Chapter 17 #2
When she emerged wearing my clothes, something happened to my brain chemistry that I wasn’t prepared for.
The sweatpants were too long on her, pooling around her ankles in a way that was inexplicably endearing.
The T-shirt, damp on the shoulders from where her now-tied-up hair dripped on it, hung loose like it did on me, but it hugged her curves, too, the university logo stretched across her chest in a way that made me think possessive thoughts I had no business thinking.
She looked comfortable and rumpled and completely at home, and my entire body flushed with heat at the sight of her.
“Thank you,” she said, finally accepting the mug of tea I held out with hands that were still slightly shaky from the rain. “You’re a lifesaver.”
Our fingers brushed as I handed over the cup, and we both faltered at the contact. Hot tea sloshed over the rim, splashing across the back of my hand and making me hiss with the sudden burn.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” Chloe said immediately, setting the mug down on the hall table and reaching for my hand.
“It’s fine—” I started to say, but she was already examining the angry splash of red across my knuckles with a frown of concern.
I brought my hand to my mouth without thinking, sucking the tea off my skin to stop the burn from worsening. It was an automatic response, nothing more, but when I looked up, I found Chloe watching me with an expression that made my mouth go dry.
She was staring intently at my lips, as if she was starving, and I was the first meal she’d seen in weeks.
The intensity of her gaze gathered the heat in my body and pooled it right in my centre, and I had to resist the urge to close the distance between us.
Not that I knew what I’d do when I got to her, but suddenly I was incredibly tempted to find out.
“It’s fine,” I said again, my voice catching slightly. “I’m not burned.”
Chloe blinked and seemed to come back to herself, dropping my hand like it was made of fire. “Right. Good. Sorry.”
Then she took a step back, cool air rushing between us and putting out whatever had been sizzling a moment ago.
* * *
We ended up working side-by-side in Jen’s studio for the rest of the day, Chloe hunched over her laptop working on festival planning while I ordered farm supplies online.
I could have asked Maggie to handle the purchasing and taken the day off – it was, in theory, one of the things she helped with – but I found myself reluctant to leave.
There was something soothing about the sound of Chloe’s fingers flying across her keyboard, and the occasional muttered comment or frustrated sigh that told me she was deep in concentration.
Partway through the morning, her phone rang. She glanced at the screen, then immediately declined the call.
“You could have taken it,” I said. “I don’t mind.”
“I don’t want to,” Chloe said shortly. “It’s my mum. I don’t really feel like talking to her.”
The casual way she said it hit me like a punch to the gut – jealousy coursed through me at the simple fact that she had a mother to not get on with.
That she had the luxury of ignoring phone calls from a parent who was alive and presumably worried about her.
It was a familiar pang I’d grappled with plenty of times since my mom had died, but it was persistent, even though I’d told Chloe not to worry about it.
“I’m sorry,” I said, trying to keep the complicated emotions out of my voice.
“It’s fine,” she said. “I just haven’t actually told her about the new job yet, and I don’t want to until…
” She trailed off, looking at me with a tinge of what felt like guilt in her gaze, and it took me a moment to realise what she was alluding to.
I did my best to look impassive, even as the realisation stung.
“Until you know if you’ll get to keep working here.”
She nodded. “Exactly.”
I felt my resolve wobble, but no, Chloe and I had come so far. I wasn’t going to let anything get in the way of moving forward; of working together. We could both get what we wanted. I had to believe that.
“Well,” I said, sounding more confident than I felt, “I can’t imagine that’ll be a problem. And surely your parents wouldn’t doubt that.”
Chloe was quiet for a long moment, her fingers drumming against her laptop.
She took a deep breath before explaining.
“They think I’m wasting my potential,” she said.
“They couldn’t understand why I’d want to work for a small nonprofit when I started at the rescue; they certainly wouldn’t understand me wanting to work here.
Not when I could be doing something ‘impressive’.
Something with proper career prospects and a salary they could brag about to their friends.
They want me to be something more … consequential than this.
So, no, until I know that this is a permanent move, I don’t want to tell them.
