Hectic color flooded Kai’s cheeks as her hands tightened around Chloe’s arms. “Why the ever-living fuck would you do something like that?”
The curse shocked her. “Stop acting like it just happened a few weeks ago. It was freshman year. I’m obviously unscathed from the whole experience.”
“This is serious.” Kai’s eyes snapped again. Her mouth thinned. “He could have raped you or shared you with his rich friends, then dumped your bodies in the desert. What the fuck?”
Chloe could feel Kai’s hands trembling, feel the waves of anger rolling from her body. She took a deep breath to keep herself calm.
“It’s okay.” She pressed her palms against Kai’s chest through her leather jacket. “I haven’t been that stupid in a long time.”
“Noelle and I worried enough about you being so far away.” Kai’s fingers tightened even more on her arms. “We never dreamed you’d do something like that.”
“It was something I did in college to make some extra money. I won’t do it again.”
Kai narrowed her eyes. “Did you sleep with any of these guys?”
“Of course not. I went with Stacia only a couple of times. It was fun, and nothing happened.”
“A couple of times . . . ? Sweet Jesus.” Kai abruptly released her arms and stepped back. “Chloe . . . I think you’re giving me a heart attack.” One of the horses in the paddock nearby snorted.
“Stop living in the past, Kai.” She tried for humor and a smile. “I made it to the ripe old age of twenty-three without anything happening to me.”
Chloe remembered once telling an old girlfriend about her adventures with Stacia. The woman, another Kai clone, had reacted in much the same way Kai was now.
Chloe treated Kai the same way she had treated her girl then. She twined her arms around her neck, allowing the stuffed panda to fall at her feet. “I’m here, and nothing ever happened to me.”
She inhaled the sweet and spicy scent of the woman she desperately wanted, telling her rioting body to calm down. They were sharing nothing more than a hug between two adults who respected and loved each other platonically. But she felt her nipples tighten under her jacket, shivered at the tendrils of arousal that began to wind through her body.
Kai was stiff against her for a moment before she returned the hug, clinging fiercely to Chloe. “Do not ever, ever tell your mother about this.”
“I won’t. You see, I didn’t even want to tell you.”
The older woman met her eyes. “I want you to tell me everything, Chloe. Everything. I can’t say I won’t judge, but I promise not to fly off the handle or betray your trust.”
“Okay.”
Kai’s breath stroked her neck, making her tremble. Unable to help herself, she wriggled against Kai, seeking relief for the ache in her nipples, between her legs. She heard Kai’s soft gasp, felt her stiffen against her a moment before the older woman’s hands dug into her lower back, convulsively clasping her closer and into her hips. Chloe’s belly clenched hard, and a moan of surprise and excitement slipped past her lips.
Kai jerked back, her eyes dilated to almost black. She adjusted her jacket over her shoulders as her gaze flickered away, looking everywhere but at Chloe. “Now, where were we heading again?”
They continued on through the fair, but things weren’t the same. Chloe was even more aware of Kai as a woman, of the lean length of her under her clothes, the scent of her, the way their bodies fit perfectly together.
It wasn’t long before Kai asked her if she was ready to leave, and she gratefully said yes. On the mostly silent ride home, Chloe texted Zahra that she was leaving the fairgrounds. They drove back to her mother’s house in the quiet intimacy of the car, the heat blowing out of the vents and making Chloe’s cheeks prickle. They spoke of nothing important as Kai expertly drove the black Audi through the lamp-lit streets. Talk radio droned on in the background; the tires hissed over the road.
In the driveway, she wished Kai a good night before letting herself into the house, hugging her panda tight. She closed the door behind her just as her stepfather walked in from the kitchen with a cup of something hot. Her mother followed behind him a few moments later with her own cup.
“Evening, Chloe,” Duncan greeted her in his thick Jamaican accent. “You’re back early.”
Her stepfather, an airline executive, had met Noelle Williams when Chloe was six. The family story was that they met on a Tuesday and he asked her to marry him that Friday. He’d fallen quickly and hard for the single mother. Luckily, the falling had happened both ways.
