15. It’s Getting Hot In Here
Before Michelle permitted Krislynn to leave Seth’s house, she threw her arms around her and pulled her into a tight hug. They had barely known each other for more than four hours, but already felt like they had been best friends since the day they were born. Then again, a few glasses of champagne have a funny way of doing that.
“You’re not busy tomorrow afternoon, are you?” Michelle asked as she pulled away. “Seth and Chase have this charity gala tomorrow evening and considering you only got here today, I’m assuming you don’t have a dress to attend it. We should go shopping.”
A shrill honk pierced through the warm atmosphere and caused the girls to shudder in surprise. “No, I don’t have a dress,” Krislynn admitted as she casted a weary glance down the driveway where Chase was sitting impatiently inside his car. “But I don’t think Chase has any intentions of bringing me anyways.”
“Oh don’t be silly! If he doesn’t want to take you, we’ll just force him to.” She beamed brightly at Krislynn before she continued. “Anyways, it’s settled. I’ll pick you up tomorrow a little bit before noon. That way we can have lunch together before we go.”
Krislynn hesitated and glanced over at the black Lamborghini once again. She obviously didn’t need Chase’s consent to go out with a friend, but going as his partner to the charity gala was a different case. Already she was pretty much invading his life and the last thing she wanted was for him to feel like she was suffocating him with her presence.
“You should go.” Surprised by the smooth male vocal, Krislynn looked down and found Jace smiling up at her. He was down on one knee tying up his shoelaces, but he hadn’t been able to miss the hesitation on her expression. After all, he had to look up every few seconds to keep his glasses from falling off his face---how could he miss it? “That is, if you want.”
“Go,” Seth encouraged as he leaned against the frame of their French doors. His eyebrows were furrowed and his cheeks slightly rosy from the champagne, but it didn’t take a genius to realize he was desperate for them to leave so he could have a moment of peace with his fiancée. “You’re his girlfriend. I’m sure he won’t mind.”
Finally crumbling beneath the pressure, Krislynn agreed and bid the couple a goodnight. She was still half-hearted and unsure with her decision, but figured Chase could blame his friends if he had a problem with it.
As she started down the driveway, Jace caught up with her and flashed a smile that could melt through her flesh and into her bones. “Sorry about earlier,” he said to her. “I didn’t realize you guys were dating, otherwise I wouldn’t have kept your attention for longer than what was necessary. Chase probably kissed you the way he did out of complete jealousy. Don’t stay mad at him for too long, okay?”
Krislynn could feel her organs liquefying at his words. The dirtbag could be a real jerk sometimes, but he definitely knew how to pick a good set of friends. Why sweethearts like Jace would keep in contact with guys like Chase was beyond her.
“It’s not your fault,” she replied. “I was the one who told you we were just friends anyways. I shouldn’t have done that.” Suddenly realizing the hole in her story, Krislynn thought quickly before adding more detail. “We just started dating, see? We’ll not official yet so I didn’t want to come right out and call myself his girlfriend. That wouldn’t have been right.”
Another series of short honks cut through the air and Jace smiled weakly in the direction of Chase’s car. “Looks like he wants you back,” he laughed. “Well it was nice meeting you Krislynn. We’ll probably see each other around?”
“Of course,” she bubbled and spread out her arms to receive a friendly goodbye hug like the one Michelle and Seth had given her a moment before. Except Jace extended his arm out for a handshake at precisely the same time and caused her to blush at her apparent bluntness.
Immediately changing her posture, Krislynn brought her arms down to her side before extending a hand out to meet his. By the time she had made the transition though, Jace had changed his, and now stood in an awkward lean for a hug. “I thought you were...” His words trailed off as he reverted back to the handshake and shook her hand firmly in his.
Krislynn pouted just ever so slightly at the gesture. It was nice holding his hand, but not as nice as if he had hugged her instead. If only she hadn’t been so quick to change her stance, she thought, and then he might have just embraced her in his arms.
Her eyes flickering up to meet his, Krislynn only caught his gaze for half a second before Jace tugged her arm and pulled her up against his body. “Oh what the hell,” he said and wrapped his arms tightly around her body before pulling away.
The hug, even though it had been a simple and a quick one, was even better than Krislynn had imagined. It was like she had overdosed on all things chocolate, died and went to Heaven. She could hardly breathe from the over exhaustion on her heart, but forced herself, since Jace’s cologne was wondrous to behold.
With a haste wave, Jace walked the few metres to his Mercedes and disappeared inside the car. Krislynn was left in a trance and it wasn’t until Chase honked again that she was reminded that her little crush would have to be kept a little crush---nothing more.
