16. The Rich & The Famous
Chase might as well have been a sack of potatoes instead of a human being because he barely stirred at the breakfast table. Her brain filling with curiosity, Krislynn watched him intently during one of the odd occasions that he actually moved---when he brought his mug of coffee up to his lips.
“Oh come on,” she moaned after swallowing down the rest of her toast. “I know you’re at the height of your grumpiness in the morning, but don’t act like you’re a vegetable. Say something.”
His eyes regarded her with bland interest, but either way, he decided to speak. “I didn’t sleep until six this morning,” he growled in a low hiss. “I’ve been up for almost an hour and it’s still only ten. Why did you wake me up?”
Krislynn’s mind flashed back a few hours to review their scenario. She had woken up bright and early that morning and after showering and getting ready, made breakfast downstairs in the kitchen. Maybe it was the fact that she grew up parentless and spent most of her time alone, but when she had company, whether she enjoyed it or not, she really treasured it.
So having decided she didn’t want to have breakfast by herself, she had infiltrated Chase’s room, pounced on his king sized bed and shook him until he did her bidding. His hair was a mess and his body dressed in nothing more than a pair of plaid boxers, but at least he was sitting properly in his chair and not with his face in his food.
“Why did you sleep so late?” She asked him, deterring the attention from herself. “I mean, you pretty much brought it on yourself. You wouldn’t be feeling like such utter crap if you had slept earlier.”
Chase rested his elbows on the dining table and buried his face in his hands. “I couldn’t sleep last night because I had way too much energy,” he admitted. “Usually, I exploit that in the bedroom, but I haven’t had sex for over three days.”
A playful smile grew on Krislynn’s face before she mustered her most shocked expression for display. “Oh no! My poor baby!” She cooed sarcastically. “Not three whole days! You’re such a trooper. I wouldn’t have lasted even one.”
His eyes narrowed at her for just a second before fixing themselves on his coffee as he fingered the rim of the mug. “I figured the only way I could sleep was to exhaust my body so after you went to bed, I went out and jogged for hours. In a way, it worked. When I got home, took another shower and crawled into bed, I was physically exhausted.”
He looked up at that moment, the gray in his eyes catching the light in the room so that they turned a bottomless blue. “Except I still couldn’t fall asleep,” he shouted angrily, raising a fork and pointing it accusingly at her. “Do you know why?! Because every time I close my eyes---bam---your ass! Right there---with that stinking heart-shaped birthmark!”
Krislynn threw her head back and laughed. “We’re going to have so much fun living together,” she said to him. “Oh that reminds me, I’m going to that charity gala with you tonight. Michelle decided that yesterday, but I forgot to tell you when I got back.”
“Hell no I’d take you! You can tell Michelle to shove it.” The doorbell suddenly rang interrupting his chain of thoughts so that he nodded his head in the direction of the door. “Go get it.”
It only took Krislynn a moment to get the door, and when she came back, Michelle reappeared with her. “Oh Jesus Chase,” she muttered right away. “Did you not sleep a wink last night? You look horrible---like you got stomped over by a cow.”
“Yeah, it got lost trying to find its way to your house,” he said.
“He couldn’t fall asleep last night,” Krislynn interjected. “Supposedly he had too much energy leftover from not having sex.”
Michelle giggled as she draped her arms around Chase’s neck from behind. “You poor thing,” she laughed. “You should have just humped a table leg or something.”
Immediately, Chase shook Michelle off as if she was a dreadful disease. “You’re so funny,” he grunted before quickly changing the subject. “So did you tell retard here she could be my partner for tonight’s event? What are you---crazy? I can’t take her. Just look at her. She looks like she grew up in a town with nine hundred people.”
“Don’t worry,” Michelle purred. “That’s why we’re going shopping today.”
Self-consciously, Krislynn peered down and checked her clothes out as she listened to the both of them banter back and forth. Truthfully, she had never paid much attention to fashion, but she didn’t think the way she dressed was embarrassing to the people around her. “Do I really look that weird?” She asked.
