7. CALLUM

7

CALLUM

Chloe ends our call, telling me she’ll text me an address.

Slipping out of my office, I head to Liam’s. There’s no masking his turmoil or my bliss.

Leaning against his door frame, I watch as he runs his hands frustratingly through his brown hair.

“Oi.” I snag his attention. “I’m heading out for lunch today. Around one.”

“Solo?”

“No.” I marinate on how to tell him it’s Chloe, knowing full well he’ll ask, busybody.

“With whom?” Called it.

“A gal I met a while back.”

My statement isn’t a partial lie because we did meet a while back.

I finally placed why I had déjà vu of being in Emerson’s apartment. I was there last year while visiting Chicago for a weekend. She wasn’t there, which was one of the reasons I was confused. The second was because Chloe Henry had long black hair and only one arm full of ink. She was out, quite drunk. I was out, too. Stumbling out of the bathroom, she looked sad. We talked briefly when she said she wanted to go home. Scooping her up, I asked her for an address. Chloe must have given me Emerson’s. I tucked her into bed that night, sticking around for an hour or so to make sure she didn’t throw up before leaving.

She was a sleeping Cinderella, and I never got her name. I thought about her, though. The beautiful girl with sad eyes and flower tattoos, burning brightly behind a mine of darkness. I always wondered why she was sad.

Was it because of Seth? Were they together then?

“Fancying someone?” He arches a brow.

I shrug. “She’s fit. We’re—” We’re what? What are Chloe Henry and I? “Friends.”

“You’re friends with a girl?”

“I have girl friends.”

“Emerson and Beatrix don’t count.”

***

“Henry,” I greet Chloe as I walk to the location she sent me a pin for.

Her hair sways off her shoulder as she turns in the direction I’m coming from. I’m met with the same piercing grays from our first interaction.

“Sullivan.” Her voice is low and raspy.

She stands from the colorful metal table she was waiting for me at. Chloe isn’t tall, maybe 5’5”, but her legs are long. Tanned and toned muscular thighs that have me curious what they’d feel like wrapped around my waist. Or snaked around my head.

I go in to hug her. She steps back.

“What are you doing?”

“Hugging you.”

“Not necessary.” Her demeanor mild. “Thanks for getting lunch with me.”

“Want to say that again without looking like it pains you?”

“This is my face.”

“Are you forgetting I made you laugh on Saturday?”

“That was one time,” she barks. “Don’t get too cocky.”

I step closer, lean down, and let my mouth brush against her ear. “Why? Afraid you’ll need a better feel?”

“Not a chance, Sullivan.” Chloe walks to the entrance of the bodega, opening the door. “You don’t need to keep tally of me laughing. It won’t happen again.”

We’ll see about that.

I follow her into the eclectic market. Crates of wine bottles line the center and on opposite sides running in parallel are coolers with beer and other drinks. On the far end of the shop is a wall listing out their menu in chalk.

I skim the menu, noting that all sandwiches and wraps have names that are a play on superhero characters and movies.

“Super Sandwich,” Chloe tells me, noticing my curious scan of the place.

“That explains it.”

“And the decor.”

Glancing around again, I notice that any empty wall space is filled with a range of comics, movie posters, and figurines in their original boxes.

“Do you like superheroes?”

“No,” she replies, as if I offended her. “Best sandwiches in the city. My office is a couple of blocks away. Most days, I come here for lunch, especially during the summer.”

“What should I get?”

“I’ve had everything on their menu, and you can’t go wrong with any of it. Are you in the mood for hot or cold?” She peppers me with questions.

What I’m in the mood for is her. This side of her.

“Cold.”

“Chicken, turkey, or ham?”

“Any combination. I’m not a picky eater.”

“Noted.” She flicks her brows. “Wet or dry?”

“The wetter the better.”

Holding my stare, her eyes burn into mine. “Would you look at that, we agree on something. Good.”

“Quite. ”

Chloe hums , scanning the menu. “I’d either get the Avenger BLT and add the grilled turkey or the Justice Club.” I locate each option she names and read them. “Or the Elastigirl Grilled Cheese. It’s hot, but they use salted tomatoes, and it’s to die for. That’s what I’m going to get.”

Chloe approaches the counter under the hanging ‘ORDER HERE’ sign. Turning back to me, she asks, “Do you know what you want?”

“Surprise me.”

“You sure about that?”

“I trust you.”

“You probably shouldn’t, but alright.” She turns back to the counter. “I’ll have the Elastigirl Grilled Cheese, and he’ll have the Avenger BLT, add grilled turkey.”

The employee repeats back our order and Chloe confirms it’s correct.

