Highly Inappropriate

34.

ASHLEY'S POV

Dinner went by pretty fast, and despite some awkwardness between me and Jess, everything went fairly well. I was still kind of shook over the entire conversation with Gabi, but all in all I was extremely relieved that she took it the way she did instead of going ballistic on me.

A little while after dinner, Alex was carrying her Grandma's suitcase downstairs, letting me know that she was getting ready to leave. It pained me to see all those sad faces in the room, and I suddenly felt out of place. Jess must have sensed it as well, as she went forward and hugged Gabi goodbye before refraining and disappearing upstairs to leave the family some alone time.

I was about to do the same but Chase preceded me, throwing himself at her and causing us all to giggle. He was just really adorable.

"Goodbye Gabi, it was really nice to meet you.", I then stated as soon as Chase disappeared as well, hugging her briefly.

"Likewise, Miss Stevens.", she teased, earning a puzzled look from Alex, which I decided to ignore.

"Have a safe flight."

"Thank you dear."

I smiled warmly at her and took a step back, motioning towards the kitchen when I caught sight of Sparky bolting up the stairs with one of Alex's boots in his mouth. Not wanting to distract her from her Grandma, I ran upstairs after him just to find him at the end of the hallway, waggling his tail and looking at me. I wanted to take a few steps towards him and just grab it from him, but I was afraid that he would just bolt downstairs again.

"Sparky.", I stated in a warning voice. "Drop it. Drop the boot."

That definitely didn't work since he kept waggling his tail even harder, probably thinking that this was a game.

"Come on buddy, drop the boot. You don't want Alex to get mad at you, do you?"

That didn't work either. Sighing, I took a look around the hallway and fortunately my eyes landed on a tennis ball. I knew for a fact that he loved balls.

God, that sounded awkward.

"Hey, look Sparky! Do you want this?", I asked, grabbing it from the floor and shaking it in the air.

That definitely worked, since he dropped the boot and stared at me, his ears perking up and his tongue sticking out of his mouth. I grinned victoriously as I threw the ball behind him and immediately reached out for the boot, eventually placing it in Alex's room and closing the door behind me.

I was about to go back downstairs when I walked in front of Chase's room just to see his attention being fully absorbed by a video game. Remembering about what happened to him in school during the week, I lingered in my spot for a couple of seconds, wondering if I could actually give it a try and see if he would open up to me. I wasn't really hopeful since Alex tried every single day to get him to speak, but I decided to go for it nonetheless.

"Hey sweetie..", I made myself known to him, leaning against the doorframe. "What game are you playing at?"

"A game about cars.", he shrugged, not even glancing my way.

"You don't sound very excited about it."

"It's boring when it's just you playing.", he shrugged again.

"Want me to play against you?"

"You know how to play?", he frowned in surprise, actually pausing his race just to look at me.

"Oh, you don't know what's coming for you.", I chuckled, taking a few steps and sitting next to him on the floor.

We started playing against each other and needless to say, I was doing a very crappy job. I kept crashing my car against every possible obstacle and Chase was laughing his ass off by the end of the third race.