Isabella Rossi would make an iceberg envious with her ability to stay pristinely frozen.
After...
that
night... Chase and his mother-in-law didn't just go back to their old relationship, they took that relationship and decided that it now needed some extra-thick padding. They were like mere roommates. No, they were like roommates who'd met on Craig's List and made sure they had completely different patterns so any interaction was minimized as much as possible, and labeled their food so the other couldn't touch it, and split the utilities two ways, and...
In other words, ships passing in the night without even a perfunctory foghorn to acknowledge each other's existence.
Chase went back to what had worked before, ignoring the uncomfortable truth that it hadn't, in fact, worked at all, and buried himself in his job. He kept up his end of Isabella's forced bargain too, and still did what he could to locate his wayward wife. And kept it up. And kept it up... over months. Months of existing in a displaced pocket universe with no light or sound. Just clicks. Click, click, click, groan, click, frustrated bellow, click, click, fist slamming the desk, click, click...
He was zombie Chase now, and he was slowly going insane.
Isabella, well, he frankly wasn't sure what she was doing with her time. He knew she'd kept up with the video games, but her days of asking him for any kind of advice were done. She lived in the gym too, trying to sweat out her human emotions, if he had to guess. He could commiserate with that, at least; the heavy bag became his shining salvation nearly every day after work. Beyond that, though, the woman was shut in her room, incommunicado, which suited him just fine. It did. Really, it was fine with him. It was.
Still, no plan is perfect, especially the ones that are less plans, and more a type of unspoken pact to suppress the urge to off yourself. Two heavenly bodies orbiting each other will eventually, after eons, either crash together or fly apart. Crash or fly... it has to happen. You can't break the laws of nature.
__________
"Chase!" If the gasping out of his name was a punch to the gut, then the sight of Isabella exiting the bathroom without a stitch on was a knife to his chest. Without a stitch... dripping wet... shimmering in petrified perfection...
Good god, snap out of it man.
Chase was feebly trying to force himself back to reality.
She probably won't find it all that endearing if you drool on yourself, she's weird that way.
He shook his head. Why did that thought seem familiar? It didn't matter, there was definitely something else demanding his focus right then. "Bel... Isabella, I didn't realize you were..." The woman still seemed unaware of her nudity, and just gaped like a fish out of water. The sexiest fish from the hottest sea...
Stop it!
"I... no one replaced any towels this week, and I was... was already in the shower... so I..." She gestured vaguely at the linen closet. "I forgot that you'd probably be coming back now. We... we've been..."
"On autopilot." Chase finished the thought, then gave an involuntary laugh. "It must have deflated."
The next sound he heard was... crystalline. It was flawless in both its beauty and its wounding sharpness, and that was probably the first time in history anyone had ever applied that metaphor to a snort.
"I remember that movie!" She kept laughing, and he kept aching. "Elizabeth made me watch it years ago. I thought it would be moronic, and it was, but god, it was so funny. Like, when that guy jumped out the window... or when that one beats the hell out of all the pamphlet people..."
Chase's grin was sweet agony. "Or when the guy asks the other to pinch him in that bar, and then the dancing scene..."
"Right?" Isabella put a hand on his shoulder to brace herself as she kept laughing. "Wow, it's been so long, we should watch... we..."
A good many things occurred to her at once as the remembered past, that fleeting little golden age, inevitably gave way to the dismal present; the first apparently being that she was still naked, which caused her arms to pull back as fast as possible and cover up her naughty bits. The second was that she was acting human to the man she'd chewed up and spit out, and that couldn't stand for a second longer, which meant any further wish on her part was shut down at the source.
Chase wordlessly opened the linen closet and snatched out a towel, then thrust it at her without looking. At first. After a second, he couldn't help but glance down at her. If her face looked pained, like, really, deeply distraught... well, self recrimination is a strong emotion, and he was sure that Isabella was kicking herself for forgetting for a moment that she didn't want to give him the time of day.
She took the towel in her hand, but, for a heartbeat, Chase didn't let go, and they just stood there staring at each other without making a peep. When he finally loosened his grip and turned to leave, he heard a strange sound coming from her that he couldn't--wouldn't--identify, and headed to his bedroom, shutting the door definitively behind him.
