+Chapter Three+

Kristin walked across the lobby barefoot, holding her shoes in one of her hands. She was dressed in the usual dress that the ‘maids’ wore when they were on duty, and right now, she was on her way to the elevator on the other side of the busy lobby, winding her way through the people that were standing in her way.

“Tough day?” a lady asked, as soon as Kristin arrived in front of the closed elevator doors.
Looking down at the pair of white shoes in her hand, Kristin gave the woman a sheepish smile. How embarrassing for someone to ask her that. Even though the day had been ‘tough,’ Kristin didn’t want to admit it, because right now, she was on her way up to see a certain someone that she really had to talk to.

“Tell me about it,” she replied, looking up at the flashing numbers above the metal doors. He had been the only thing on her mind yesterday, and no matter how hard she tried to get him out of it, he just wouldn’t disappear.
Hearing the ‘ding’ sound of the elevator’s arrival, both Kristin and the other woman moved to step inside as soon as the doors had opened. As soon as the two women got inside, Kristin reached forward and pressed the button with the number 3 on it, while the other woman pressed the button with the number 4 on it.

“So…” the lady began, shifting from one foot to the other as the elevator doors closed and the elevator began to move, “are you a local?”
Kristin nodded her head in reply as she moved to lean against the railing inside the elevator. “I’ve lived here for almost ten years now. I came over when I was in my early teens.”
The lady nodded her head, paying attention to Kristin’s accent. She could tell straight away that she was Australian, no matter how hard the younger woman tried to conceal it. “I’m Martha by the way- Martha Ross,” she greeted, extending her hand out for Kristin to shake. “I’m here on vacation for the month.”
“I’m Kristin Coletti,” Kristin answered, accepting woman’s hand. “I’m pleased to meet you.”

“Are you one of the daughters of Antonio Coletti by any chance?” the woman known as Martha asked, as she let go of Kristin’s hand.
Kristin cocked an eyebrow, before nodding her head. “Yeah. Do you know him or something?”
Martha shook her head before giving a laugh. “Me? No. I just know that he’s one of the richest men here in Long Beach. It’s not like I don’t see him in the newspapers or anything.”

That part was true. Kristin’s father was a very wealthy man, once being a lawyer before running a chain of companies, which brought in all the money that Kristin and her family needed- and much, much more. Even though she got everything that she could possibly want, Kristin still wanted more. Not what money could buy, but what she had to earn. She wanted to make friends for being herself, not just because she was one of the daughters of one of the richest men in Long Beach. Kristin wanted to meet people who liked her for her, and not for the things that she owned.

Upon hearing the ‘ding’ of the elevator, Kristin looked up and watched as the elevator doors opened up on the third floor, the hallway appearing beyond. “It was nice meeting you Martha,” Kristin stated, stepping out into the hallway beyond the elevator. “Maybe we should catch up sometime?”
Martha nodded her head as the doors began to close. “That would be nice!” And with that, the doors closed, causing Martha to disappear out of sight.

Turning her back on the elevator, Kristin couldn’t help but curse under her breath as she walked down the hallway, still barefoot. Martha would probably be asking herself why Kristin was working in the hotel when her father was a filthy rich man, who had too much money for his own good. Well, that was how Kristin thought Martha would see the situation anyway. And how did she know that Martha wasn’t a friend of a friend of her dad’s? Then she would be found out and would have to quit her job, leaving all the new friends she had made behind.

God she hated her dad for being who he was. She loved him with all her heart, but hated some of the things he did. That was probably why Kristin had grown up to resent him in a lot of things he wanted her to do or what he wanted her to be. Either way, Kristin was not going to be her dad’s perfect daughter. She was going to be herself, even if that meant by going against her dad’s wishes and being someone else to what he wanted her to be. Maybe that was the reason as to why she couldn’t get Chase Rischetelli out of her head. Not just because of the kiss they had shared, but because he was somewhat different to everyone in Long Beach.

