The Good Ones Go

When Chelsea wakes up the next day, it's not voluntary. Her phone is repeatedly vibrating on the mahogany bedside table causing even Travis to stir on the couch. Her room is still dark so she knows it's the middle of the night, but who could be calling? Her shaky hand reaches over to feel for her phone sleepily, and she groans a, "hello," into the receiver.

"Chels," Cole's raspy voice beats against her eardrums - he sounds completely sober now.

"What time is it, Colson?" she asks. She's annoyed that he is waking her when he knows she had to get up to go to work in morning.

"Chels, you gotta come get me," he tells her with a sense of desperation in his voice.

She looks up at her digital clock and sighs, "Cole, I've gotta be in the ICU in less than 5 hours; stop being a child."

"I'm in jail, Chelsea," he confesses so she could understand the dire nature of the situation. Each word he speaks is laced with guilt.

Chelsea rolls her eyes in annoyance and heaves herself up from the comfort of her sheets - she really has no choice now. "Alright, I'm coming," she tells him and hangs up without bothering to wait for a response. She pulls one of his hoodies over her torso, slips a pair of flip-flops onto her bare feet, shoves her wallet into the pocket of the sweater, and grabs her keys from the entry table. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes she turns the ignition on before getting on the empty road.

Twenty minutes later she's walking up the steps of the county jail reaching for her wallet. "I'm here to post bail for a Richard Colson Baker," she says to the balding officer behind the desk while pulling out her ID.

"Ahh, Mr. Baker the trouble maker; let me get that information for you," he tells her before searching through a series of files. She catches the joke he tries to make, but it isn't funny. It's too late in to the night and too early in the morning to be laughing at the expense of her locked up boyfriend. She hadn't even asked what he had done, but she would make sure he knew she isn't happy with him.

The deputy asks her to take a seat, and the wooden oak bench squeaks under her weight as she does. She can barely stay seated though; she's so anxious to see him. She takes a deep breath, crosses her arms, and waits. The silence of the facility eats away at her as she tries to stay calm.

Several minutes later the man is handing her the paperwork - a stack of micro-print papers attached to a clipboard all awaiting signatures. Chelsea skims the legalities until she hits the dollar signs - $7500, was he serious? She couldn’t bear to keep reading, instead she just signs all the sheets and gives the officer her debit card. Once he charges it, he instructs his co-worker to get her Mr. Baker from his cell.

The minute she waits feels like a decade. She watches with a straight face as they un-cuff Colson's wrists. The officer gives her some papers for her records. She doesn't waste time as she pockets them and eagerly walks out, not bothering to acknowledge Colson: she's pissed. $7500 for a DUI? How many times has he been charged for a DUI?! It had to have been several because $7500 is a too tall a number to be a first time fee. Who had bailed him out before? How many secrets had Colson kept from her?

The ride home is silent. Colson makes no attempt to say anything to her, and she likes it that way. He sits on the passenger's side fiddling with his fingers, reminding himself to tell Slim to pick his car up tomorrow. He knows Chelsea doesn't want to hear a word. The fire radiating off of her is enough to assure him that she's beyond pissed. The last thing Chelsea wants is to hear his voice right now. She doesn't want to drive to the other side of town to take him to his house, so when she pulls up in front of her building he follows her into the apartment without protest. Though he notices Travis on the couch again, he knows he's in no position to complain.

When she walks into the bedroom, Cole reaches over and wraps his arms around her begging, "Chelsea…"

"Don't touch me, Richard," she yells. Her voice pierces through him like shards of glass. She can't believe him. Whenever he did something wrong he thought apologizing and cuddling up to her would make it better. It doesn't work that way. You can stick your dick inside life and make everything better. When would he learn?

"Babe -" he starts but is interrupted.

"Don't, Richard. Just stay away from me right now," she demands. The anger that resonates in her words is charged enough to power a city.

"Babe, I'm sorry! I'll pay you back! You know I will!" he shouts at her. He's desperate for her forgiveness, and he would resort to yelling if that's what it took for her to hear him. He is unsure of what to say to get her to hug him, to get her to stop calling him Richard, to tell him it would be okay.

