Chloe #2
“But first,” the man said with an undeniably triumphant look as he held on to the phone, “I’ll need the cup of coffee.”
My jaw dropped. “Are you serious?” I demanded, feeling instantly angry. All thoughts of me feeling guilty for my behavior went out the window. How dare he?
He held the phone out of my reach. “I am if you want this back,” he said, holding it up just as Henry’s phone call ended.
Shit.
Henry would call again, I was sure, and he would only be more agitated the next time.
“Damn. Must have been an important call,” the man teased.
I almost wanted to fling my cup of coffee on him in frustration. The complete jerk. The café would’ve made him another cup. He was really going to make me give up my coffee on my wedding day just to score a point over me?
My phone buzzed again. This time, it was a message, probably from Henry.
I closed my eyes, feeling exhaustion and helplessness wash over me. “Take it,” I said hollowly, shoving the cup into his outstretched hand as I took the phone.
I didn’t miss the jubilant grin on the man’s chiseled face as I gave up.
“I hope you rot in hell,” I said, grabbing my phone from him at last.
When I looked up, he was smiling at me again. Strange. I’d said nothing to warrant a smile.
“I figured you’d probably need it for your elopement,” he said, his voice deep. “I’m Sean, by the way.”
I’d temporarily forgotten that I was planning to run away with someone else.
I could still feel the touch of his fingers on mine as he handed the phone over, and his eyes were locked with mine in what felt like a very strong handhold.
As though we’d known each other before and we were only just meeting again now.
“Well, Sean, you can fuck right off,” I said, bristling.
“There was a call on your phone just now,” Sean said unnecessarily. He had barely gotten the words out when the phone began to ring again.
I glared at him before I looked at the phone. It was a call from Henry. A knot started to form in my stomach as I answered. I turned away as I did, aware that Sean was still around. Was he going to gloat over my loss by drinking my coffee in front of me?
“Chloe,” Henry said, his voice sounding worried over the phone. “Where are you?”
I inhaled. “Not yet at the courthouse, Henry. Is something wrong?” I asked, trying to keep my voice light, but something felt off.
Henry was going to be one of our witnesses for the wedding, and he’d be coming over directly from our apartment.
There was a pause on the other end. Then his voice, strained, came through. “Chloe, I… had a little accident.”
My heart sank. “What happened?”
“I was leaning too far forward, trying to get a glass from the table when I fell,” he said with a half-hearted laugh. “It’s nothing serious, just banged up my shoulder a bit.”
I closed my eyes, letting the words sink in. Henry had been in a wheelchair since the accident, and the thought of him being hurt made my stomach twist. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said quickly, but I could hear the pain in his voice. “I don’t want to mess up your day. You’ve got the wedding and everything.”
I glanced at the time. The courthouse ceremony was a couple of hours away. I was so close to being married. But I couldn’t stop picturing Henry, hurt and alone.
“No,” I said, already knowing what I had to do. “I’m coming back.”
“Chloe, don’t be ridiculous. I’ll be fine.”
“Nonsense,” I said. “Nothing is more important to me than making sure you’re okay.”
He let out a long sigh, and I could hear the guilt in his voice. “I didn’t mean to pull you away from your big day.”
“You’re not pulling me away,” I corrected. “I’m pulling myself away. We’ll just reschedule. It’s a courthouse, not Buckingham Palace.”
There was a pause on the other end.
Then, softer this time, he said, “Thanks, Chloe.”
“Always,” I replied.
I hung up. The dress, the ceremony—it could all wait. Henry couldn’t. Besides, I didn’t want to go through the ceremony without Henry.
When I looked up, Sean was still looking back at me. He hadn’t touched the coffee. “Is everything okay?”
I turned my back to him, determined to ignore him, even as I felt hopelessly vulnerable. I needed to make another call.
Bruce was not going to like this.
A minute later, when I got Bruce on the line and explained that I needed to reschedule—without mentioning Henry—Bruce snapped, “What do you mean, you need to reschedule? We’re getting married, for heaven’s sake!”
“I’m sorry,” I fumbled, wishing I had a better alternative.