Now, that was the next thing she had to get out of system. Talk to Chase about why he had kissed her the day before on her day off. She had hardly slept that night thanks to him, so she was tired and could hardly think straight. Hell, she hadn’t been thinking straight all day that she forgot that her friends had been coming over that morning to say hi to her. Unfortunately, she had slept in and needed a reminder from her mum to say that Leoni, Marissa and Perri had been waiting for her out in the backyard for almost an hour. Some sort of friend she was.

But still, it wasn’t her fault that she wasn’t thinking straight like she usually would. She was confused, torn between her boyfriend who she kept telling herself that she loved, and a man that had only recently come into her life. Either way she looked at it, she had to figure it out before she got her heart broken- and one of theirs too. Maybe she should’ve dumped Brady long ago, like a lot of her friends had been telling her for the past six months or so. Kristin had originally thought that they were only telling her to dump him because they were jealous- but in reality, they were only looking out for her own well-being, especially Kayne.

Like Perri, Kayne was like a big brother to everyone, except for Darcy of course. They were best friends and were almost together all the time, either hanging around playing video games together, surfing in the afternoon or drinking at parties together. They were best friends like how Marissa and Kristin were. You didn’t see one without the other being too far behind. But in this case, Marissa was nowhere in sight, and it was Kristin on her lonesome, trying to figure out what her next move was to be.

Kristin now stood in front of the door of Chase’s hotel room, wondering what she was to do next. Enter the room and completely ignore him until she wanted to speak him, get straight to the point and get it off her chest, move around the entire point of the conversation until Chase asked her or… or, that was it. She had nothing else left. They were the plans she had come to on her way over from her home- or since she had gotten up in the morning, or late morning, she should say, or how Leoni had put it when she had last seen the brunette.

Taking a deep breath in and a deep breath out, Kristin closed her eyes as she raised her fist to the surface of the wooden door, before rapping her knuckles against it, waiting for an answer on the other side of the door. “Housekeeping.”
Lowering her arm to her side, Kristin then opened her eyes as she waited for an answer, hoping
against hope that Chase wasn’t inside and had gone off someone- preferably with Darcy or someone like that.
Not getting a reply, Kristin let out a sigh of relief as she pulled a key card from the pocket in her dress, swiping it through the lock before hearing the door unlock. With the door now unlocked, Kristin put the card back into her pocket before opening the door, her shoes still in her other hand.

The reason why Kristin hadn’t been bothered to put her shoes on was because she really wasn’t in the mood to actually wear them, so she just brought them with her, to make it look like she was going to put them on some stage during her shift.

Closing the door quietly behind her, Kristin dropped her shoes by the door, silently thanking god that she didn’t have to wear them or hold them anymore. She also had to silently thank god that Chase hadn’t answered the door, which meant that he wasn’t in the room… or was he?

Hearing a noise come from the bedroom beyond the room she was now standing in, Kristin almost squeaked out of shock, but stopped herself before a noise could even escape her lips. She had forgotten that he didn’t answer the door, because he thought that he didn’t have to.
From here on end, Kristin wasn’t going to say anything to Chase if he didn’t know that she was in the room. It was his fault that he hadn’t answered the door, so if she walked in on him having sex with someone or being naked, then it was entirely his fault, not hers.

“Couldn’t stay away from me, could ya?” a voice asked, breaking Kristin from her thoughts. Chase stood in the kitchenette, once again shirtless. Bruises lined his upper body, as did cuts. The bruise around his left eye was darker then it had been the day before, and the cut on his forehead had closed up just slightly. There was also a cut on his bottom lip, but that looked okay. Why did this guy always have to be shirtless when she was around? Of course Kristin didn’t mind or anything, but it only made it a lot harder for her to focus on his face when she talked to him.

“Well, if you’ve forgotten, I do work here,” she retorted, as she moved further into the room, zipping up her dress pocket as she walked. “But I’m guessing you have a very short memory if you’ve forgotten so soon.”