They’ll just think I’m being indecisive. ”
The words landed heavily between us, and I felt a sick twist of guilt in my stomach. It wasn’t lost on me that those words echoed what I’d said to her all those months ago, even if Chloe herself couldn’t see the parallel. “They think you’re flitting through life,” I said quietly.
Chloe’s head snapped up, and I saw recognition flicker across her face. “Something like that, yeah.”
“Christ, Chloe. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that to you.”
She shrugged, but I could see the hurt she was trying to hide. “You weren’t entirely wrong, were you? I was pretty aimless before finding Gwenynen. Still am, compared to some.”
“No,” I said firmly. “I was angry, and I took it out on you, and that wasn’t fair. You didn’t deserve that.”
Chloe looked like she wanted to argue the point, but something in my tone must have convinced her to let it go. Instead, she just nodded and turned back to her laptop, though I could see a blush of embarrassment creeping up her neck.
“For what it’s worth,” I said after a moment, “I’ve been ignoring calls from my dad, too. I told you he’s an alcoholic – well, he keeps forgetting I’m not in California right now. Asking me to come over, or pick him up from bars, or just … talk. But he can barely hold a conversation.”
I wasn’t sure why I was telling her this. Maybe because she’d been honest with me, and it felt only fair to return the favour.
“That sounds really hard,” Chloe said softly.
“It is. You know, he was fine when I was growing up. Present, involved, supportive. But like I said, after Mom died…” I trailed off, not sure how to describe the gradual erosion of the father I’d known.
“Now, he’s just so sad all the time. And being around him makes me sad.
Which I can handle when I’m here, but when I’m back in California, drifting between temporary jobs and counting down the days until I get to come back …
it’s too easy to get sucked into his despair. ”
Chloe was quiet for a long moment, and I wondered if I’d shared too much again. But when she looked at me, there was understanding in her eyes.
“That makes sense,” she said simply, looking back down at her computer. “It’s hard to be strong for someone else when you’re struggling yourself.”
“Yeah,” I said, relieved that she understood. “Exactly.”
“This place means everything to you,” she said, her voice soft and sad, and I looked over to see that she was picking at her cuticles.
“It does.” There was no mincing words; Gwenynen was my whole world. Or, at least, I wanted it to be.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know me being here has made things harder in that regard.”
“No,” I said instantly, sharply enough that her gaze snapped back up to me. “You don’t make things hard, Chloe.”
She sighed and rolled her eyes slightly. “Be so for real, Teddy. You said it to me day one – that me being here is getting in your way. I may not know the specifics, but I can put two and two together. Jen can’t afford both of us, can she?”
Okay, she wasn’t wrong about that. But I’d long moved past viewing her as a barrier. Had I really not shown that to her? Did she think I still wanted her gone? Did she think I was still put out by her being here?
“Chloe,” I said, scooting my chair around to face her.
She shut her laptop and faced me, too, our knees just inches apart.
“I know I wasn’t the picture of hospitality that first day, and I’m sorry for that.
But I promise you, I don’t think of you being here as something to overcome.
Not anymore. You being here is a good thing.
You’re really good for this place.” Good for me, I didn’t say.
Chloe blushed, and I could see from the twitch of her lips that she was actively stopping herself from responding sarcastically. It made me chuckle, which made her start laughing, too.
“Okay, but—”
I cut her off with a finger in the air. “Nope,” I said, shaking my head. “We don’t need to swap sentimental statements right now, or apologies, or anything like that. I just wanted to clear that up.”
She smiled and nodded, pressing her mouth into a thin line, and reopened her laptop. As she started working again, I watched her for a moment, glad I’d cleared things up. Glad I wasn’t contributing to whatever inferiority complex her shitty parents had given her.
And I didn’t even have to endure an unintentionally horny moment to do it.
* * *
We worked in comfortable silence after that, the rain drumming steadily against the studio windows.
I found myself stealing more and more glances at Chloe as she worked, noting the way she chewed her bottom lip when she was thinking, and the way she tucked her hair behind her ear when it fell across her face.
Around lunchtime, her phone rang again, and this time she answered it.