Relapse

“Just this way.”

Blake guides us to a booth near the back of the restaurant and I slide into the side of the booth facing the rest of the room. I’m surprised when Chase slides in next to me on the same side, his thigh pressing against mine.

“What can I get you guys to drink?” Blake asks as his brown eyes dart to the door where a large group of people have just walked in.

“Lemonade,” I order.

“Sprite, please,” Chase says and Blake disappears with a nod.

“So you’re one of those people,” I say to Chase as I pull the menu over to me.

I feel his gaze on me as he moves slightly. “What kind of person?”

I look up at him, slightly amused. “The type who sits on the same side as the person they’re out to eat with. I always hate when I see couples do that.”

His lips kick up into a smile. “Actually, it’s more of a security thing. I like to be able to see the whole room I’m in and you took that side of the booth. So being the polite man I am, instead of asking you to switch, I decided we could share.” His gaze turns to the menu in his hands but I don’t miss the way he smiles. “Sharing is caring, after all.”

I stare at him, catching the extra meaning to his words. “Is that what you think you and your friends are doing?” I ask him. “Sharing me?”

“I said no such thing.”

“But you aren’t denying it.”

He only glances at me, raising a brow. A part of me wants to tell him that I’m not a thing to be shared. The other part of me is still shocked by how calm they seem to be about whatever this weird thing going on between us is. I decide to let it go for the moment as I return my gaze to the menu.

Blake comes back to our table, placing our drinks in front of us as he pulls out the small pad to write our orders on. “What can I get you guys?”

“I want the sausage, bacon, egg, and hash brown platter, extra hash browns and add cheese to it please,” Chase says, closing the menu.

Blake looks at me. “Bacon and egg omelet please,” I tell him and he nods taking our menus and leaving.

Chase turns in his seat, angling his body toward me. I do the same and our knees knock together as we stare at each other.

Chase smiles and I find that he does it a lot and every time it only makes his gorgeous face even more beautiful. “Tell me about yourself, officer.” Because I don’t know anything below the surface about him.

He nods. “Well, I’m the oldest brother to a family of seven.”

My eyes widen at that. “Seven?” I question in shock.

“Yep, Ma had seven kids and honestly, I’m surprised it wasn’t more. Her mother had ten kids.”

I pull my legs together at the thought and almost don’t realize what I’m doing until Chase looks down at them and laughs. “Yea, I can’t imagine pushing out even one kid, let alone seven or ten,” I tell him.

He chuckles softly. “Yeah? A lot of people have that reaction when they learn that, but I have a huge family and there seems to be a four kid minimum. My ma and tía keep pestering me to find out when I’m going to start working on my football team.” His eyes crinkle at the corner as he laughs.

I shake my head. “My mother only had two kids and considering that she more or less hated me, I can’t see her ever having more than us.” I realize the words are out of my mouth too late and watch as Chase’s face sobers up. I try to quickly move away from the subject of my mother. “My sister had two also… Tanner and Lilly.” I add on like an idiot before remembering that I told him this already the day I had the breakdown and he came over.

He doesn’t point it out though, just nods. “Yeah, I think two is a good number, but at this point I feel I’m more or less obligated to have at least four or my ma will kill me.”

“Is that how many you really want, though?” I question. “Because that sounds mad.”

He laughs softly. “Honestly, I don’t know. I’m starting to think I’m getting too old to have more than one.”

“Twenty-nine isn’t old,” I say, remembering Nathan mentioning that Chase is coming up on thirty.

“My mother had me at fifteen.”

I cringe at that and he laughs. “I can’t imagine.” I was active at fifteen but I’d watched too many shows and movies about teenage pregnancy to be anything other than careful. “My grandma was always preaching the struggles of raising a kid to me and when she gave me the sex talk, she made sure to stress the importance of birth control.”