"I don't want your fucking money, Richard! I want you to start acting like a grown ass man! Just get out of my fucking face," she yells back turning away from him to stare out the window with her arms across her chest.

She doesn't know what he's thinking because she can't see his face, but he doesn't utter another word. He's angry now. She hears the shuffling of his footsteps and the slamming of her front door. When she's sure he's gone she lets herself burst into tears. Moments later she feels arms around her shoulders, and she freezes up. She thought he was gone, but maybe this is her chance to forgive him since he isn't. She really didn't want him to see her crying - she wants to be strong for him.

"Shh, it'll be okay," Chelsea hears the voice and quickly realizes that it's Travis who is comforting her, and that her boyfriend is, in fact, gone. She doesn't know if she's disappointed or not, but it doesn’t matter because everything she's been holding back she lets out. She turns in Travis' arms and clings to him, crying hysterically. He shouldn't be the one dealing with this but he is, and she feels terrible about it. Every thought she has makes her cry harder.

"I'm so sorry, Travis," she sobs into his chest.

"Shhhh," is all he says to her as he leaves kisses on the top of her head before guiding her to the bed and wrapping her up in his arms again.

She takes a breath and focuses on Travis' voice as he soothes her. She shuts her eyes and concentrates on his gentle hands rubbing her back. Very quickly she loses track of time, she loses feeling of all sensations, and she lets his voice hypnotize her to sleep.

This time when she wakes up it's with a throbbing headache. Travis' arm is around her, and it's caressing her gently. Had he slept at all since she'd gotten her a couple hours ago?

"Good morning," he whispers to her, and she turns to look at him. As she stares at his handsome face she thinks of how horrible she must look right now - it had to be even worse than she felt.

"Yea, what's so fucking good about it?" she sighs, not wanting to make eye contact. She lays there as he rubs her arm up and down. Chelsea closes her eyes again and wishes that all the pain would just vanish. Just as she's about to fall back asleep, her alarm blasts through the room and wakes her up officially.

She groans as she turns around to shut it off - wishing she didn't have to get up. It would be nice to have zero responsibilities for once - just once to be the one that didn't care.

Travis can tell the last thing she wants to do is to go to work today, but her work is school, and that option is off the table. "Can you call off?" he chuckles knowing that's not how rotations work.

She shakes her head in response, "I just spent $8000, Travis. Quitting school is not an option."

Travis furrows his eyebrows. He wants to say that even doctors get sick, but the price tag she emphasizes has him confused. He'd only heard the very last part of the couples' argument last night, and the door slamming, but he assumed that was it a quarrel between lovers. When did she have the time to spend so much money? And for what?

"What happened?" he asks sitting up and letting the concern plaster on his face.

Chelsea sighs and throws the covers off of her body regretfully. "Cole got arrested for drunk driving for, what appears to be, the millionth time," she doesn't know how she manages to tell him without her voice cracking.

"Wow, and you thought the way he ended the date was bad, look how he ended the night," Travis jokes with a smirk. It may be too soon, but who was he if not the one to try to lighten the mood.

"Traviiiiss," Chelsea groans laughing a little. The pain in her chest is still heavy, but she couldn't help herself when the words hit her ears.

"Oh, come on, you know it's funny," he teases her with a nudge.

"I hate you," she chuckles as he wiggles his eyebrows her way. Really she's thankful that he could lift her mood, even if it is at her boyfriend's expense. Feeling a little better, she gets up to gather her outfit for the day; she's determined to go to her rotation and have a good day.

"Girl, you gotta stop walkin' around me like that; I can't take no more," he says licking his lips as he stares at her back. It's getting harder to contain himself around her, and he wishes she would just dump Richard if only to hook up with him. In the back of his mind he knows it's selfish, but he defends his thoughts with the idea that they wouldn't last much longer anyway.

Chelsea sticks her tongue out at him telling him she doesn't care before grabbing fresh towels for a quick shower.

