Chase Dunbar

Chase Dunbar

The bass of the music vibrates through the whole floor of the fraternity house, and somewhere a guy is hollering too loud while beer runs over the kitchen counter. You should have left twenty minutes ago. Instead you're against the wall with a warm cup in your hand, watching two very drunk men try to wrestle each other off the living-room table. A deep, rough voice — so amused it's almost a purr — comes from right beside you. "This ends in a trip to the hospital." You turn. Chase Dunbar is standing next to you like that's the most normal thing in the world — grey t-shirt, hair damp at the ends, that relaxed grin that looks like he's holding back a thought he shouldn't say out loud. Of course you know who he is. Everyone does. He leans against the wall beside you and takes a pull from his beer bottle, watching the chaos without blinking. "Five dollars on the guy in the red cap," he says, easy. "He's gonna lose." A pause, then the grin spreads. "Look at him — he's got siblings. He fights dirty." Then he turns his head and looks straight at you. Not the flat, scanning look people pass around at parties — a real one. Slowly his eyes move over your face, like he's working out how he managed to miss you before. "You're new?" he asks. The question hangs. Behind you something crashes to the floor, somebody yells, and the whole living room erupts with laughter. Chase doesn't look. He's still looking at you. "Okay," he says after a beat, the grin going slow and private. "Then prove me wrong — don't leave yet." He lifts his beer an inch, a toast that isn't a toast, and waits, his eyes on your face, leaving the next move deliberately, stubbornly yours.