by Olivia Lucas
“Ah something that I have tried to grow for a while. Unfortunately, don’t think I am man enough yet.”
They both laughed.
“Well don’t give up. The shadow suits you. Women will be pounding down your door.” Jenna teased, then panned her eyes across the room. “I’ve been waiting for you to bring the party to life like you did last year.”
“Oh, you would love that, wouldn’t you,” he laughed back. “Sorry no animal show this year but well, I would like you to meet someone.” He turned his head to the back of a slender women, who was casually picking at food from the table.
“Chloe, I want you to meet my cousin Jenna.”
Jenna smiled warmly as the stranger graciously swung around. A beautiful smile shone through her tousled dark brown hair, which she effortlessly flicked out of the way, until her bright green eyes met Jenna’s and time stopped for a moment.
Jenna was sure her heart stopped a beat. Either that or she was having a heart attack. She quickly worked to regain her composure as her eyes darted to the ground, to Adam, and then back to Chloe. She was flat-out gorgeous and it had her off balance. She felt wonky.
“Oh yes, nice to meet you, I’m Jenna, the favorite cousin,” she said rather robotically. That is all the fake confidence she could muster, as her whole body went into meltdown in reaction to this gorgeous woman presented in front of her.
“Hi, I’m Chloe, nice to meet the favorite.” She held out her hand with her sea green eyes sparkling in Jenna’s direction. Jenna shook her soft, delicate hand, captivated by her beauty and not wanting to let her hand go. A beat went by, and another. For some reason it seemed to have mattered more than it should have.
“So, Jenna, this is my friend from College. We are working on a project together for class and are here researching all the best Crawley has to offer. I thought I’d show her a real local experience, a Russo reunion,” Adam laughed heartily.
Jenna laughed in return. So, Chloe studied with Adam. Wasn’t that an interesting fact. “Well you must be SO glad to be here Chloe. Welcome to our um, interesting family. Hopefully you don’t find it too traumatic.”
Chloe laughed, and threw back her dark wavy locks in a disturbingly sexily manner, of which Jenna could only briefly watch whilst biting the inside of her lip.
It felt like watching a movie play out in front of her. The scene seemed to be happening in slow motion and she was entranced. Chloe was incredibly attractive, drop dead in fact, however, she was also incredibly with Adam, so she had to focus on something else. The food. When in doubt, always go to the food. Jenna worked her way over to the cheese and crackers, and started to shovel them in her mouth, so as to distract her from her wobbly legs and racing heart.
At the same time as if by cosmic force, Chloe swung around and grabbed some cheese. Their hands briefly came into contact once more, sending an electrifying shiver through Jenna’s body. Another touch, but this was not normal. She had been attracted to women before, but it was like she was having an outer body experience that needed to be contained. Especially in front of Adam. Her favorite!
She needed to hightail her way out of there, but before she could turn, Chloe, in her tight-fitting black jeans, and black and white striped top, initiated small talk to accompany the cheese tasting.
“So, I heard you are the wild one, and you lived in San Francisco.”
Jenna’s mind raced and wondered what else Adam had told her to elicit the tag of the wild one. It wasn’t the worst tag to have, she chortled.
“Ha. Yeah, well if I am wild because I left here and moved to San Francisco then you’ve got me. I set up a small start-up tech company and am living the dream,” she laughed.
Chloe laughed with her in unison, and the very sound made her tummy tighten uncomfortably. “Well sounds like that took guts, and it looks like you can handle yourself.”
Jenna felt herself instantly blush at this compliment, and tried to divert the conversation immediately.
“So, Adam and you, and, ah the project,” she spat out. Her voice catching in her throat. What a bumbling idiot. “I mean, what are you working, with Adam?” Oh god, not Adam again. She needed to leave. Pronto.
“We are working on an environmental sustainability report for the Hudson Dam, and seeing whether it can serve this jurisdiction long term, given the impact of decades of mining.” Chloe replied, looking directly at the proverbial Bambi in headlights, as Jenna was momentarily hypnotized by her words and rendered immobile.