“Of course not,” Michelle shrieked though the expression on her face said otherwise. “I think your style is super cute, but you know, people can tell straight away you’re from out of town and that’s not really a good thing in a place like L.A. I’m not saying you should completely change, but some new clothes and makeup certainly won’t hurt.”
Frowning, Krislynn gave a weak shrug. “Well, okay.”
Michelle smiled brightly and turned her attention back to Chase who was already out of his seat and halfway up the stairs. “Where are you going?” She demanded.
“My room,” he shouted. “You need my credit card, don’t you?”
The rest of the day passed by quickly and Krislynn enjoyed her extravagant shopping spree with Michelle a little bit more than she wanted to admit she did. Michelle took her to all the designer shops along Rodeo Drive that 90% of all girls could only dream about.
Every price tag there reached over a thousand, yet Krislynn somehow found herself the new owner of all these expensive merchandises. Chase’s credit card was not in her hand but Michelle’s, and there didn’t seem to be any way to stop her from buying things that Krislynn absolutely didn’t need. The girl’s moral about shopping seemed to be, “Whatever. He’s the one paying for it.”
Among other things, Michelle picked out an evening gown for Krislynn during their trip, a nude color dress that had a halter neckline made out of a sterling silver chain that was half a centimetre in thickness. It tied like the back of a necklace and had a train that trailed between her shoulder blades and halfway down her spine, which courtesy of the now retired Valentino, was completely bare.
Mentally, the dress made Krislynn uncomfortable. She didn’t like wearing too much clothes on a nice day inside, but she was rather timid with her figure in public, especially around people she didn’t care to get to know. Physically though, uncomfortable was definitely not a way to describe the dress. With its soft satin fabric, the dress felt like a day at the spa pressed upon her skin.
“Are you sure I look good in this?” She asked as she came out of the bathroom.
The girls, after an extremely late lunch, had travelled back to Michelle’s 25th floor condo to get ready for the evening. Michelle had pre-booked her personal beautician, Alejandro, who after giving Krislynn a new haircut had done her makeup and given her a sultry up-do for the night.
“You look gorgeous,” Michelle and Alejandro chirped in complete harmony.
Krislynn gave the pair a cynical look. “But this dress is so revealing,” she muttered as she looked down at the plunging neckline that sunk well in between her breasts. “There’s no way I could look good in this.”
Smiling, Michelle gently led her to the full length mirror in her room and Krislynn’s breath instantly caught in her throat. This was how the girls on the covers of popular magazines looked, not her, not Krislynn Reimer.
“I know right?” Michelle laughed, subtly teasing her on her sudden speech impairment. “When Chase sees you later, he’s going to get a boner on the spot.”
Needless to say, when the girls met up with the guys an hour later, they were completely stunned. Seth couldn’t take his eyes off of Krislynn from the utter shock that seemed to consume his mind. “No way,” he exclaimed as he exchanged dramatic looks with Michelle. “It’s like she’s not even the same person! You look smoking Krislynn!”
Chase on the other hand, after his initial look of surprise, shrugged nonchalantly. “We should probably get going if we want to get there on time.”
His reaction though, was not the one Michelle wanted and she made an obvious point of showing her discontentment with an angry expression that stormed over her face like a thundercloud. “Chase Evans, you get back here right now,” she barked. “Tell Krislynn what you think about her new look!”
He stopped on his way out the door and allowed his shoulders to slump before turning around. Even then he only gave Krislynn a fleeting glance, but during that half a second, she could sense the penetration of his gaze and feel her body shiver in response.
“It... um... It...” His words trailed off and became weaker as he lowered his head and shifted his eyes towards the floor. “...looks good.”
“Alright. That’ll have to do,” Seth spoke up when he noticed how uncomfortable Chase looked in his position. He hurriedly kissed Michelle on the cheek before pushing his best friend out the door. “We’re going to head down to the limo first. See you in a bit, okay babe?”