“It’s because of Henry, isn’t it?” Bruce fumed over the phone. “What reason did he have this time? Wait. You know what? I don’t even want to know,” he huffed out. I could hear him pacing his room. “Chloe, you’ve got to realize it’s unhealthy, the way you and Henry are codependent.”
“It isn’t.”
There was a strange silence over the phone.
“You don’t get it, do you?” He sounded bitter. “If I asked you to choose between me and Henry, how would you answer, Chloe?”
I inhaled sharply. “You can’t ask me that,” I said immediately.
“It’s time I did, and I have my answer. I’m tired of coming second in your life, Chloe, and I can’t spend our married life being second to Henry. I can’t marry you, Chloe. I won’t marry a woman who is destined to have a miserable shell of a life.”
His words hit me like a brick to my stomach.
“Bruce—” I began, my voice shaking, but he hung up.
I looked down at the layers of white lace and satin on me and felt the ground collapse beneath me.
My knees gave way, but before I could hit the sidewalk, Sean caught me, stabilizing me with his arm while my wobbly legs slowly regained strength.
“You look pale,” Sean said while I felt like I’d forgotten how to breathe.
I came up for air at last, gasping as though I’d recently surfaced from an icy-cold lake.
I stared at my phone, still in my hand, as though it were a joke. I forgot about my coffee fight. I forgot about scoring a point over the strangely handsome man.
“Bruce,” I breathed out, my voice half sobbing, half urgent as I leaned against him. My fingers caught the edge of the cup, and the Americano toppled over me.
Sean cursed, pulling me away from the spill, but it was too late. His shirt got some of the drink, causing a big brown splotch to appear on his suit, while my white dress got the rest of the Americano.
I stared at the mess hollowly while Sean’s hands gripped my arms and pulled me a step back. I stumbled, and while I didn’t entirely fall, I ended up leaning into his side. For a minute, all time stopped as he held me, his grip tightening around my arms. He felt strong.
Strong and safe, I thought, trying to stand up.
Bruce’s rejection stung more than it should have because he took down Henry with me.
Henry, who still suffered from that horrible accident on his way back from his friend’s house, ten years ago, all because of me.
He’d pushed me out of the way when a car swerved to avoid a squirrel and hit him instead.
Sean held me, arms steady on mine. This time, he was looking at me—really looking at me—and I was looking back, stupidly searching for some explanation about what was happening to my perfectly ordered life.
Those dark brown irises softened while he returned the gaze, eyes darting over each angle of my face, as though he was searching for something too.
Nothing. I had nothing. All I could think of was that Henry was waiting for me and I had broken Bruce’s heart. I’d had to choose between breaking Bruce’s heart or Henry’s, and I had known which one I could live with.
I hate my life.
I rubbed the trail of salty water away from my cheeks, but my eyes easily made more to replace it. Something in my expression and something to do with tears on my cheeks made his expression harden.
“I know people cry on their wedding day, but I don’t think it’s supposed to look like this. Did he …” He didn’t complete his sentence.
“Yes,” I replied. I hung my head, remembering my joy earlier in the café about how well this week had been going for me.
I looked at the man’s clean-shaven face and his set jaw. This was an unexpectedly long time to spend in a stranger’s arms, but it didn’t feel awkward at all.
“Shit,” I muttered and sat down on the ground.
The first person to know I was jilted was a complete stranger.
“I’m not getting married after all,” I managed to say.
The look on Sean’s face was one of incredulity. “You need to tell him to go to hell.”
I said nothing, and Sean sat down next to me. He was silent for a bit.
When he spoke, his voice was dry. “I don’t see the point in weddings myself, but I can realize what an utter fool he is for breaking it off when all you asked was if you could reschedule.
A man isn’t fit to marry a woman if that’s his response to your request. He’s an asshole, a bloody bastard, and I hope he lives to rue this day. ”
I turned away, ashamed at the burning sensation in my eyes. It wasn’t completely Bruce’s fault, but Sean didn’t know the entire picture. I didn’t want to burst into tears in front of Sean, but I was also incapable of responding to him.
There had been clues. Small, nagging ones that showed he didn’t value my brother as much as he should have.
Instances where he constantly questioned my choices.
Like when, in a fit of anger, he’d demanded to know if I was going to spend our married life ferrying my grown-up brother to his college classes.