Chase gave a lopsided smile, watching as Kristin moved in the direction of the coffee table in front of the television. When Chase had been born, he had dead nerve endings in his lower left lip, only allowing him to give a crooked or lopsided smile. If he really wanted to though, he could get nerves from his legs or another part of his body placed into his face to allow him to smile properly, but he couldn’t care less. It just made him more unique- something that not very many people had. The only person he knew that had the same birth defect was the actor Sylvester Stallone, the man everyone knew as Rocky Balboa from the movie franchise. Even though Chase didn’t know the man personally, he knew that the actor had a similarity to him, except it was in the left side of his face, not just the end of his lower left lip.

That was reason why Sly spoke the way he did, because of the dead nerves in the left side of his face. Luckily for Chase though, his hadn’t affected his speech or voice- it only affected his ability to smile properly.
“Can’t you smile properly?” Kristin asked, turning around to face Chase once she had opened the curtains beside the TV, allowing the afternoon sun to fall into the room.
“I have dead nerves in the end of my lip,” Chase clarified casually, leaning against the counter as he watched Kristin enter the bedroom. “It was something I was born with.”

“You mean like Sylvester Stallone?” Kristin asked, returning to the room she had just been in, watching Chase as she moved to the table on the other side of the counter of where Chase was standing. He was a little surprised that she had heard of him, because she looked like one of those women who only liked chick flicks and movies with attractive men in them.

“Not as bad as him though,” Chase continued, before he noticed that Kristin was now leaning against the table, looking at the newspaper that was still spread out across its surface.

“It suits you,” Kristin stated suddenly, her eyes skimming over the page of the newspaper, until her eyes fell upon a big, red circle around an ad. “You’re looking for an apartment?” she questioned, not looking up from the newspaper as she continued to read the other red circles drawn on the page. That meant that Chase wasn’t going anywhere- he was here to stay in Long Beach. Just what she needed.

“I can’t live in this hotel room forever,” Chase replied, suddenly appearing behind Kristin. She could almost feel him against her, and with the words that he had just spoken, Kristin felt his breath whisper against the skin of her neck, causing her to shiver slightly. Why did he leave such an affect on her? No one had done that to her- not even Brady. She couldn’t let it get any further than what it was though- a brief friendship? Acquaintances? Kristin didn’t know which one it was, but it had to stop before it got out of hand.

“But why do you wanna live here in Long Beach? Didn’t you like Chicago?”
Chase moved to sit down on the chair beside Kristin, causing her to give an inward sigh of relief that he had moved away from her. “That’s why I’m staying here,” he replied, looking up at Kristin with his chocolate brown eyes as he rested his left arm on the surface of the table. “Chicago is somewhere that I don’t wanna be.”
“And why’s that?” Kristin asked, knowing that she was slightly pushing the subject. Even though she had to talk to Chase as to why he had to kiss her the day before, what they were now talking about now was fairly interesting, and well, she wanted to know more.

“Because there’s someone there that I never want to see again,” Chase stated, looking away to avoid Kristin’s hazel green eyes.
“As in a family member? An ex-girlfriend perhaps?” Kristin moved and pulled out a chair, sitting down on it so then she could now face Chase. “Someone you owe money to?”
Chase rolled his eyes at her. “I don’t owe everyone money,” he said, “it’s my dad actually.”
“And what could your dad have possibly done to make you not want to see him ever again?”
“He killed my mom, beat me and my little brother up since we could walk, and stole the money that was left in our mom’s will that was meant for me and my brother,” Chase answered, as if he had told the story over and over again.

Kristin couldn’t believe what she had just heard. His own father had done that to him? That was probably where he had gotten a lot of the scars that now lined his body- or what she could see anyway. “That’s disgusting,” she said finally, her eyes connecting with Chase’s for only a brief moment. “I can’t believe people can do such a thing.”
Chase moved to pull himself to his feet. “Believe me, it can happen,” he stated, walking past Kristin to enter the bedroom. What he didn’t need now was her sympathy. He was over it- that was why he run away in the first place, to get away as far as possible from his past life, as well as his abusive father.