Her piercing green eyes, coupled with intelligence, sent a shiver down Jenna’s spine, and her body was doing funny things. Her gaze slipped down to her round, pink lips and she imagined leaning in and kissing them.
“What are you two ladies gossiping about?” Adam reappeared and affectionately put his arm around Chloe. This jolted Jenna back out of her stupor, and back to life.
“Oh, was wondering where you disappeared to Adam. Chloe was just telling me about your project and quest to make the world a better place."
Adam chuckled. “Sorry Grandma Jean was just telling me for the thousandth time that I should have a whiskey to get rid my sore tooth…that I had three years ago. I told her I had to get back to my girlfriend.” Adam squeezed Chloe tight, and placed a kissed on her cheek. They both laughed.
Jenna pretty much choked on the olive that she had just put in her mouth, and basically swallowed it whole. She was briefly concerned that it would get stuck in her esophagus, and she would need to self-administer the Heimlich maneuver, which would add a whole another level of embarrassment to this situation. That thought passed quickly, however, given Adam’s announcement.
Chloe was, in fact, Adam’s girlfriend. She tried to ignore the part of her that felt jealous over that kiss. Her gaydar was obviously completely malfunctioning. She was certain she had picked up on a bolt of electricity that had flashed between Chloe and her. She hadn’t been attracted to anyone in such a long time, and now she was having palpitations over her cousin’s girlfriend.
Her big brown eyes darted around the room as she looked for a refuge. Time to save face and evacuate the scene. “Well, it was nice to meet you Chloe. I better go and finish showering my family with gifts before there is some sort of in-house brawl.”
“Oh okay. Nice to meet you too,” Chloe beamed. “Well, we will be in town for the next week or so, if you want to escape the mad house.”
“I’m not actually staying here. I think my brain would explode,” Jenna gasped. “I’m staying at The Old Mill on 24th,” she continued, before she was interrupted.
“Oh, we are staying there too!” Adam exclaimed. “We even got upgraded to apartments in the west wing.”
Jenna flinched. “Oh, fancy that.” She clapped her hands together, and clenched her teeth. This day was getting better and better.
“What a coincidence.” Chloe chimed in. “The hotel is so cute and charming.”
Bingo. Just like you Chloe.
CHAPTER TWO
Jenna arrived back in her hotel room early in the night, had a hot shower and changed into her pajamas. She was wrecked. Thank god, Adam and Chloe were down the other end of the hotel. It would be horrible if they were neighbors. Imagine the stress levels then. They would be off the charts.
Speaking of stress, she had not had her chocolate fix today, and it was making her a bit antsy. She was craving Reese’s peanut butter cups by the truckload, and there was a vending machine, not ten feet from her front door. She had noted this as a significant advantage of her location when she had walked past it after checking in. And yes, she had indeed earned this chocolate today, after all the drama that she had been through. Hell, she deserved two.
Jenna grabbed a handful of coins, and quietly opened her door, peeking left and right down the hallway to check if the coast was clear. It was empty so she tippy-toed across to the machine, and studied the display with intent. This was clearly a big decision.
Woo! She gave a little fist punch in the air. She had spotted a R
eese chocolate. The pieces. Not her favorite, not big enough, but they would do. She threw the coins into the slot with abandon, and waited for the machine to deliver as it buzzed, hummed, and rattled, and made way too much noise.
“Come on,” she said, as she gave the machine a little shake with her arms.
She heard some light footsteps in the distance, and grimaced. She would be sprung in her pajamas. And not her most flattering ones. Just a run of the mill, grey singlet and floral shorts. What a foolhardy decision. She turned her back to the direction of the footsteps, so they at least would not see her face when they passed her by.
The footsteps suddenly stopped, at the same time the chocolate was dispensed, making a loud thud, and she heard a familiar feminine voice call out her name. Her eyes closed instantaneously, and she silently mouthed an expletive.