Or the time he’d complained about Henry’s increasing medical bills that I’d been paying out of my own wallet.
“Thank you,” I said, unable to tell this man that I’d pushed those red flags under the carpet, hoping to God that I was overthinking things.
I hadn’t wanted to doubt the one good thing in my life. I’d resolutely believed Bruce was the missing piece that would make our home a family. Our home that included Henry, my twenty-three-year-old brother, who was all grown up, but was wheelchair-bound because of my negligence.
Until a year ago, when I’d started dating Bruce, Henry was all I’d had in this world.
Our mother had passed when we were little, and Dad was left with the responsibility of taking care of eight-year-old me and three-year-old Henry.
When Henry got into an accident at the age of thirteen, unknown to me, Dad was close to his breaking point.
Some time later, when I quietly told Dad about my acceptance into Juilliard’s Dance Division, it turned out to be the last straw.
He knew what that meant. I’d possibly live in the dorm, and he’d be left alone with Henry, caring for him.
But instead of talking it out with me and trying to find a way to share the care for Henry, Dad left.
I was eighteen, and I’d become Henry’s caretaker.
Financially, medically, and emotionally for the past ten years.
Henry still didn’t know why Dad had left.
I’d led him to believe Dad had left because I’d asked for college money while the truth was tangled up in something much worse.
Every time Henry brought it up, guilt gnawed at me, but I forced myself to stay quiet.
He didn’t need to carry that burden—it was mine alone to bear.
“He said I was destined to have a miserable shell of a life,” I said, covering my face with my hands. “How could he talk like that? As though he despised me?” I asked, my voice breaking. “And why did he want to get married at all if he had such a bad opinion of me? Who does that?”
“A good many people—that’s who,” he said, his voice angry. “When I found my ex cheating on me, she told me that she had long suspected I was cheating on her and wanted to give me a taste of my own medicine—only I wasn’t cheating on her. That was the end of our relationship.”
Something about recalling that memory shook Sean because he looked broken for a moment.
Only for a moment because that memory seemed to decide things for Sean.
His jaw set, he picked up my phone and handed it to me. “Get your fiancé on the line and call him out about the way he spoke to you just now.”
I stared at this man and my phone, feeling very lost.
“Listen,” Sean said, “you’re in charge of this situation. What do you want to do?”
Those words stirred something in me. I am in charge. Without thinking, I scrolled to Bruce’s number and hit Call.
When Bruce answered, I spoke, my voice hard, even as it shook. “Bruce, just so you know, that was no way to speak to me. How dare you suggest I’m destined to have a miserable life forever? How could you speak like that to a woman you were minutes away from getting married to?” I asked, bristling.
The heavy breathing from the other end of the line paused. “Well, mark my words, Chloe. You’ll see for yourself.”
“You deserve to go to hell.” My voice broke, my lips trembling with rage.
Sean took the phone from my shaking fingers and put it to his ear.
When he spoke, his voice was rough and angry. “What your fiancée forgot to add, scumbag, is that she deserves someone who shows up on her wedding day without calling her names first. Oh, and I agree with her. Go to hell.”
He hung up and tossed the phone to me.
“I’d block him if I were you,” Sean said, getting up and helping me up. “Get over him and move on. And develop a better taste in men. You—” He paused and looked at me. “I don’t know your name.”
I smiled at him through my blurry eyes. “It’s Woman Who Hates Bruce.”
He smiled back. “Well, Woman Who Hates Bruce, can I get you a cab?”
I nodded and rubbed my cheeks before Sean produced a napkin out of nowhere. I took it and dabbed my face. “I never thought I’d say this to you, but thank you.”
He chuckled. “I never thought I’d hear you say that to me either.” He looked at the suit I’d placed on the outdoor café table. “Say, what’s in this?”
I cast a glance at it. “Bruce’s favorite suit, for the elopement. I picked it up from the dry cleaner earlier.”
Sean reached for the other cup of coffee on the table. The flat white I’d gotten for Bruce.
“Pity the coffee is cold now,” he said, removing the plastic wrap and holding the suit out to me. “Go on. I think it’s your turn to ruin his clothes now.”
Read on in The Boss Problem