“Wait a second…” Kristin began, quickly getting to her feet before following him into the bedroom, “that’s it? You’re not gonna wait for me to say anything?”
“Well, I don’t need your sympathy,” Chase said, glancing over his shoulder to look at Kristin. “And, I believe you’re finished with cleaning up the room, considering there was nothing for you to clean.”
“That’s not what I mean!” Kristin exclaimed, moving into the newly lit bedroom. “I mean, I wanna talk about what happened yesterday. Why did you have to kiss me?”

Chase couldn’t help but smirk as he turned to face Kristin, before it disappeared from his lips as she looked up at him. He had left her confused- he could tell by the expression that was now on her face and the way she spoke. All he had to do now was keep it up for her to keep coming back for more.
Chase simply shrugged his shoulders as he entered the bathroom, before reappearing in the bedroom, a grey shirt now in his hands.
Slipping it over his head and over his upper body, he then moved to pass Kristin, stopping briefly to kiss on her on the cheek. “It’s my way of saying thank you,” he whispered, before he continued in the direction of the door.

Hearing the door shut behind her, Kristin crossed her arms over her chest out of annoyance, completely annoyed that Chase had just walked out on her in the middle of an explanation. Giving a groan, Kristin then turned around and also headed in the direction of the door, only to find that her pair of shoes had disappeared.

“That bastard…” she whispered, grabbing the door handle and yanking the door open. She was supposed to talk to Chase about kissing her, except he had walked out the door after a simple explanation, which only left Kristin more confused than she had been before.

Maybe he was using her to get something, maybe he had the hots for her, or maybe… he just had the hots for her. Either way, Kristin was left more confused than she had been that morning, the night before, and as well as the afternoon before. She guessed that she probably had to talk to him about it again. She knew that he hadn’t kissed her because that was his way of saying thank you. No… she knew that it was something more than that, but she simply didn’t know what it was, or what his intention was.

Well, all she could do now was go home and get Marissa to come over, so then the two women could talk about what Kristin was to do next. With that thought coming into mind, Kristin couldn’t help but smile to herself as she stepped out into the hallway, closing the door behind her. Hearing it lock on its own, she then walked down the hallway barefoot, pulling out her sky blue cell phone as she went. Now all she had to do was call Marissa, so then she could meet her best friend at her house, so then she didn’t have to wait for her to arrive.

.X.

Kristin climbed out of her silver Mercedes Benz, closing the door behind her. She had changed out of her maid’s clothes and back into what she had been wearing earlier- a white tank top, a pair of navy trackies, and a pair of thongs on her feet. Noticing that a goldish silver Range Rover was parked in the driveway near the garage, Kristin couldn’t help but smile as she pulled her sportsbag from the backseat of her car, slinging it over one of her shoulders. Thank god that Marissa was there already, so then she didn’t have to wait around.

Pressing a button on one of her keys, the lights flashed on the Mercedes, signalling that it had just locked itself. Giving a smirk of satisfaction, Kristin then shoved her keys into one of her pockets before moving onto the front porch, opening one of the glass, double doors as she went. As soon as she entered the front hall and had closed the door behind her, she was immediately greeted by an older man, looking to be in his late fourties or early fifties. It was her father, of all people, who had greeted her on her return home. Just what she needed.

“Kris,” he began, looking up at her as she locked the doors behind her, “where have you been?”
“I spent the day with Darcy… didn’t I tell you that?” she lied, watching the expression on her dad’s face change upon hearing Darcy’s name. Out of all of Kristin’s friends, Darcy was the one that her dad, Antonio, liked the best. It was probably because he didn’t take life too seriously, and was just easy to get along with.

