Chapter 5
Chapter
Five
CHLOE
“Why are we doing this again when we could be going to get mimosas?” Liv asks quietly as we walk inside.
“Because I wanted to try something different,” I hiss at her.
“Then why aren’t you trying it on your own time?”
“You know I don’t like trying new things on my own. Besides, working out will be good for both of us. We’re getting older and all that shit. Don’t you want to be a MILF?” I murmur.
“Mason already thinks I’m a MILF, so I’m good, unless there’s something you want to tell me,” she says as we lay out our yoga mats.
“Nothing to tell. You know I’m going through the dry spell of dry spells.”
The teacher walks in, looking way perkier than what should be socially acceptable.
“Hi, I’m Luna, and I’ll be your instructor for today. Today we are doing yoga with bands! Are you ready to get started?” She claps.
Olivia side-eyes me. “Last chance, we can still leave.”
“We’re staying,” I tell her adamantly.
Fifteen minutes later, sweat is rolling down my face, and I’m questioning my life choices.
“I hate you right now,” Liv hisses.
“You and me both. MILFs. We want to be MILFs,” I huff.
“You don’t even have a kid,” Liv whisper-yells at me.
“I’m Ari’s baby daddy even if Mason came back. Let me have it,” I spit back.
“All right, ladies, now get into the plank position. With one hand on the ground, I want you to hold on to the band, and with your other arm, you’re going to move it toward the sky!” Luna chirps.
Grunting, I do as she says. Which oddly takes more effort than I expect it to. I look over at Liv and see that she’s doing it with ease.
“Chloe, fully extend your arms and breathe,” Luna says as she passes.
Huffing, I do as she asks, only it doesn’t go according to plan. The band snaps in my hand and my fist comes down, punching me right in the face. Like a ton of rocks, I fall backward onto the ground and hit my head on the wood flooring.
The class gasps.
“Chloe! Are you okay?” Liv asks.
Pain rocks through me, and I fight to catch my breath as I hold my face.
Son of a biscuit eater!
Fingers wrap around my wrists and pull my hands away. Liv looks down at me, her face full of worry.
“This was the worst idea I ever had.”
A little giggle slips out before she catches herself. “Are you okay?”
“I’ll be fine. I just need a gallon of mimosas now.” I wince.
Holy shit, my face hurts when I talk.
“It would be a really bad idea to drink with a head injury,” Luna chimes in.
“Shut it, moon girl,” I grumble.
“I think we are going to have to skip the mimosas today, babe,” Liv says softly.
“What? Why? Can’t you see that I’m dying?” I whine.
“Which is exactly why we are going to the hospital,” Liv says.
I start to shake my head but stop when pain ricochets through my skull.
“I’ll be fine,” I tell her as I breathe deeply, trying to not throw up all over the place.
That’s the last thing I need to add to my current embarrassment. Not only did I punch myself in the face, but I threw up? No thanks. Hard pass.
“Yeah, I’m not taking no for an answer,” Liv argues.
Liv carefully helps me into a seated position. For a moment, the room spins.
Damn, maybe I did hit myself harder than I thought I did.
“I would like to remind you that you filled out a waiver online that stated any injuries that resulted in my class are on you and you alone. We are not liable,” Luna calls out.
Liv’s eyes narrow. “Do you know who I am?”
“Uh, no…” Luna frowns.
“My name is Olivia Williamson, and my lawyers would gladly eat your little waiver for breakfast,” Liv hisses.
I grab her hand and squeeze. “It’s all good, momma bear. Chill.”
She looks at me and frowns. “Do you realize you’re slurring your words?”
“Wha?”
“That’s it, up you go.” Liv stands and pulls me up with her.
I don’t know how we manage to get outside, but we do. Her driver meets us and opens the door to the car.
“What happened?” He frowns.
“We need to go to the hospital. This one hurt herself,” Liv tells him. She pushes me into the car and gets in next to me.
“These seats are so soft.” I sigh.
“They are?”
I hum.
“On a scale of one to ten, how bad does your head hurt? Do you hurt anywhere else?”
“You were so cute. You were all, do you know who I am?” I giggle, ignoring her question. “Mason would be so proud. Shit, I wish I could have recorded it. Do you think they have cameras in that room?”
“Chlo, I’m being serious. Does anything else hurt?”
“Only my pride,” I tell her as I shut my eyes.
“Nope, don’t do that,” Liv says as she pinches my inner thigh.
“Hey, don’t do that. You know I know I bruise easily.”
“You need to stay awake. Tell me, how is living with Brantley going?” she asks with something in her voice I can’t quite place.
Urgency, maybe? A hint of worry? Why would she be worried, though?
“Chloe! Tell me about Brantley,” she snaps.
“He saw me naked.” I giggle.
“Wait, what? When? How?”
“He’s got a snake in his pants.”
Liv shakes her head. “You aren’t making any sense. Are you and Brantley finally banging?”
I scoff, then wince when it hurts. “No, never. He hates me. I hate him. He just wears these pants where it shows.”
“And how did he see you naked?” she presses.
“You ask too many questions,” I grumble.
“Tell me.”
“He came home early.” I shrug. “Hey, where are we going again?”
“How far from the hospital are we?” Liv asks the driver.
“Pulling in now,” he tells her.
“Did you know you have the voice of a phone sex operator?” I ask, making Liv groan.
“Okay, that’s enough for you. Let’s get you inside,” Liv says as the car comes to a stop.
brANTLEY
My phone buzzes on my desk, and I frown when I see Liv’s name. She never texts me. At least not just me. If she does, it’s in the group chat with everyone. My heart races with panic. Surely if something was wrong, she would have texted all of us, right? Not just me.
