by Leila Lucas
“Anyway, you’ll thank me one day for scaring her off.” She gets up, ruffles my hair, and goes inside.
I lean on the balcony and pull my phone out to check my texts when I see someone leaning on the light post outside the apartment building. The beam from the light highlights her face slightly and I can see her meow meow shoes shimmering from the fourth floor.
CHLOE
As usual I left my coat in the car, so standing outside alone at two in the morning, freezing my butt off isn’t fun. Vikki got stuck at work longer than expected and I couldn’t take watching Dylan and Jenna any longer. So here I am, goose bumps all over my arms and legs. The shoes are killing my feet from standing in the middle of an apartment block parking lot. I didn’t tell Vikki I was outside because I know she’d speed back here, but she has a really important client’s event tomorrow morning that needed some last-minute fixing.
“Didn’t peg you as the lying type.” I hear a familiar voice behind me.
I turn my head and see Dylan standing at the entrance with his hands in his jacket pocket.
Well shit, this night does get worse.
“Who, me?”
“No, the llama in front you.” He smirks. There’s literally nobody else here aside from us two right now.
“I don’t lie.” I turn my head back to face the parking lot. “But that llama is a well-known liar in this town.”
“Hmmm, is that so?” He comes up to the other side of the lamp post and leans next to me.
“That is so.”
“Where’s your ride then?”
“She got lost. She’ll be here soon.”
“Then show me your phone.”
“Why? No!”
“I want evidence.”
“My battery died,” I lie again.
He knows that Vikki never texted me telling me she was coming. Sitting there watching Jenna be all over Dylan was really uncomfortable and I had to leave.
He tilts his head back and laughs. “You’re a terrible liar.”
How exactly do you tell a guy that his ex-girlfriend/best friend was really clingy and all you wanted to do was sit on the balcony and talk to him all night? “The party is kind of over. Felt a little awkward being in your house when you two were probably ready to go to sleep.” I didn’t want to look at Dylan directly because I know my response was really obviously asking for confirmation of whether they had that kind of relationship or not.
“Jenna doesn’t live here. She was just using the apartment for her birthday party.”
I guess I was obvious enough.
“Now please, come back inside or let me drive you home.”
“I’m okay, really. She’ll be here any minute.”
“You’re very stubborn.” He takes off his jacket and moves toward me. “At least put this on if we’re going to be standing here all night.”
“I’m not cold.”
“Yes, you are, so just shut up and let me be a gentleman and give you my damn jacket.” Before I have the chance to say anything he’s already draping the jacket over my shoulders. It’s warm and smells like his cologne.
“Thank you,” I mumble.
We stand there in silence for what feels like forever before my phone lights up with a text as a car comes into the parking lot.
“Ah look, your battery is alive again.” He grins at me. I poke my tongue out at him, because apparently in situations like this I turn into a five-year-old.
“Thank you for staying out here. And for the candy.” I hand his jacket back just as Vikki pulls up right in front of us.
“Anytime.”
* * *
“Sooooooo…”
I ignore her just to be annoying.
“I said sooooooooooooo,” she repeats.
“So what?”
“You and Dylan. Alone. You look flushed.” She wiggles her eyebrows.
“Did you fix your client’s issue?” I attempt to change the subject.
“Nice try.”
“We were talking, alone, and Jenna came and yeah. I went outside and he came out a bit after.”
“What’s their deal? She never said she had a boyfriend.”
“I don’t know.” I shrug. “She called his apartment theirs, but he said she didn’t live there.”
“She sounds jealous, which means he’s into you.”
“I think he was just being nice.”
“You need to learn how to read guys.”
“Well, we had breakfast about two weeks ag—”
“What?” she shrieks. “How do I not know this?” She’s staring at me.
“Pay attention to the road, woman! We could have died just then!” I yell at her. Maybe a bit dramatic since nobody else is on the road but still.
“You had breakfast with Dylan and didn’t tell me?” She has her eyes on the road now.
“It was random. He came up to me when I was working and we ended up eating together. That’s not the point. He got my number and didn’t do anything with it.”
“That fucker!”
“In his defense he never said he was going to call me, nor was it a date. It was just awkward tonight.”
“Oh, babe, I’m sorry. If I knew I wouldn’t have left. And I would have punched him.”
“That’s why you’re the best friend ever.”
“Well, I’m the only friend you have, so that’s by default.”
“True. But, no, you really are.”
“Awww shucks!” She looks over at me with a puppy dog face as she parks the car into our garage.
“How was the work thing?”
“Ugh, such a pain. The client is having a charity breakfast in the morning, so she added an extra thirty people last-minute.” She rolls her eyes. “Considering I have to be there at five to set up everything I wouldn’t have had any extra time to accommodate so many people in the morning too, so yeah… sorry for bailing on you.”
“Don’t apologize, it’s fine.” I unlock the door.
“I’m going to bed.” She yawns. “I’m going to look like a zombie tomorrow amongst all the primped millionaire socialites.” She sulks.
“Good night.” I yawn loudly.