“Well, I’ve got something to tell you,” Antonio said, moving to wrap an arm around his middle daughter’s shoulders. The two then walked in the direction of the kitchen, where Kristin found Marissa sitting on one of the stools at the kitchen counter, watching her and her father talk. “You can move into your apartment this weekend,” he continued, looking down at Kristin as he talked. “Which is just in time for the party.”

Kristin gave her dad weak a smile before pulling herself away from him. She was finally going to move out and have a place of her own? She could feel the excitement begin to bubble inside her, but she knew she had to stay calm, before she totally went ballistic. “So now it’s mine?” she asked, excitement hinting in her voice as she looked up at her dad. “All mine from this weekend?”

Antonio looked down at his daughter and nodded his head in agreement, before pulling Kristin into a hug, her head finding his chest. “Yes you can,” he answered, kissing the top of her head as he spoke. “And I hear Marissa’s going to move in with you as well.”
With that being said, Kristin immediately pried herself away from her father and turned to face Marissa, a scream escaping her lips.
Marissa also joined in, jumping off the stool and pulling her best friend into an embrace. “We get to be roomies!” she exclaimed, excitement also hinting in her voice as the two women stopped screaming.

Antonio smiled at his daughter and best friend, and couldn’t be anymore happy. “Well, I guess I’ll leave you both two it,” he stated, scratching the back of his head before he headed back in the direction of the front hall to go into the loungeroom, pulling off the jacket of his suit as he went.
Kristin pulled away from Marissa and looked at her best friend, giving a smile. “Oh my god!” she exclaimed, not being able to contain her excitement any longer, “we’re gonna live together! How awesome is that!?”

Marissa returned the blonde’s smile. “I know! Now we’ll be there for each other all the time!” she replied, before she stopped, quite abruptly, her voice suddenly becoming quite low. “How’d it go with uh- ‘you-know-who?” she asked.

Kristin had been quite surprised when Marissa had dropped her voice so low, but realised what she was talking about. Her parents would kill her if they ever found out what had happened, especially if they found out what had happened to Chase in the past and what he got himself up to. They’d probably think he was a gold digger or something. And besides which, they both really liked Brady, and thought, at this rate (well, her mother did anyway) that they would eventually get married and live happily ever after.

“I’ll tell you all about it when we get to my room,” Kristin said rather quickly, and before she knew it, Marissa was being pulled in the direction of the stairs.
“Wait a second…” Marissa said, pulling her arm free from Kristin’s grasp, stopping at the bottom of the staircase, “did you even talk to the guy?”
“What do you think?” Kristin asked, stopping in the middle of the staircase to look at her best friend. “Can we just wait ‘til we get up to my room to talk about it?”
Marissa let out a sigh, and with that, the two blondes continued on their way up the stairs, only stopping briefly at the top.
“You do know that he’s coming to the party on Friday, right?” Marissa stated, as she and Kristin neared Kristin’s room.
Kristin stopped and turned around to face Marissa, her hand on the handle of her bedroom door. “What?” she asked, pulling a face as the word left her mouth.

“Chase is coming to the party on Friday,” Marissa repeated, this time causing Kristin to shake her head.
“I heard you correctly the first time,” Kristin answered, opening the door to her bedroom. “And how the hell did he even get an invite?”
“Darcy invited him,” Marissa clarified casually, shrugging her shoulders as she passed Kristin and entered her room, rays of the setting sun falling in through the window of the balcony. “Wanted him to feel more welcome or something.”
“I thought it was a ‘private’ party,” Kristin said, closing the door behind her as she moved further into her own room, dropping her sportsbag beside her bed and in front of her wardrobe.

“Your mom said it was a private party, but you could bring only one person along with them, ya know? And yeah- that’s how he got an invite. Darcy obviously wants him to be there.”
Kristin let out a sigh and ran a hand through her long, blonde locks, before the two women sat down on her bed, Kristin laying her head down on one of the pillows. “He’s everywhere I go,” she complained, Marissa sitting beside her, her legs curled up beside her. “The hotel, being friends with Darcy, and now my own private party?”
“Maybe it’s just fate,” Marissa suggested, placing her hand on the bed to support her. “Maybe you were just destined to meet him.”