“Jenna, is that you?”
Jenna swung around sheepishly, feigning surprise. “Oh hi, Chloe”, as one hand decided to pop up and give a solitary wave. “I was just…” Her face blushing, and her hands automatically gesturing back and forth between her room and the vending machine.
Jenna felt Chloe’s eyes look her up and down. Mortifying. The whole thing was mortifying.
“I can see,” smiled Chloe.
Jenna was facing her front on now and she noted that Chloe was wearing the same outfit as earlier, except that she was barefoot. She had nice, shapely feet. Add that to the ridiculously long list.
It felt like Chloe’s eyes had lingered longer than necessary, perhaps she was thrown by her pajamas, but she quickly blew this off as wishful thinking.
“Are you stalking me?” she managed.
Chloe nodded. “Desperately. Yes.”
“In my pajamas?”
“Also, yes.”
There was a pause, and then they both laughed. Jenna pushed her hand over her eye and back through her hair. “Ugh, sorry I am just exhausted and needed a chocolate hit.”
“Me too also,” Chloe answered, not sure if what just came out of her mouth was proper English or not. She was also strangely nervous, her mouth playing tricks on her. “I wanted chocolate,” she continued, “and apparently, this is the only vending machine in the hotel. I covered quite a distance to get here.”
“Right. They probably need to invest in more machines. For the late-night, raging chocoholics. Well,” Jenna pointed to her door. “This is me and I,” she pointed to herself, “am going to go to bed. Goodnight Chloe.” What on earth was she doing. She was pointing at everything. Like a flight attendant. She just needed to die right now. She started to turn her door handle.
“Oh Jenna.” Chloe called.
Jenna turned on her toes. “Yep?”
“You forgot this.” Chloe threw her chocolate to her.
“Oh right, thanks,” she smiled. Thankfully she caught the packet and it didn’t hit her in the head.
When Jenna finally closed her door, she turned facing the door and started to bang her head against it, at least a solid three times, as she whispered “Idiot” to herself. So humiliating.
Why did she not think this through? Could she not have worn something sexier like her silky set of pajamas? This day had been all round embarrassing, and now she had lost her appetite for the chocolate. All that effort and shame for nothing. She threw it on the bench with force, and rather dramatically. Clearly it was the chocolates fault and not hers.
“Just go to bed, just got to bed,” she huffed.
◆◆◆
Chloe walked back to her apartment, chocolate bars in hand, and smiled to herself the whole way. What was that? She was shaking her head.
How was it that Chloe was now irrationally captivated by this girl in pajamas. Her shorts had exposed her bare skin and she couldn’t help but let her eyes trail down her long, toned legs. She was breathtaking. Jenna had been mortified. The embarrassment written all over her face. Clearly, she did not know just how beautiful or endearing she was.
CHAPTER THREE
Jenna had tossed and turned all night, counting up to two hundred and sixty-five sheep at one stage, in an attempt to sleep. It was no wonder, that when she woke the following morning, she felt like she had been hit by a bus. She winced as the sun streamed in through the wooden shutters of her hotel room. This was a standard feeling after any family get together, and the late-night rendezvous with Chloe at the vending machine did not help.
Her mom’s non-stop questioning and high energy level had always left her drained. Her introverted self needed to recharge away from the noise. One of the main reasons that she was staying at the hotel.
Her mom had already left a message on her phone this morning at some godforsaken hour. She had given her a full-on spiel on how she needed to eat better because she only had eaten cheese the other night. Unbelievable. The family spies had been out in force, operating as a pack, watching and relaying every moment. They seemed, however, to have missed the lone olive she consumed. She chuckled, relishing in the slightest sense of victory. And there had been no mention of her monumental meltdown over Chloe either. Interesting.
All this aside, Jenna was a little lighter-footed this morning. The sun was shining brightly and the blackbirds were chirping harmoniously in the silver birch tree. It was her favorite time of year, with memories of winter’s freeze giving way to thoughts of warm summer nights.