The drive to Chase’s house was quiet and uneventful, but she hardly noticed with the billions of romantic situations happening in her head that involved Jace and herself. Only when she arrived in front of the house she was going to be staying at for the next little while, did Jace leave her thoughts.
Agitated and moody, Chase brought Krislynn’s bags inside before giving her a quick tour of the house. Situated high up on Hollywood Hills, Chase’s residence had a great view of downtown L.A and Krislynn just had to be mesmerized with every window in the house. It didn’t help that she was easily distracted and so what started as a ‘quick’ tour ended up being over an hour long.
When he had finally showed her every possible public area of the house, he brought her bags and showed her to one of his guest rooms. Her new room wasn’t quite as nice or as spacious as his own, but it was the only other one with an en-suite bathroom and he thought she would appreciate that more than anything else.
Besides the obvious queen sized bed and a massive walk-in closet, there was a wide window of L.A scenery and a small balcony that overlooked the Palm trees and the outdoor pool below. Krislynn didn’t hesitate to touch everything within reach. “I know I said I wouldn’t fall in love, but your house is making it so hard not to! How much do you make a year? How can you afford to live like this?”
Chase shrugged, but kept a smug look on his face. “I get by,” he replied, failing the key to being humble.
“Piss off! How much do you really make a year? This place is even better than my best friend’s place and her house is huge!”
“Well I get an annual salary of about $200,000 a year,” he explained. “Which isn’t much, but plus the approximate 15% I get from each movie’s total earning and the fact that most of them rake in about 1 point something billion, I’m making a good couple hundred million per flick.”
Krislynn’s jaw dropped and after realizing she wasn’t going to come out of her shock anytime soon, Chase headed out the door. “Well, I’ll leave you be. My room is the one at the end of this hallway. If you need anything, don’t bother me. Figure things out yourself.”
After he got back to his room, the first thing Chase did was head straight for the shower to drench himself in ice cold water. He hadn’t forgotten. Three days. Three days and three nights to be exact. His body was brimming with energy and it felt like any moment now, he’d exploded like a nuclear bomb. He needed to do something---anything---to get rid of it.
Deciding that the easiest solution for the night was to go out and have a jog, he threw on some sweats before making his way downstairs. Unfortunately, during his route to the front door, he caught a glimpse of Krislynn bending down ever so inappropriately. It wasn’t just that she was bending down with her butt pointing towards the ceiling, but the fact that she was only wearing a pair of lacy red underwear.
“What the hell,” he muttered as he came to a halt and walked to where she was standing inside the kitchen.
Krislynn straightened herself and turned to him at the sound of his voice. “Oh I just saw the biggest spider,” she said, “but I think I lost him.”
At once Chase’s eyes made a beeline towards her chest and noticed the peaks of her nipples pressing up against her shirt. God damn, he thought as he gritted his teeth together. First, she doesn’t wear pants and now she’s not even wearing a bra?! Wasn’t she making herself a little too comfortable at his house?
“Do you like my shirt?” She suddenly asked and it was then that Chase realized he’d been staring. His eyes did a quick overview of her oversized shirt that screamed poverty and shuddered. Not only was there a little hole down by the hem, but the shirt was just ugly with a creepy smiling tree in the middle and the words, ‘trees are our friends’ surrounding it.
“Why aren’t you wearing pants?” He asked right away. He had noticed that when she stood up, her shirt was long enough to cover her panties, but knowing that they could possibly slip out every time she bent or kneeled or sat, didn’t exactly put his mind at rest.
Krislynn frowned at his remark and looked down at her body as she contemplated his question. “It’s hot in here,” she said. “And it’s fine. I’m always like this, even back home. I find clothes so restricting and uncomfortable. I’d go ahead and be a nudist if I didn’t have such a level-headed set of morals.”
A nudist? Twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, spring, summer, fall and winter---all year round no clothes?! Good lord!
Rolling his hands into fists, Chase pushed all sorts of dirty thoughts out of his mind. “Well this isn’t home,” he snapped. “I’m a guy Krislynn, whether you like it or not and if you’re going to walk around like that, don’t call me a pervert---I will look.”
Krislynn finished her glass of water before gently placing the empty tumbler in the sink. “Then look,” she said haughtily as she walked by, playfully giving him another peek of her underwear as she passed. “Just don’t touch.”
Great, he thought as he heard her clamber back upstairs. Just great. He’ll definitely need more than just a fucking jog.