Kristin reached over and grabbed a pillow sitting beside her, before pulling it across to cover her face. “You know I don’t believe in that destiny shit,” she said, her voice being muffled by the pillow. “It was more of a coincidence- a coincidence that shouldn’t have happened.”
“Well, then stop worrying about it!” Marissa exclaimed, pulling the pillow from her friend’s face and putting it back to where it had been earlier. “Don’t it let it get to you! Brady will eventually figure out what’s been going on if you don’t act like a civilised person!”

Kristin looked over in Marissa’s direction, a small smile crossing her lips. “You’re right…” she said eventually, hating to admit defeat to not only to her best friend, but to anyone. “I’ve just gotta act calm and normal so then Brady doesn’t find out- 'cos if he does, I’ve gotten myself into a lot of trouble.”

Marissa nodded her head in agreement. “So when you see him next, try to forget about the kiss that you two shared, because we both know that it was just a one-off thing.”
“Actually, now that you say that, Chase kissed me- again,” Kristin said, causing Marissa to look at her and gasp.
“You let him kiss you again?” she asked with disbelief, shocked that her friend would do such a thing.
“No!” Kristin said quickly, sitting up as she said this. “Hell no! And besides which, it was only a kiss on the cheek this time.”
“Did you even talk to him about why he kissed you yesterday?” Marissa continued, holding her best friend with one of her gazes. The looks that Marissa gave Kristin when she had done something wrong always made her feel uneasy, guilty and bad about herself.

“Stop it!” Kristin exclaimed, grabbing the pillow once again and holding it up to her face. “Stop giving me that look!”
Without a word being said, Marissa snatched the pillow from Kristin, holding onto it so then she couldn’t get it back. “Did you or didn’t you?”
“No, okay? I tried, but he wound his way around it. He walked out when I wanted an explanation!”
At least she was telling part of the truth, or well, pretty much the whole truth. If she had been completely desperate, she could’ve stopped Chase before he had left the room. “Look… he gave me a short explanation before walking off, okay? It doesn’t explain anything really, but he gave me one.”

“And what was that?” Marissa continued, the look still on her features that Kristin didn’t like.
“He said that was how he thanked people,” Kristin answered quietly, her answer hardly even audible.
Only just hearing what Kristin had said, Marissa let go of the pillow, falling backwards to lie on her back on the bed, her head now next to Kristin’s feet. With a smile now adorning her lips, she then watched as Kristin once again grabbed the pillow, but this time held onto it. “Do you know what this means?” she asked, raising her head just slightly to look at Kristin.

Kristin mumbled something before lying back down, which made Marissa sit up and join her, her head now next to hers on another pillow. “I think someone has the hots for you…” she cooed, once again making Kristin pull the pillow over her face.
“As if!” she replied, her voice once again muffled by the pillow covering her face. “He’s obviously one of those players from high school- gold diggers that want nothing but sex and money.”

“Sure…” Marissa said, a smirk appearing on her lips as her blue eyes made contact with hazel green. “I know you well enough when you say something like that, because you’re lying! I reckon you might like this guy.”
Kristin snorted as she removed the pillow, looking at Marissa with a scowl. “Oh yeah. I just happen to like another guy when I’ve got a boyfriend,” she said with sarcasm, before pulling the pillow back down onto her face.

Marissa, in one swift movement, pulled the pillow away from Kristin’s face, before throwing it over her shoulder and onto the floor. “Well, I wouldn’t completely leave that option out,” she stated, “'cos I have noticed that you’ve been acting differently around Brady.”
“Well, wouldn’t you?” Kristin retorted, looking over at her best friend with her hazel green eyes. “Look at the friends he hangs out around with! You expect me to act normal around them?”
Marissa shrugged her shoulders. “Then if it doesn’t work out, dump the guy then! What’s the point of hanging onto someone you clearly don’t love?”