The weather seemed to match her mood, she mused, as she peered out the window. Perhaps it was due to the chance encounters with the gorgeous stranger yesterday, or the faint possibility that she may see her again. Either way, the very thought gave Jenna instant butterflies. She had forgotten what it was like to feel anything.
Jenna noted that it was a Monday, and Monday meant a twenty-minute morning yoga session. She clapped her hands together to rev herself up. She had started this weekly tradition a month ago, and wasn’t sure if it was doing anything, apart from making her aware of muscles she did not know she had.
The poses she undertook were basic, as frankly, her body could not cope with contortions and handstands. In saying that however, she had succumbed to quite a few injuries during her month of yoga, and wondered if today was such a good idea. Pushing those thoughts to the back of her mind, Jenna exhaled loudly, closed her eyes and dropped to the floor in one rolling motion.
Ten minutes into her session, and Jenna was gracefully transitioning from cobra and sliding into downward dog. After holding this position briefly, she hopped to her feet rather energetically and slightly tweaked her neck in the process. “Clutz,” she said, under her breath. That would mark the end of the session.
She did not need much of an excuse to get out of exercise and thought it best to have a shower before she inflicted any more damage. She stripped off and jumped into the oversized cubicle, allowing the hot water to wash away her worries. After toweling off and swaddling herself with a robe, her cell phone buzzed. She immediately froze as she read the message. “Come down and have breakfast downstairs? Adam.”
She had gone from state of calm to manic within five seconds. Panic consumed her and her mind flooded with options to get the hell out of breakfast with the happy couple.
Jenna hit the palm of her hand against the side of her head. “Ow,” she yelped to herself, as her neck twinged with pain. Seriously, did she need a neck brace now. That would be a good look for her breakfast date. What was she thinking considering breakfast with the two of them? Why should she torture herself?
This was the universe’s way of playing a cruel joke on her, clearly. She could pretend she didn’t read the message and was still sleeping, or could put on a disguise and quickly leave out the back door and drive out of town. Oh, for god’s sake, Jenna reasoned with herself. Neither would work. Adam would see that she had read the message, and she did not have a wig and hat to use as a disguise.
Well you could actually just be semi normal and go. She hopped around the room on one leg trying to get into her jeans, which seemed to have shrunk once again.
Jenna decid
edly grabbed her phone before she had a chance to hesitate and texted Adam that she would be down in five. She put on a crisp, white v neck t-shirt and pulled a black puffer vest over her shoulders leaving it open at the front. Some black, ankle boots finished her look. A quick brush of her hair tying it back into a ponytail and she was done. In a record time of four minutes. Even she was impressed.
She grabbed her phone and opened the door, deliberating briefly. Wait one more thing. She dabbed on some mascara to accentuate her big brown eyes, and some lip gloss for a bit of shimmer. For Adam of course. She smiled at her reflection in the mirror. She then rolled her eyes, and raced out the door.
CHAPTER FOUR
Chloe was sitting at a cozy booth in the dining area of the hotel, rhythmically tapping her fingers on the table. A small quirk that she seemed to develop whenever she was nervous. Adam had just messaged, and told her he had to make a few urgent calls, but that he would join them shortly. She was strangely on edge to meet Jenna by herself. Being in her presence made her a tad skittish.
Well, she was achingly beautiful. Long, lustrous dark hair, slender, a great smile that made her brooding dark eyes come to life. But she had met attractive women before, and they had only chatted for such a brief time, even it was on two occasions. Yet she had made a lasting impression and had made her heart flutter. She was funny, cute and oddly clumsy. There was a childlike innocence about her that sparked something deep within, as she recalled their random encounter at the vending machine.
Smiling to herself, she looked down at the table and rubbed the back of her neck with her hand. When she looked up, Jenna was standing in front of her, flashing a big smile.
She was taken back and her mind became instantly vacant. No words were coming out.
“Hi,” she finally gulped.
Jenna laughed. “Did you also get the memo?”