“Night, babe.”
Chapter Six
CHLOE
“Oh my God, the sweet smell of coffee,” Vikki says enthusiastically as she runs from the bathroom to her bedroom in a towel.
“I couldn’t sleep. Figured I’d do my housewife duties,” I say loud enough for her to hear me. I only slept for a few hours. Construction work downstairs woke me up nice and early. Even though my job doesn’t have a schedule I wake up early every day out of habit, and on most days off I end up going to Noah’s to get some work done. Plus, I’d be an idiot to pass up on the first batch of the popular chocolate croissants Patsy only makes on weekends.
I pour Vikki’s coffee into her favorite ‘Daytime Wine’ travel mug and set it near her keys in the hallway for her. Vikki will forget her keys, her purse, and even her shoes on occasion, but she never leaves without her coffee, so leaving her keys on top of her mug is a safe bet.
Within five minutes she comes out of her bedroom looking better than I ever could, even if I had my hair and makeup done professionally. Her hair is neatly straightened to frame her face, makeup flawless, and her white knee-length dress fits her like a glove. When Vikki attends to events to make sure everything is in order, the clients usually want her to blend in with the crowd and not look like the ‘help.’ In this case, she totally nailed the clean-cut socialite, albeit twenty years younger. She throws her heels into her giant handbag. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” She blows me kisses and runs out of the apartment with the coffee and keys.
I spend the next hour doing our laundry and sorting out what needs to be taken to the dry cleaners, which is conveniently right next door to our apartment. A lot of Vikki’s designer clothes for work are borrowed from a rental company, so she’s a VIP there. Most of the time Alex, the guy who owns the place, would bring the
clothes up to the apartment if we forget to pick them up, you definitely don’t get small town service like that in California.
* * *
“Good morning, darlin’, you’re up early on a Saturday.” Patsy wipes her hands on her cute yellow apron.
“Expect a double amount of coffee orders from me today.”
“I’ll make sure your mug is never empty.” She winks. “Your usual today?”
“Yes, please, and I’ll have a chocolate croissant as well as the bagel.” This is why I try to walk everywhere. I don’t even want to know how many calories are in my breakfast every day.
“I’ll be a minute. Let me just get the croissants out for you while Milly makes your coffee.” She has a huge grin on her face and tilts her head toward my usual corner table.
There’s a laptop, stack of papers, and a very rugged looking Dylan reading with his earphones in. He looks like he’s concentrating really hard on whatever he’s doing. I scan the table for any food or coffee in front of him and then turn to the register. “Actually can I get a double order of everything? And a stack of pancakes with bacon and two orange juices.”
“Sure thing.” She winks. “That poor boy has been here for the past hour studying. He looks like a mess this morning.” Milly hands me a tray with our coffees, bagels, and the croissants Patsy just pulled out of the oven.
“I’ll bring the rest over. You go ahead, put a smile on that boy’s face.”
I walk slowly to the table, trying really hard not to drop anything. I don’t know how waitresses do this. They make it look so damn easy.
I stand close to the edge of the table since Dylan probably couldn’t hear me if I said anything.
His eyes widen when he looks at my face and pulls out his earphones.
“You’re in my seat.”
DYLAN
Of course Chloe Jennings looks fucking amazing first thing in the morning after a night of partying. Then there’s me, basically rolled out of bed, grabbed my books, and escaped the apartment that still has random partygoers sleeping on the floor. I needed to get my shit done before Monday’s class, so I had no choice but to get up early today.
I turn to look at the back of the chair. “It doesn’t have your name on it.”
As she smiles, little crinkles appear on her nose. It’s the most adorable thing ever.
“Mind if I sit?” She’s still standing beside me holding a tray. “I brought coffee… and croissants.” She looks unsure.
“Okay. But only because you got food,” I joke.
I watch her put the tray down slowly, and her bag on the large windowsill. She sits and puts a mug and a plate of food on my side and the other in front of her.
“You should take a break and move all this to the side,” she says, licking the croissant’s chocolate off her finger. I don’t really need a break because I still need to proofread my five-thousand-word essay for class before finishing another paper, which I haven’t even started. But when Chloe says I should take a break, I take a break.
“Here you go, dears.” Patsy puts a stack of pancakes and bacon in front of us, a plate with two bagels, and cream cheese, and Milly comes up behind her with two glasses of orange juice. I bite my lip, trying not to burst out laughing.
“Thanks,” we both say to Patsy and Milly in unison.
“Are ten more people joining us?” I copy her response from the time I did this to her.
“Nope.” She grins at me.
“Then why did you order so much?” I ask, once again copying her.
“I figured that the more I ordered the longer I’d have an excuse to sit with you.” She flawlessly delivers the exact same line I gave her. I’m impressed that she remembers the conversation word for word and the fact she actually wants anything to do with me considering the whole not calling her and the awkward Jenna incidents.
“That’s quite a line.” I nod, laughing.
“I had this guy use it on me once. Thought I’d try it out, see if it works.”
