“I knew it! I knew you didn’t remember,” Polly huffed loudly, pushing herself away from Chase with both hands and sliding back on the sofa so they could face each other without touching. Jack raised his head and looked at them both before digging his nose back against his front paws and resettling on the floor, obviously wanting to avoid any sort of raised voices. Polly kept talking, more to herself than Chase, beginning to pace the floor nervously.“God, I feel like the world’s biggest idiot. Why would I have thought it would make any sort of impact? You were Chase Colton, Mr. Big Shot, after all, and I was just Parker’s twin sister, and I was just there…”
Chase reached for Polly, but she shied away. His touch made her lose every thought in her brain, and she didn’t want to be addle minded for this particular conversation.
Chase sensed that the last part of her jumbled, impassioned speech wasn’t intended for him at all, so he wisely waited until she appeared to be done before speaking. “What don’t I remember?” Chase asked with genuine confusion. “Pols?”
Polly took a deep breath, steeling herself to have her feelings hurt in a big way over something that should be a distant memory. “What do you remember about the night you graduated high school?”
“Is this a trick question?” Chase asked suspiciously. “I feel like I’m being led into a trap.”
“Just answer the question,” Polly shot back, her voice taking on the tone of ‘kick ass attorney on a mission’, rather than normal Polly. “Please,” she amended after a moment.
Chase’s forehead wrinkled as he tried to recall events from more than a decade and a half ago. “I’m pretty sure we partied on the beach. I think Cashman threw the bash, because his folks were in Florida or something. There were tons of us there, and I’m pretty sure I woke up with a killer hangover, glad that high school was done forever and I could finally do what I wanted to do – which didn’t last long, unfortunately, since my mom laid down the law. My dad had only been gone for a short time, so I’m guessing I was an out of control asshole for most of that night. Why?” He paused, noting her red cheeks and feeling a flush of worry. “What do you remember? Was I an asshole to you? Or Parker? Did I say something hurtful?”
Polly nodded slowly, coming to the realization that a life changing night for her didn’t even register on Chase’s memory radar. “No, you didn’t say anything hurtful. In fact, you were quite sweet.”
“So… what am I not remembering?” Chase asked.
“You really don’t remember anything else?”
“Pols, I’m not lying to you. I don’t remember…” he blinked, a faded memory tickling the back of his mind. He hooked up with… someone… oh God, he thought, was it one of her friends? Had he broken some sort of girl code of which he was unaware?
Polly swallowed thickly, standing up from the couch and shoving her feet into her nearby sneakers, preparing to take flight rather than have to stay, admit the past to Chase, and then look him in the eye – she just wasn’t up for it tonight. “I had a crush on you from the time I was eight years old. And your graduation night, after all those years of you not noticing me…” she took a deep breath and continued, “you finally did. We danced. We talked, and then…” Polly squared her shoulders, took a deep breath and just said it. “We slept together, you asshole. And you don’t even remember.”
Polly didn’t actually hear anything Chase said after that as tears blurred her vision while she crashed through the patio door, marching towards the beach. She realized with a bitter laugh that this was becoming a pattern with her – confronting a man about sex, then fleeing the scene in tears. She jumped a bit, and then relaxed as she heard footsteps beside her before realizing it was Jack loping along beside her.
Grateful for the company, she ruffled Jack’s ears but didn’t slow her pace, glad it wasn’t Chase coming after her. Without a backwards glace, she pounded down the beach to the beat of her overly emotional heart.
**
Chase stood, stunned, in the middle of Polly’s family room, watching her perfectly postured back retreat down the beach path. With a whistle and a nod in her direction, he sent Jack in pursuit of her which he did happily, knowing he would provide her company, protection, and warning if anything was looming in the dark.
Hopefully, anyway.
Running his hands through his hair, Chase sank back onto the sofa, mentally pummeling himself. It was true – after his father was killed, he was out of control. The drinking, the flings, the reckless behavior… there was no excuse for it, but it was a product of those times and Chase regrets them to this day. However, he can’t change the past…
But he damn well should have remembered it.
He knew, he knew there was something nagging him when he saw Polly again after all these years, a reason to be cautious or concerned, but he never placed what it was. Well, now the answer had smacked him in the face.
He’d slept with little Polly Royston, twin of his best friend, and hadn’t even remembered he’d done it.
And he was sure it wasn’t exactly a romantic interlude – probably just a drunken, fumbling attempt in the backseat of a car or on a wrinkled blanket somewhere.
Polly Royston North deserved better.
God, he really was an asshole.
And to think, she had remembered all this time, and even when they had reconnected, had apparently forgiven him, or at least given him a chance to make up for past mistakes.
But he’d forgotten.
She truly was an amazing woman, and he was an asshole.
He really didn’t know what to say to her, how to make an apology for not remembering, but he knew something had to be said.
He only hoped she returned from her walk unscathed so he could say it.
**
Polly was resolved as she tugged the sliding patio door open – tonight was not the night to discuss the past. She was too emotionally tied to him, and in all fairness, she had just hit Chase with this memory, so he probably needed to recalibrate as well.
Better for everyone to sleep it off.
Alone.
Chase shot out of his seat when he saw her and Jack emerge through the door, his mouth opened and ready to speak when Polly put out a hand, silencing him.
“I’m tired, I don’t want to talk about it tonight, and I’d really like it if you would just go. Thanks for the loan of the wooddog. He’s a bit damp from paddling in the freezing cold lake – sorry about that.”
Chase opened his mouth again, but seeing Polly’s steely gaze, closed it. He nodded curtly once, and then whistled for Jack, who looked from master to mistress and back again in confusion. Chase whistled again, and very reluctantly, Jack crossed the room to him, giving Polly a truly hangdog expression at being separated from her.
Polly watched as they walked out the front door in tandem, closing it gently behind them, before she toed off her sneakers, yanked angrily at her ponytail, and then resolved to sink into a bath with a gigantic glass of merlot.
What else was there to do?
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