my ex's best friend , hudson

TWENTY SEVEN

★          ★          ★

serena sighed as she pulled into a random parking spot. she was going to murder shiloh. shiloh had told serena that she was at this random parking lot over an hour away from their apartment building, but the parking lot was more like a park that had fifty different parking lots in it. serena had tried calling shiloh multiple times, and it went to voicemail every single time.

"i'm gonna murder this bitch," serena mumbled under her breath.

she rubbed her eyes in an attempt to wake herself up a bit. serena hadn't anticipated going out at all tonight since she needed to wind down and recover from her performance at the forum, and she was caffeine-crashing hard on top of that. serena huffed while putting her car back into drive, so she could continue driving in circles.

after about five minutes of driving, serena noticed a figure standing on the other side of the parking lot. the figure was tall and on the thin side and appeared to be waving at her. 

"fucking finally!" serena exclaimed as she pulled up next to the figure. 

she hurriedly turned her car off and got out. "shiloh, i'm gonna kick your ass after-"

serena stopped speaking after noticing the person in front of her wasn't her dear sister.

"chase?" serena rubbed her eyes again to make sure she wasn't having a hallucination, "what the fuck are you doing here?"

"hi, rena," chase awkwardly scratched the back of his neck.

chase had gotten there about half an hour before serena arrived. after ten minutes of driving around aimlessly looking for aurelia, chase had called her. immediately aurelia broke down and told chase about her and shiloh's plan to get them to talk again. chase was annoyed that they decided to do this in the middle of the night and told aurelia that this was "fucking stupid". in response, aurelia told him that both him and serena were also "fucking stupid" because it took this dramatic plan to get them to talk again. although chase was tired and irritated, deep down he was excited. it's been about two weeks since serena had basically told him she wanted space, and it was the worst two weeks of chase's life. chase was in bed moping and binge watching friends on the days he wasn't occupied with his virtual performance. he had felt so sad and empty that he didn't know how to function, so having a chance to talk to serena again brought chase a feeling of excitement he hadn't felt in a while. 

serena, on the other hand, was completely shocked. shiloh had completely gone ghost after she started driving, so she had no idea about this plan. of course, serena knew something was up because shiloh usually never goes on tinder dates late at night, but she didn't think this was some huge scheme to get her and chase talking again. at first, serena was annoyed because being lied to was her biggest pet peeve. she wished that shiloh would've told her what really was going on at some point, so she didn't look like a dumbass standing in front of chase completely speechless. that feeling soon went away though. as soon as she made eye contact with chase, butterflies erupted in her stomach. all she wanted to do was launch herself in his arms and hug him like the world was ending, but she didn't know how well that would go over with him. against her better judgement, she just stood there. serena crossed her arms over her t shirt, so chase wouldn't notice that it was actually his t shirt. she had been wearing it every chance she could, and she didn't change before leaving her apartment because she didn't think she'd be seeing him.

"uhm, hi," serena responded awkwardly, "shiloh asked me to come here and pick her up, but since she's obviously not here, i'm just gonna go."

as she turned around and curled her hand around the handle of her car, chase spoke up.