Page 14 of I Do, or Dye Trying
“Nice,” I said, smiling at him. “You sounded a little poetic there.” Chaz’s face blushed a pretty shade of pink that would make a lovely nail polish. “What’s with the blushing? I was paying you a compliment, you know.”
“I do,” he said with a slight nod. “Just like your offer to promote me to salon manager is a big compliment.”
“I’m sensing a‘but’here,” I said.
“There might be a ‘but’ here,” he confirmed then nibbled on his bottom lip while he turned something over in his brain. “I think I better tell you what’s really been going on in my life because it does impact you more than I ever thought it would.”
I sat up straight, both excited to get to the truth out of him and a little worried about the visible anxiety on his face and in the way he bounced his knee. “You want me to call Meredith and ask her to come over so you can get this all over with at once?” I sounded like I was doing him a favor when in reality I wanted her there to support me too because whatever he had to say was big. I was dialing her number before Chaz even finished nodding. “Girl, we need you here,” I said dramatically into the phone. “Chaz is ready to confess.”
“Confess?” Chaz and Meredith both asked at the same time.
“Yes,” I said to them both. “Chaz is about to tell us what’s really been keeping him up late at night.”
“I’m on my way.”
“I’m here, sugar!” Meredith said five minutes later as she ran up the stairs. “Whatever it is, we’ll get through it together. Remember that one time Josh was convinced he had an STD and it turned out to be a bladder infection? Of course, a person needed to engage in a sexual activity of some sort and not just think about it to pick up an STD,” she added with a snort. “Anyway, we’re here for you just like that.”
“Wait a minute,” I said throwing up my hand. “Ihadbeen engaging in sexual activity.”
Chaz quirked a brow humorously and said, “Jerking off next to someone and not getting any of their spunk on you—hell, not even their hands or mouth—isn’t the kind of sexual activity she was talking about, Jazz.”
“Okay, you made your point,” I said with a hint of defensiveness. I had been jerking off too much and not washing my hands enough. The films we’d watched in school about safe sex had me convinced the burning sensation when I urinated was from an STD and not from bacteria caused by bad hygiene. My two besties cackled like hyenas. “There’s nothing funny about STDs,” I said firmly. Or my naivety when I was younger.
“Of course not,” Mere said after she had a good laugh. “I’m just lightening the mood, honey.” She covered Chaz’s hands with hers, and I laid mine over the top of both. “Tell us what’s been going on, love.”
“Please, please don’t be mad at me for not telling you about this sooner. I never thought my late-night activities would develop into something worth discussing,” Chaz said.
“Oh my God! You’re dating Dr. Do Me,” Mere said giddily. “I knew it!”
“No, but that’s what I thought too,” I told her.
“Damn,” Meredith said. “You have me stumped then.”
Chaz took a deep breath, held it, and released it slowly. “Okay, um, I don’t know how to say this except to blurt it out there.” He paused for dramatic effect then said, “I wrote a book,” in a rush so it sounded like one word. “And Kyle is also part of my confession.”
“You wrote a book?” I asked.
“What kind of book?” Meredith wanted to know. “And how does it involve the good doctor?”
Chaz pulled his hands from beneath the pile and rose from his chair. “Iamthe guy he was gaming with,” he said while he paced my polished floors. “I’m the guy he’s been wanting to meet.”
“I have so many questions that I don’t know where to start,” I said to Chaz.
“Ditto,” Mere said softly beside me.
“Okay, we’ll save the book talk for last because it’s the best part. I joined the online gaming community for research purposes for my book,” Chaz said. “I never expected in a million years that one of the guys I played on a team with was Kyle. Anyway, I, um, got what I needed from the late-night games and chats then shut down my account and focused on writing my book.”
“Chats?” Mere asked. “Like phone calls or text messages?”
“More like a private messenger program for gamers. You can chat in groups or individually and I spent more than a usual amount of time chatting up Kyle. It’s how I knew who I was talking to, not that he tried to hide anything.”
“What was his username?” I asked out of curiosity.
“Doc Paws,” Chaz whispered. “Cute, right? Anyway,” he said before I could respond, “he talked about moving back to his small hometown to take over a veterinary practice and a few other things that gave him away to me.”
“Like what?” Mere asked. “There are a lot of small town vets out there.”
“Not many of them have a detective for an ex-boyfriend who’s moved on with his life with a salon owner,” Chaz said.