“I do love him!” Kristin found herself saying. “But… I am gonna talk to him tomorrow anyway. He can make the decision, not me.”
Marissa cocked an eyebrow, wondering what was on her friend’s mind. “What are you gonna leave up to him?” she asked, slightly confused as to what Kristin was on about.
“He can choose between me or his stupid friends,” Kristin replied rather quickly, her gaze moving to look at the ceiling above their heads. “I’m not gonna be the bad guy here. If he can’t choose between either of us, that’ll be when I step in- only then. But if he chooses his friends over me, then we’re through. The end. Aster la vista.”

“And you’re sure about this?” Marissa continued, “'cos I don’t wanna see you upset if he breaks your heart or anything.”
“Riss, I’ll be fine,” Kristin assured, giving her best friend a smile as she looked at her. Reaching out, she then grabbed her hand and held onto it gently. “I know you’ll be there for me, 'cos you always are. You’re my rock, I’m your moss.”

With that being said, both girls broke out into laughter. “I’m your rock and you’re my moss?” Marissa asked, in between her laughter. “That is so true!” With that, Marissa leaned over and kissed her blonde friend on the cheek. “But seriously though… I just don’t wanna see you get hurt if he makes the wrong decision.”

“You know I’ll be fine,” Kristin answered quietly, still looking at her friend. “But I always feel bad when we have these little ‘get togethers’! I feel like im never there for you.”
“Just remember the time when I broke up with Darcy,” Marissa stated, “and the time when I found out he was going out with Leoni- and when they got engaged.”

.X.

Chase walked down the street, hands stuffed in the front pockets of his jeans. It had only been an hour ago that Darcy had called him up to tell him that he had been invited to some party on the Friday night, which meant he had to dress up. But on top of that, it wasn’t just any party- it was for her. Kristin Coletti. From what Darcy had told him, Chase had figured that every man who had been invited had to where a dinner suit, and the women had to wear dresses that looked to cost thousands of bucks. It was somewhere Chase knew he didn’t belong, but he decided to go, considering Darcy almost begged him to.

That wasn’t a pretty sight, seeing Darcy Bennett begging on his hands and knees. Yet, that was what the guy had done to get Chase to go to the party. And on top of that, Darcy had also promised to go out and buy Chase a suit, considering he hadn’t been in Long Beach for long and didn’t know where to look for something to wear. Not that Chase cared anyway, but now he felt like he owed the guy something for being so nice and generous to him, seeing as they hadn’t known each other for that long.

With a sigh escaping his lips, Chase continued to walk down the street, only a few cars driving by as he walked. The sun now beginning to set, Chase knew that shops were starting to close and people were going home to their families, which meant that he wasn’t really going to see anyone, and where he wanted to go in the first place, would be limited.

He didn’t like what was happening to him, and what was going on around him, being invited to parties, acting proper, hanging around people that had a lot of money… he didn’t like it, and wanted nothing to do with that life. He worked for a living, and well, didn’t know what it was like to get everything your heart desired. And he wasn’t about to change either, no matter who he was becoming friends with and how they lived. Wearing suits and drinking champagne were not his idea of fun. No. His idea of having fun was drinking beer and hanging out on the streets and getting into trouble with the cops. That was his idea of having fun, because it got the adrenaline running.

Breaking out of his thoughts, Chase looked up, noticing that a whole row of shops had closed, except for the one that he wanted to be at. Seeing as how he had been bored for almost the entire day, he had come up with a way to entertain himself. Well, not exactly a way to entertain himself, but something for him to look forward to. A sign dangled above the sidewalk, reading: “Tattoo Parlor.” Reading this, Chase could only smirk to himself, and he already had in mind what tattoo he wanted to get.