I step forward, resting my hands on her shoulders. “Gluten-free bread. For both, please.”

Her head tilts up, forehead brushing my chin.

“You can’t have gluten. You forgot to mention that.”

“I’m a regular, he knows.”

“Sometimes people forget.”

“You didn’t.”

“I’m not people, Henry.”

They hand us a ticket with our order number on it, and before she can take it I snatch it out of her reach.

She huffs. “I asked you to lunch. I’m going to pay.”

“Grab a bag of crisps and a drink. I’ll meet you at the checkout counter.”

“This is America. We call them chips.”

“You still knew what I meant.” She rolls her eyes at me and it makes me smile.

It makes me do a lot more than smile.

Chloe grabs a can of Diet Coke. “Can you grab me a water? ”

“You have two hands; get it yourself.” I watch as she moves over a cooler and plucks a giant bottle of water for me. “Here.” Chloe sets both drinks and a bag of crisps on the counter.

After I pay for lunch, we go back outside to the table she was sitting at.

I place the sandwich marked EGGC in front of her.

Unwrapping the comic newspaper—

“Wow.”

“I know,” Chloe agrees.

Both sandwiches are two-handers. She finishes unwrapping the grilled cheese, flattening the newspaper out on the table. As Chloe pulls it apart, I understand the name. Gooey, yellow cheese drips from one half, clinging to the other. She sets one half on my side and, without asking, takes half of the BLT I unwrapped.

“Switchies.”

“What should we start with?”

“You pick.”

I pick up the BLT. She does the same. I tap my half to hers. “Cheers.”

“Cheers,” she repeats, confused.

Chloe watches me take a bite, eagerly waiting my review. “You have to take a bite too,” I garble around a mouth full of meat, cheese, and lettuce. “It’s bad luck if you don’t.”

She does, and I take another before swallowing the one in my mouth. This is too good.

Her eyes flutter shut and she moans softly. “So good.”

If she thinks this is good, I wonder how she responds to the taste of me.

I take another bite, trying not to watch her throat. The slow swallows or the way her shoulders rise and fall.

Chloe doesn’t set the sandwich down, eats the entire half before wiping her mouth with a napkin and taking a sip of her Diet Coke.

“You were right.” Her words are the first ones we’ve spoken since we started eating .

“Right about what?”

“Seth.” She takes another sip out of the can. Red lipstick sticks to the aluminum. “Don’t act too surprised that you were right.”

“I didn’t want to be.” I set my hands on the table. “What happened?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“You asked me to lunch to tell me I was right?”

“No.”

“Why did you ask me to lunch, then?”

Chloe tugs her bottom lip into her mouth. I want to pluck it out, maybe replace it with my thumb. She reaches for her Diet Coke, the can crinkles in her grasp.

I uncurl her fingers from the can, then lift my thumb, running it along the corner of her mouth before a drop of the amber liquid runs down her chin. “You can tell me, Henry. Whatever it is, I won’t judge you. Whatever you are feeling, it’s okay. I promise.”

Gray irises soften, her intensity and wall falling away.

“You really want to know?” I nod. “He cheated on me. I broke up with him. This morning.”

Instinctively my hands form fists, blood boiling.

“I’m—”

“You don’t need to apologize.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, weirdly, I think I am.” Her words are steady, but her tone isn’t. “I know the situation sucks, and I should be more upset than I am, but I never understood why people waste their energy on people that don’t deserve it. Seth made that choice, not me. He has to deal with the consequences, why do I need to deal with them also?”

That was not what I was expecting to come out of her mouth.

She keeps going, “I already wasted months on him that he never should have been given. If his eyes are easily swayed, then he is theirs. This isn’t a reflection of me, at least I don’t think.” She laughs without opening her mouth. Short and full of attitude. “I’m not seeing it that way. I’m good, my world is moving forward.

“I realized a while ago that he was wrong for me. I saw the signs, but I didn’t. . . I don’t know why I stayed—thinking he’d somehow change. That he’d stop dicking around, but he isn’t going to. Seth is who he is. The cheating threw the rose-colored glasses I was wearing off, but what you said to me loosened them. Maybe that’s why I asked you to lunch. To thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Henry. For what it’s worth, it’s his loss. There’s someone incredible out there and when you meet them, they’ll love you right.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

She shrugs a shoulder. “Alright, I spilled about my life. Tell me something about you?”

“I like tea.”

Chloe’s head tilts, giving me a look that says really, that’s it as if she’s disappointed I didn’t say anything else.

We go about the rest of lunch, and then surprisingly we get lunch every day the rest of the week.

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