Michelle sighed and grabbed her clutch purse when the guys disappeared out of sight. “Men,” she muttered. “I’m so sorry Krissy. I thought he’d give you a better reaction than that! He’s acting like an introvert today.”
Krislynn shook her head and smiled. “No it’s fine. It’s not like I was looking forward to his compliment or anything,” she laughed light-heartedly. “But he was acting a bit weird just now, don’t you think?”
“No kidding! Hopefully he’s not going to be like that the whole night!”
Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like Chase was going to come out of his shell anytime soon. Throughout the entire ride to the gala, he was stiff as a rock and barely spoke or looked at Krislynn. She tried talking to him multiple times, even resulted to teasing him for a reaction, but nothing seemed to smooth his edge.
Although he didn’t directly look at her, sometimes, just out of the corner of her eyes, she would catch him staring at her when he thought she wasn’t looking. She would automatically turn to face him of course, thinking he had gone back to normal, but he would always jump in his skin before turning his head the other direction.
Odd, she thought, why was he suddenly acting this way?
Krislynn didn’t manage to figure that out during the car ride and soon she was too preoccupied to even think properly. Outside the hotel where the gala was taking place, packs of paparazzi stood, snapping picture after picture. “Why are there so many reporters here?” She asked. “Are there a lot of celebrities coming to this?”
“Not really, though there will be a few for sure,” Seth replied. “It’s mostly just rich people attending, but the paparazzi don’t like to miss out on anything.” He quickly turned to Michelle when the chauffeur opened the door and gave her his arm. “Shall we baby?”
Michelle giggled like a teenage girl at a Jonas Brothers concert. “Let’s!”
Krislynn cocked her head and turned to Chase expectantly when the couple got out. “Are we supposed to do that too? You know---the whole arm thing?”
Chase barely looked at her before climbing out of the limo solo. “Jerk,” she hissed as she clambered out and after him. Fury raged inside her and she wanted so bad to hit him in the back of the head with her new Gucci purse. That would show him! The paparazzi would probably send her thank you gift baskets for it.
Once inside, Krislynn immediately separated from Chase and the rest of the gang. Never had she in her whole life been to such an extravagant looking hotel and it only took a blink before she got lost in the sea of people, most of them, waiters. She cursed her own bad luck and frantically searched the crowd. Michelle was wearing a white dress. Seth was wearing a navy suit and Chase was wearing a black one.
Krislynn squeezed her eyes close from the sensory overload. Everybody in here looked the same!
“Piglet,” she heard someone yell suddenly. “Piggy. Krislynn! Where are you?”
“Chase,” she murmured to herself, looking through the crowd around her once more. Taking a deep breath, she raised her voice just slightly higher. “Chase! I’m here! Right here!”
He found her a moment after and frowned, obviously displeased with her clumsiness. “Get with the program,” he grumbled, his chest inflated with anger. “Our table is all the way down near the stage. Can’t you even follow people?”
“I didn’t know,” she snapped. “Plus there’re a lot of people in here. It’s not like I wanted to get lost!”
The two of them glared at each other for a moment before Chase shifted his gaze and lowered his head again. Krislynn’s eyes widened in disbelief. There it was. He was doing it again. He was avoiding her gaze. It was like he was finding it difficult to look at her tonight.
Coughing gently to clear his throat, Chase loosened the tie around his neck with one hand as he slipped the other behind Krislynn’s bare waist. His hand felt hot against her naked skin and she arched her spine from his sudden unexpected touch, noting that his hand was dangerously close to her bum.
“You’re right,” he said. “There are a lot of people here and most of them are either rich or important so don’t talk if you don’t think, don’t touch if you aren’t supposed to and most importantly,” his mouth paused as he finally brought his gaze to meet hers, his eyes piercing and serious, “don’t, not even for a second, leave my side.”