21. Chloe
21
CHLOE
A couple of days passed, days when I simply couldn’t get Sean’s words out of my mind.
“Stick with me long enough, and you’ll soon find out.”
Find out what it was like to be the woman he was seeing?
Or find out based on another woman he would eventually see?
I flushed as I caught myself going over it again.
Why had I asked him that ridiculous question?
Now, I was picking apart his words, and none of the meanings I came up with could ease the nervousness in my stomach.
I wouldn’t let anything happen—that much was sure—but the idea that Sean could be interested in me was enough to send flutters going in my heart.
Silly, trivial flutters that would amount to nothing.
It had taken me a year of knowing Bruce casually before we dated.
I went into that relationship with the knowledge that he knew Henry and Henry’s condition well enough and was understanding about how much time went into thinking about solutions to Henry’s problems. So, Bruce’s words from when he’d broken up with me, reminding me of how I was destined for a miserable life, stung more than it should have.
After Henry had returned home in a wheelchair, our father had vanished abruptly a month later.
At eighteen, I’d become responsible for Henry, sacrificing my dreams and my perception of a normal life.
Sean knew nothing about how I had become a parent of sorts to Henry.
Once he knew how much of my personal time was spent thinking or worrying about Henry, he’d want nothing to do with me.
Dad had been the first man to leave me when I needed him the most, but he wasn’t the last. Bruce had followed suit, in spite of my rigorous vetting process.
I simply couldn’t find a way to have both—a love life and be there for my brother.
During my evening out in Central Park, Henry had been so worried, waiting for ages by the door for me to return.
I would never forget that look of relief when I’d come back home at a reasonable hour.
I couldn’t bring myself to regret it for too long though.
Sean’s recent payment had come through, and I’d actually paid off not just the bills for the new meds, but Henry’s recent doctor’s appointment visit too.
For once, my financial situation was not in the forefront of all the things that worried me.
It gave me the motivation to tell Henry that I was going out with Sean and Lucas again this week.
I told him that, financially, we needed it.
He had tried to be more understanding about it ever since.
In spite of my resolve to keep things strictly businesslike, I couldn’t help notice that Sean seemed to be more and more busy as Friday approached.
I’d seen him in meetings—surrounded by people holding computers, showing stock market graphs, and whiteboards with more numbers and calculations than possible—and knew he was up to his eyeballs with work.
Being around him lately was more electrifying than before, as though the two of us knew we were this close to giving in to the sparks between us.
Just looking at him standing by his floor-to-ceiling windows brought to mind dirty images of what he could do to me.
I imagined myself naked, breasts pressed against the glass with his fingers in me, and I had to shake myself out of it.
I exhaled and took my third trip to the bathroom in the past hour to splash some water on my face.
I needed to calm the heck down.
By Friday morning, when I googled the event and realized just how exclusive this gala was, I started to worry about a totally different problem.
I’d already confessed to Sean that it had been years since I had gone to a party, and that was before it dawned on me just how selective this party was.
I’d never been to an event of this scale.
Who would I talk to besides Lucas and Sean?
What would I talk about?
By mid-afternoon, I steeled myself, telling myself that I just needed to get through the evening, which was, at max, a few hours long.
After all, this event wasn’t about me.
My job was to make sure Lucas got to meet Brianna.
I owed him that much.
Around three p.m., I got a text from Sean when I was down in the lobby, handling the pickup from his dry cleaner for his work suits.
Sean : What’s your favorite color?
Odd question , I thought, wondering if he expected to be grilled by Will about my likes and dislikes as a part of the are you two really dating test.
Sean : Also, what size are you in dresses?
Oh.
I flushed as I considered what he was doing.
That’s okay , I texted back hurriedly.
I’ve got a dress for tonight.
By dress, I meant the dress I’d gotten for my high school graduation.
I hadn’t ever worn it, having bought it in a fit of rebellion after dealing with six months of caring for Henry and being abandoned by our dad.
I’d never shown up to my graduation since Henry couldn’t make it to see me graduate.
And what was the point in graduating when there was no one to cheer for you?
It was ten years old, but it would still work.
Sean : If it were me going to a party after a long time, Chloe, I’d like to make sure I was dressed to kill.
So, what color is it?
You can choose, I texted him back before I hurried home, glad to have wrapped up work early.
I wondered how I’d explain to Henry that I’d be out for half the night.
When I walked in, Henry waved to the small wooden table by the front door.
“Someone dropped off a thank-you card for you. It’s on the table.”
I reached for the card and smiled when I saw it was from Greg, thanking me for bringing the trash bins back last week when it was his turn again.
Resolving to take him some cake later on in the week, I turned to Henry, explaining where I’d be that night.
He heard me out, his expression changing to one of curiosity when I finished.
“You mean, you’re going out on a date?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No, no. I’m just helping this man … my colleague, out with his son.”
I would never date Sean.
No man wanted a woman like me, a woman who couldn’t think of a life beyond doctor visits, therapy, and financial worries.
The past ten years had been filled with that, and the next ten years seemed like they’d be no different.
I put up with it because I blamed myself for Henry’s accident.
My potential partners?
They wanted nothing to do with my guilt.
And I was tired of rejection.
I looked at him with some concern as I realized he would be on his own for most of the night.
“Is it all right if I go, Henry?”
I could sense his desperate need to hold on to me and the internal fight he put up to not feel this way.
He swallowed. “I’ve been quite used to having you at home with me all the time.”
My heart wrung with ache for him.
He was desperate for a sign that I wasn’t leaving him, that we weren’t growing apart.
His voice hung heavy in the air, and I questioned my need to go out.
Lucas needed Brianna after all.
Not me. I didn’t have to show up.
His jaw clenched briefly, his thick brows knitted together in tension.
“But seeing you like this, it reminds me that in the past ten years, you’ve only had one boyfriend. And a jerk at that. You deserve to have dates. You deserve a loving boyfriend and a normal life—” He broke off with a frown.
His gaze went to my dress pants and the black blouse I had on before he spoke, his voice apprehensive.
“Chloe, I’ve heard of the Gild Gala, and I don’t think you can show up in those clothes. And you barely have an hour to get ready. What are you going to wear?”
I stared at Henry, his question ringing in the air, when there was a knock on the door.