He waits patiently in her bed while she gets ready, trying to fight all the dirty thoughts from his mind. When she comes back into the room, his eyes go wide - he doesn't know what turned him on more: when Chelsea was almost naked or when she was fully dressed.

"What?" she asks him with a goofy smile plastered on her face.

Travis shakes his head; "he's my dude and all, but that guy is stupid as fuck," he tells her. It's meant to be a compliment, but she doesn't see it that way.

"Travis," she warns, "please don’t go there right now." She isn't in the mood to flirt with anyone, and she's especially not in the mood to hear him insult her boyfriend.

"Alright," Travis sighs giving up, "let's go then. I'll drop you off."

She doesn't protest the idea. It would be nice to sit on the passengers side and relax during the ride. She puts her heels on, grabs her purse, and lets Travis shut the door behind her. Maybe work would get some of the worries off her mind.

When she got home that evening the apartment was empty, still a mess, but empty. She sits down on the sofa for a moment to check her messages: two from Adam and one from Travis. It seems like they are the only people that talk to her anymore. She didn't realize how much distance she'd put between herself and the rest of her friends, her family, and it was all because of Colson - her loser boyfriend that no one could stand.

She sighs and pushes the thoughts to the back of her mind. She lets Travis know she's okay before reading Adam's texts. She decides against texting back and dials his number instead. The phone only rings twice before he picks it up.

"Hey," the deep voice on the other end of the receiver is like a breath of fresh air.

"Wanna go out tonight?" she asks. She's hesitant because of how it sounds, but she asks anyway. It has been such a long time since she's let herself relax. She was like a wound up robot - working, going to classes, and picking up after Cole was all she did, and she needs a break - she deserves one.

"I'll call the guys. We'll come pick you up in a couple of hours," Adam tells her.

Chelsea grins almost as if he could see her, "sounds great, see you in a bit." She's glad he didn't take it the wrong way, but she knows Adam always has her best interests in heart. She gets up to change, putting on a sexy little dress before relaxing on her sofa 'til the boys came. She's aware of Adam's inability to keep his eyes off her, but she doesn't care. She almost likes the attention - God knew she hasn't gotten enough of it lately. Really, she doesn't want to think about men for the night; she just wants to get drunk.

It's two 'o clock in the morning when Chelsea finally comes home. She giggles her way down the hall of her building as Adam helps her find her keys in her purse.

"Adam!" she giggles watching him trying to unlock the door with every key on the chain.

"Yes?" he whispers, not wanting to wake the neighbors as the keys in his right hand jiggle anxiously.

"Adam!" she shouts again laughing even harder.

He shushes her as he opens the door, telling her to get in. She shakes her head at him and giggles some more, a hiccup escaping her lips. She's incredibly drunk, and she knows it. If she finds the courage to, she might let herself make a mistake tonight.

"Chelsea, get inside," he tugs at her arm gently, not failing to notice the gasp that escapes her lips at his touch.

"No!" she grins at him. She let herself fall into his chest as he tugs on her and takes a second to smell his scent. "Adam!" she calls out again, but this time it is muffled by his black tee.

"What?" he asks her. There is a grin on his face as he wraps his tattooed arms around her body.

"Hi!" Chelsea giggles as she reaches up to tap his nose with her index finger.

Adam laughs at her. He's never seen her feel so free, and he wishes she could unwind more often. He spins her around in his grasp and guides her into her apartment, and then to her bedroom.

"Adam!" she calls out again, and he can't help but laugh at her drunken behavior.

"What, Chelsea?" he whispers with a stupid grin on his face.

"I don't wanna go to bed," she tells him pouting a little. When his eyes land on her lips he has an urge to kiss her, but he doesn't.

"Chels, it's really late, and you gotta get some rest. I'll be on the couch if you need me," he tells her. He knows she's got to get up for class tomorrow, and so does he.

"Adam!" Her whisper catches his ears as he begins to walk away.

"Chelsea," he laughs turning to look at her once more.

"Goodnight," she grins at him staring through the doorway of her bedroom.

"Goodnight," Adam says biting his lip and giving her a once-over before turning around and crashing on the couch with a frustrated groan.