My grin is so wide my cheeks are starting to hurt.
I watch Chloe spread the thickest layer of cream cheese on her bagel and for some reason have the need to tell Jenna what Chloe ate. Because if she’s wrong about the food, she’s wrong about everything else. I don’t even care about Jenna’s opinion. I just know she’s completely wrong about Chloe. “Do you eat salads?”
You idiot.
“Since I’m not a rabbit. No, I do not,” she responds immediately, never stopping with the cream cheese.
“Did you just throw a Parks & Rec quote at me?”
“Sure did.” She takes a huge bite of her bagel.
I think I want to marry Chloe Jennings.
“Can you elaborate on that question? Are you saying I should eat salads or do you have a good salad place you’re suggesting?” She raises an eyebrow.
“Oh no. No no no no. Not like that.” Fuck, she thinks I called her fat. What the fuck kind of idiot even asks a girl that? “It’s just that you’re so tiny, but you can eat all this.” I wasn’t exactly going to tell her the truth.
“Just taking advantage of my youthful metabolism. Plus, I hate most vegetables anyway. So what are you working on?”
I tell her about how much I hate my music history class that Professor Condescending-Ass is very strict about spelling and grammar as well as the content, so if I fuck up one small thing I could fail.
“I’d be happy to proofread it for you.” She looks over at my stack of papers. “I mean, I’m not a professional and don’t know anything about music history, but it wouldn’t hurt to have someone look through it with a fresh pair of eyes.”
“You sure? It’s like a five-thousand-word paper, real boring,” I warn her.
“Five thousand words?” She laughs. “Very cute. I have to reread my ninety-thousand-word books repeatedly. Your five thousand won’t be an issue.”
I laugh. “Only if you have the time.”
“Do you have a printed copy?”
I put my fork down and rummage through my mess, pull the papers, and hand them over to her.
I watch her scanning the front page, her red shiny nails running across the paper.
“Wow, you’re right, this is totally boring.” She laughs.
“Thank God there’s only a year left until I graduate.”
We spend over three hours talking about our childhoods and what it was like living in Australia. She confirmed that nobody actually rides kangaroos to school. I figured as much, but I’m still disappointed that it isn’t true. She avoided any conversation about her family. Not going to lie, this made me even more curious about them, but I let it go. I told her about growing up with a dad who was a big in-demand surgeon at teaching hospitals, which resulted in us moving around all the time. He could have stayed at one hospital, but there was always more money offered and more young interns to teach, so we moved from state to state every two, three years. In return for always being busy and putting work first, he retired early and now he and Ma spend their days gardening, doing charity work, and enjoying their quiet days without two terrors, as she would call us. Technically Ben was the terror. I was just the unsuspecting victim in his pranks and adventures.
He once dared me to climb a tree as high as I could, which I climbed, splinters and all until the branch started being wobbly, so I went back down. It should have ended there. But me doing something impressive wasn’t good enough for Ben. He decided we should both climb the tree in nothing but our underwear in the middle of fall. This is where I should have played my big brother role and said no, but he was already taking his clothes off and I didn’t want to be a wuss, so we raced up the tree, heading toward the target branches Ben chose. This time it ended with a humiliating trip to the hospital with no pants on, and even more embarrassing when the hospital is your dad’s workplace and almost everyone working there knows who you are. But I leave charming stories like this out of the conversation. I’m trying to get the girl, not make her laugh at me.
“Can you come by here sometime tomorrow and pick this up?” She stands up and leans over the table to grab her bag. Her long sweater hoisted up as she bent over and I’d be a fool not to look.
Chloe’s ass in yoga pants.
Goddamn.
“Sure. Same time tomorrow?” I painfully take my eyes off her ass and look at her face before she turns around.
“Sounds good. See you then.” She puts her bag over her shoulder and waves goodbye to Patsy and Milly as she walks out. I shove my earphones in and go back to my sad reality.
* * *
“Mr. Holt, can I see you?” Professor Condescending-Ass says without even looking at me. I walk down to him and he hands me the paper with a giant A+ written across the top. When Chloe returned the essay to me two weeks ago I expected it to be filled with scribbles and things crossed out. Instead it had pink Post-its next to each paragraph telling me what I could change to make it better. For some lame reason I kept the last one and shoved it in my wallet.
Kudos to you for staying awake during these classes. I had to tape my eyes open to get to the end. I hope the notes help. Good luck :) C xx
“Try this hard more often. You clearly have the potential, so use it.”
I just stand there staring at the A+ like a moron. I’m good with research but terrible at putting everything into words no matter how hard I tried. I’ve never got anything above a B- in this class, so this grade comes as a surprise for the both of us.
“That is all.”
I look at him, but he’s already moved on to grading other work.
I grab my phone out of my pocket and take a quick photo of my grade and send it to Chloe. This is not the ideal first text to send her after so long, but I have to show her somehow since she hasn’t been at the café in a while. How do I know this? I may have gone out of my way to get coffee there almost every morning before class. Within seconds my phone buzzes.