the kink club • luke hemmings ✔️

40. the one where chase has therapy.

chapter forty:
the one where chase has therapy.

"Jeez, he must have fucked you up pretty bad," Chase winces, staring at me skeptically as I down another shot. Again, I have no idea how many I've had tonight and I've only been here for an hour. "This is the third time I've seen you come in here this week,"

"That's..." I start, only to trail off due to the lack of knowing what to say. I just place the glass down, head fuzzy as I rest my forehead on the table. "...true."

"I wouldn't do that if I were you,"

"Do what?" I mumble.

"Put your head on the bar."

"Why? Let me live." I say stubbornly.

Chase ignores me. "Some idiot set off a confetti bomb before you got here. So unless you want glitter in your eye and in your hair, I'd look up."

I say nothing, deciding to prove a point despite how I can practically feel the stuff clinging to my face. I think he notices my silence; I hear him chuckle.

"Wow, the one and only Sophie Hayes, speechless?" he smirks, reaching for another glass and cleaning it's dust with the rag in his hand. "Luke didn't really leave you with much, did he?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Your heart gets broken, he gets a baby," Chase replies. I grimace. "You do the math."

"What about you stay out of my life?"

"Don't get insulted,"

"Don't insult me." I shoot back, though I'm not being serious and he knows this.

Sighing, I lift my head back up. For a second, I'm blinded by light, and I'm thankful once Chase walks past the bar and it subsides.

"So," he begins again, making me groan internally at how up he is for conversation. "Who's the girl?"

"I thought I told you," I mumble into my cup.

"You told me she was his co-worker. And that she wears all the kinky shit that Luke's into. Nothing more, nothing less." Chase cracks open a can of beer. I'm convinced that he's going to join me on the drinking but he just uses it to fill up the remainder of the empty keg. "Care to explain? You can rant to me about her, if you want."

"What's the difference? Hating on the girl isn't going to make this whole thing go away," I sigh. That's probably the wisest thing I've said this week. "I might as well keep it to myself and save my pride."

"Start a journal. It'll do you good," Chase winks at me. I roll my eyes. "I'm being serious! Noone can read it but you,"

"Now I'm convinced you own a journal."

"So what if I did? Would that make you like me any less?"

"Nah. You already have therapy with a bunch of people who hate you," I say humorously, choosing my words with caution regardless of how Chase knows I don't mean anything spiteful by it. "Don't need me adding fuel to the fire."

"You know, you should come with me sometime," he says. I laugh. "For real! We deal with some pretty deep stuff."

"Oh, go on."

"No, really. There's a girl addicted to weed in there, and a guy who smokes his dead girlfriend's ashes," Chase tells me, a little too giddy for my liking. Then he notices my distasteful expression. "It's a little fucked, yeah. But hey, it helps."