Chloe.
Maybe something happened with Chloe.
I swipe open the text. With my other hand I drum my fingers against my desk, trying to center myself.
Liv Williamson
Be nice to Chloe when you get home, please.
Me
Is she okay?
Liv Williamson
Just be nice, Brantley.
Me
Will do.
I set my phone down, and unease rolls through me. Why the hell is she reminding me to be nice to Chloe? I’m always nice to her. Yeah, I might tease the fuck out of her, but I’m never intentionally malicious. Right?
Worry eats at me. Looking at my desk, I know I have a shit ton of things to do, but thanks to Liv’s cryptic-as-fuck message, I know none of it’s going to get done. Not here, at least. Not until my eyes land on Chloe and I know for a fact she’s okay.
I’ll just work from home.
Nodding, I gather what I need. After shutting off my computer, I grab my things and stand.
“Is there a problem, Mr. Gibson?” Kelly, my assistant, asks.
“No, I’m just not getting much done here today. I’m going to go home and work from my home office.”
Kelly frowns. “Do you need me to go with you?”
“No, stay here. You know how to reach me if you need me.”
“Will do. Have a good day, Mr. Gibson.”
“You too.”
I leave the office, and I make the thirty-minute drive home in twenty. I enter the house through the garage and set my stuff down on the kitchen island.
“That you?” Chloe calls out, her words slightly slurred.
Shit, did she get drunk in the middle of the day?
I walk into the living room, tempted to lay into her about irresponsibility, but wince when I see her.
She has a purple bruise surrounding her eye that sure as hell wasn’t there when she left this morning.
Chloe is pale on a good day, but right now she resembles a piece of paper, and her hair is in a knot on the top of her head.
“What the hell happened?” I can’t help how harsh my words come out.
I’m ready to murder someone right now. Who the fuck hurt her?
Chloe sighs and picks up an ice pack that’s next to her and places it on her eye.
“Is that even cold?”
“Not anymore,” she mutters.
Walking over to her, I take the ice pack from her and head back into the kitchen. Quickly I replace it with a cold one and head back to her. Chloe sighs when I gently place it on her face.
“Now tell me what happened,” I demand as I lean over her, bracing one arm on the back of the couch.
“Could you sit down? It’s like you’re lording over me,” she mutters.
Carefully I sit down next to her hip, half my ass hanging off the edge of the couch.
“Spit it out, Chloe. Who hurt you?” My impatience is winning out.
“I had a little mishap. I’m fine.”
“That’s not a little mishap,” I say, pointing to her face.
“It was just a boating accident,” she says lightly, making my stomach drop.
“A boating accident?” I think of everything that could possibly have gone wrong.
She could have drowned.
“I’m joking. It’s nothing, I promise,” she murmurs sleepily.
“Then tell me,” I growl.
“I just want to be a MILF.”
She wants to be a mom I’d like to fuck? Shit, she needs to be a mom first. Wait, is that the problem?
Did she get knocked up by some douche that hit her when he found out?
She hasn’t had the best track record with men.
He will die by my hands, then I’ll raise the little one myself. Yeah, that’s what we will do.
“Is there something you aren’t telling me, Chloe?” I ask as my heart races.
“Nope, no bun in the oven. All I got is a black eye for my troubles.”
I want to press her and make her tell me the truth, but if there is one thing I’ve learned about Chloe, it’s that she hates feeling cornered.
The more she does, the more ridiculous she becomes.
She’s not pregnant, and I settle for the fact that if someone hurt her and Olivia knows about it, they are likely already regretting life.
These two women would go to war for one another.
“Why are you home at,”—she looks over my shoulder and narrows her eyes at the clock—“two in the afternoon? Did Liv make you come check on me or something?”
“No, I was having problems concentrating at work, so I decided to work from home.” It’s partially true.
“Too many people fighting for your attention, Mr. Gibson,” she teases.
Usually when she calls me Mr. Gibson, my dick twitches, but not today. Not when her face looks like she went a round with Mike Tyson.
“Something like that,” I mutter.
A small smile plays on her face as her eyes shut. “Well, don’t let me keep you.”
“Do you have a concussion or anything? Did you get checked out?”
“Liv took me to the hospital. I have a mild concussion and a black eye. I’ll be fine.”
“Well, I’ll wake you up and check on you in a little bit.”
“You know that’s a myth, right? You don’t have to wake someone up because they have one,” she says.
“That doesn’t mean I won’t. Now get some rest,” I tell her as I stand.
“Yes, sir,” she mutters sarcastically.
Even when half asleep, she’s a pain in my ass.
Shaking my head, I grab my things from the kitchen island before heading into my office.
Instead of jumping right into work, I pull up concussion protocol.
Sure enough, she’s right. You don’t have to wake someone up anymore, but it is recommended to make sure they are breathing.
I commit everything I read to memory and set a time for an hour and a half from now and another for two and a half hours.
The first one, I plan on making sure she’s breathing, but the second, I’ll actually wake her up.
I’ll just tell her I’m waking her up for food. She loves to eat, so she should be less likely to bite my head off.
Pulling up the camera to the living room, I watch as she sleeps on the couch. Then I turn back to my work. I grab a folder and open it. The words are blurring before my eyes.
Shit. I have too much on the line to hyperfixate on Chloe now. She can wait, and the Foxes can’t.
Taking a deep breath, I force myself to jump into work.