see you have the hots for LaCienega,” Michelle explained.
“Except for Jace,” Seth added.
“Right. Except for Jace. Anyways, we’ve been trying to figure out the venue for our wedding next year, but with no luck. I want an outdoor wedding and I thought saying our vows on the beach during the sunset would be absolutely breathtaking.”
“But I wanted to have the wedding at the church both my parents and my grandparents got married at,” Seth muttered, “and that’s in Germany so we ended up fighting over it foreverrr! Finally we decided we needed something to resolve the matter so we decided to settle it with a coin flip, but we both picked heads.”
“We’re way too similar,” Michelle agreed. “We like the same stuff and the only thing we can never agree on happens to be you. So I said, I bet you our wedding venue that Chase would bone LaCienega within 3 months.”
“And I,” Seth growled, his voice suddenly booming with ferocity as his green eyes cut into Chase. “I said, no! Chase will not sleep with LaCienega because despite the fact that he’s a complete manwhore, he’s got morals! He would never do that to one of his bros! I had faith in you man! What happened?”
Chase threw his arms up in the air and groaned. “I don’t know what happened,” he yelled. “She came onto me! I mean can you blame me if I couldn’t resist?”
“Of course she came onto you,” Krislynn snorted.
“And any girl who doesn’t come onto the great Chase Evans is a crazy bitch,” Michelle added with an eye roll.
“Here’s a better question,” Seth proposed. “Are you planning to tell Jace?”
“No!” Chase shouted with a sarcastic chuckle. “Are you kidding me? I can’t tell him that! It’ll kill him. Besides LaCienega doesn’t want me to tell him either.”
“But you have to tell him,” Seth pressed. “He’s one of your best friends and I think he has every right to know!”
“So you’re saying if I accidently slept with Michelle, you would want me to tell you no matter how much it’ll hurt you?”
“Yes!”
“So you would forgive me?” He asked. “After I slept with your fiancée, we could still be friends?”
Seth hesitated. “Well first I would get mad and probably stab you in the face with a kitchen knife fifty something times, but after that YES!”
“Oh honey,” Michelle laughed as she gently stroked Seth’s back. “That’s not a very convincing argument.”
“Anyways let’s just drop the topic,” Chase groaned. “I’m sick of talking about my love affairs. Let’s postpone this chat until it’s too late and Jace finds out that I slept with LaCienega or something. You know---accidently---like the way they always do it in those cliché romance movies?”
“Whatever. You're completely hopeless.” Seth sighed as he ran his hand through his hair. “In other news, I got a new game awhile back but never had a chance to check it out. Want to play?”
“To be honest,” Chase murmured. “I’m not really in the mood.”
“You’re only saying that because you know I would beat your ass.”
“You’re fucking on man,” Chase shouted as he grabbed onto Krislynn’s wrist and tugged her towards the recreation room. “Come on Piglet.”
“What did you just call me?” Krislynn barked. “Did you just call me a piglet?”
There was a moment of silence as he stared at her blankly. “Because I think you’re a pig,” he quickly explained and then continued to led her inside a spacious room that looked like a mini movie theatre. “You dress like one. You eat like one. You act like one. It fits, but you’re too tiny to be called a pig so I changed it into piglet instead. Do you like it?”
“No I don’t like it,” she growled, turning around to see if Seth was behind them. “Who likes being called a pig?! And what happened to Seth?”
“I’m right here,” Seth chuckled as he jogged into the room with three bottles of beer. “I can’t game without liquid concentration. Do you want one?”
Krislynn shook her head. “I don’t really drink,” she said as Seth passed one to Chase and then placed the one meant for her on the coffee table. “Are you sure it’s okay for me to be here?” She asked hesitantly. “I mean, I never had the luxury to play these things and I could probably be of more use to Michelle in the kitchen.”
Seth and Chase burst into a fit of laughter immediately. “Michelle doesn’t like an audience when she cooks,” Seth laughed. “She has this odd fondness towards sharp objects so she laughs whenever she holds a knife.”