__________
The next time he talked to Isabella, he didn't talk to Isabella. She talked to him. If informing him of what was going to happen counted as talking.
It was a week later and he was, as per usual, coming in from a session at the gym. His...
guest
, met him in the foyer with her hands on her hips, her gaze nothing but pure challenge.
"Six O'clock. Tomorrow."
Chase's imagination went completely wild. He couldn't help it. What he could help, though, was his response, and his response was to not respond; verbally, at least. He watched her instead, brows raised expectantly until she huffed in frustration and kept going.
"That's when you should plan on something else to do. Something not here. Do I need to say more?"
He just shook his head and moved past her.
No, you fucking do not.
__________
Fuck her warning, fuck her icy heart, and fuck her fucking. Chase and Isabella had now slid right past the new year, and he'd barely noted it.
That's
what his pale existence had come to; shuffling through meaningless days with no end in sight until one or both of them eventually broke. Well, if this was her finally making a move, then he was ready with a counter-move. He would not make it easy for her. He would not tip over his king and concede the game.
Sitting in his office after everyone else went home, he ordered his thoughts until he knew exactly what to do; after all, he'd done it once before. He was going to go home and be right there when Isabella had bad sex with whichever sad sack she'd plucked from the ether this time. He was going to remind her what she could have had, goddamn it. He was going to show
someone
, finally, that he was more than a nice, safe starter dick to be used until they were ready to dump him and move on to bigger and better things. Not this time. Not this time.
Don't drive angry
. A wise man once said that to a rodent, but Chase was stuck in his own recurring loop, and he was bound and determined to get out of it as soon as possible. His trip home was full of near-catastrophes, but he got there; Six on the dot.
Just as before, Isabella and her fuckbuddy had already begun by the sounds from the--
yet again--
open bedroom. Instead of hollow noises and empty urgings, though, Chase was able to pick up full sentences. Well, half-full.
"Use your fingers... no, here, press on..." A low grunt of impatience. "Just... I'll move your hand to where you need to put it. Hey, stop pulling away. I'm telling you, this is the right way--"
What came next did nothing to quash Chase's anger. Quite the opposite.
"Bitch, I'm not your fucking middle-school boyfriend! What the fuck do you think this is?" The deep growl raised the hairs on Chase's arms. "Listen, you found me, you're hot, I'm fucking hung... and I'm going to make you squeal like a pig. End of story."
Isabella... Isabella laughed. It was a mistake. "Been there, done that.
Stud
." The sarcasm dripped from her. "I'm telling you what I want from you, and you--"
The sound of the slap was nothing less than a starter's pistol to Chase.
The next few moments were mostly lost in a red haze. He was aware of the guest bedroom door slamming open like a thunder clap, of a big, ruddy-faced man turning his way with shock and fury, and, clearest of all, Isabella sprawled on her bed in her bra and panties, her hand wiping blood away from her split lip, wide eyes rolling to look at him as the fear slowly gave way to hope.
"Who the fuck--"
Slam
. Fist on face ended that inanity right then and there. Then, round two of fist on face made sure that any further stupid questions were dead on arrival. Round three was for bolstering the lessons of rounds one and two. Round four? Well, that was just pure fun.
The entire time, Isabella didn't say a word. She just propped herself up on her elbows to watch unblinkingly. When Chase was satisfied that he'd gotten his message across, he grabbed the nameless asshole by his hair and wrenched the man's head up.
Sometimes history really does echo.
"You think about doing anything to her ever again, of getting even a tiny bit of revenge, I'll finish this." The promise came out in a long hiss. "I'll finish you. I will find you, and that will be the end. I know what you're thinking right now, too, but remember, cops have to play by the rules, and getting out on bail is a thing."
The bloody mess managed a nod, which was good enough for Chase, and he hauled the sack of meat to his feet, managing to wrangle him through the house and right past the front door with a literal boot to the ass.
After slamming it shut, Chase had to take a moment; the adrenaline was still pumping and his lungs were working like bellows. He actually thought he might pass out, he was so wound up. At least, he'd thought he was. When he finally turned away from the door, he found out what being wound up truly meant.