Krislynn wrinkled her eyebrows in distress. “Are you serious? Is she going to be okay in there?”
“Don’t worry,” Chase groaned as Seth did a belly flop onto one of the side couches after setting up the game. “It’s not like Michelle’s mental. Her dad is a skilled Japanese sword crafter and she’s been around them since a kid. She’s just got this weird admiration for shape things---that’s all.”
Nodding, Krislynn took a seat beside Chase as he handed her a controller. “How do you play?” She asked.
“Just attack everything you come across,” he muttered.
“That’s a bit ambiguous, isn’t it?”
Chase sighed and spoke in fragments like he was explaining what yellow looks like. “There are zombies. They want to eat your brain. Kill everything you come across.”
“Okay,” she grumbled. “And how do I do that? Which button do I press to attack?”
“All of them,” Seth said dejectedly. “Just press everything.”
“You guys are such great helps,” she moaned and needless to say, two minutes into the game, she died.
Depressed and rather uninterested in their little gaming feud, Krislynn sighed and leaned her body against Chase’s. Her head fell with a soft thud on top of his shoulder and almost immediately, his head gently dropped on top of hers.
Krislynn smiled at the gesture and wondered if Chase actually knew he was doing it since he was so into the game. “Oh come on!” He jumped up when he lost. “This game blows!”
“No, you blow,” Seth laughed. “Round two?”
Chase was about to take him up on his offer when a beep from the intercom interrupted his thoughts. “Is it Michelle calling us for dinner?” He asked.
Seth walked over to the intercom and looked at it. “It’s external,” he muttered before pressing a button on the machine. “Hello?”
“Hey Seth! Is that you? It’s Jace.”
“Oh... Hey. How. Are. You?” He asked, glancing over at Chase nervously.
Chase jumped over the back of the couch, tripped and fell flat on his face, but the injury apparently didn’t bother him all that much because he shot back up and bolted over to the intercom immediately. “Oh Seth honey,” he said in his best high-pitched feminine voice. “Let’s get it on baby!”
“Is that Michelle?” Jace asked in a shocked tone. “Does she have a cold?”
“No,” Seth laughed as he pushed Chase away. “She’s just got a bit of allergies so her nose is stuffed up.”
“Oh. Well I hope she’s okay. I was just driving by and wanted to give you that book I was talking about the other day or is it a bad timing right now?”
“Yes,” Chase whispered in a low hiss as he furiously nodded his head. “Tell him to leave!”
“No. I’ll be right at the door,” Seth replied before releasing the button on the intercom.
“What the fuck man?” Chase screamed. “I can’t see Jace right now. I slept with his fiancée! I’m mentally not prepared to see him yet!”
“Well you’re going to have to see him sooner or later,” Seth grumbled. “Go answer the door.”
“He does have a point,” Krislynn added.
“Shit! No! I can’t do it!”
“Chase, just pretend like nothing happened,” Seth growled. “You can’t avoid him forever. Just go answer the door and get it over with.”
“Why do I have to answer the door?” He shouted. “It’s your house!”
“Because I’m scared you’ll jump out the window and leave if I go and answer it instead,” he retorted.
Krislynn sighed, got up and started walking out of the room. “You know what? I’ll answer the door,” she said. Quickly making her way back where she originally came from, it only took her a matter of seconds before reaching the front entrance.
Krislynn had no idea who to expect when she opened the door and to be utterly truthful, she wasn’t really expecting anything. All Jace was to her was a guy with a shadowed visage and ‘Jace’ written diagonally across his face. She knew he was one of Chase’s best friends and that they’ve known each other since early childhood. Besides that, she was completely clueless.
So when she opened that door and found the most stunning guy on earth, with perfectly imperfect hair, a perfectly imperfect face and generously completed with a noticably crooked nose, her heart had to step on the emergency brake. Still, it might have been a little too late because her heart slammed against her chest and fell out anyways.