“Yes, honey.” Her mother glanced at the clock on the wall. “It’s barely eight o’clock.”
Her stepfather sat in his armchair and set down his hot cider on the coffee table, glancing briefly at the TV, which was showing the beginnings of some live talent show. “You getting old so soon?” His mouth lifted in a grin.
She smiled weakly back at him. “Just tired.”
For some reason, she didn’t want to tell them that it was Kai who had dropped her off. “Zahra ran into a friend at the fair. She’s going to hang out with her for a while. I just wanted to come home and get out of the cold.”
Her mother briefly kissed her cheek in welcome before sitting and stretching out her sock-clad feet to touch her husband’s. She curled long fingers around her cup of cider.
“California thinned out your blood, honey, she said. “It’s really nice today for fall.”
“But really cold for California.” She dropped onto the couch, at her mother’s side. “What are you guys watching?”
Her mother named a show that Chloe had no idea existed. “Oh.”
“So did you guys have a good time?” her mother asked. “If I’d thought about it, I would’ve bought tickets for all of us to go together this week. But I know that Kai had plans to go with another couple, so . . .” Her mother shrugged.
“It was great.” Chloe forced a smile. “I probably ate my weight in junk food there today.”
“Yes, that’s Kai’s favorite part of the fair too, but she won’t allow herself to eat as much of that stuff as she’d like. Sometimes I swear she just goes to the fair to torture herself with things she can’t have.”
Chloe blushed. With her mother talking about Kai, it felt like the woman was there in the room with them, a hot and compelling presence that made Chloe’s tongue heavy and her body melt. She stood up. “I’m going to take a shower. It’s been a long day.”
“Okay, honey.” Her mother brought her cider to her lips. “But don’t stay up there all night, moping. Come down and be social after your shower.”
“But only if you feel like it,” Duncan said, still staring at the television. He poked his wife with his foot, his way of cautioning her against babying Chloe while she was staying with them.
She left her parents to their TV show and went to her room. She ran a bubble bath and checked her phone. Saw there was a message from Zahra.
Glad you got a ride. I left the fair and am at Café Intermezzo with the hottie. Details later.
Good for her, Chloe thought as she slid into her bubble bath. Maybe that’s what I need, some hot young stud to make me forget about Kai.
But as soon as the thought came into her head, she dismissed it. Another mediocre lover would not help her get over Kai. Probably just the opposite. Fucking someone else would only make her fixate more on the original, whom she could not have—a woman who did not want her.
Chloe sighed. She lay back in the water, allowing the heat and the bubbles to slip over her breasts, her neck. With the water caressing her bare flesh, that fleeting moment with Kai at the fair came back to her. Their bodies pressed together as Kai’s fingers dug into the small of her back. The delicious ache in her nipples that had spread low into her belly as she rubbed herself against Kai, clinging to her neck, while the other woman’s hips moved against hers.
Chloe’s eyes flew open, and she shot upright in the tub, splashing water on the floor.
&nb
sp; Her breaths came faster. In shock. In hope. She pressed a hand against her chest, feeling her racing heart. It wasn’t just her. Kai had felt something too.
But what was she going to do about it?
Chapter 4
Third Sunday night dinner had been a tradition for Chloe’s mother and Kai for as long as Chloe could remember. It was an evening when both women stopped whatever was going on in their busy lives to connect with each other over wine and good food. On the third Sunday of October, less than a week since she saw Kai at the fair, Chloe sat at her dressing table, nervously waiting for dinner to start.
She tapped her fingers on her thigh, dreading but also anticipating sitting across the dinner table from Kai. Although she still didn’t know exactly what she wanted from Kai, she’d worried about what to wear, eventually settling on a spaghetti-strapped black maxi dress that draped over her braless breasts, skimmed over the shape of her butt and thighs before falling to the floor. Sexy, but not slutty.
She had been ready for dinner for the past half hour but had not been able to bring herself to move from the bench in front of her dressing table.
Her face in the mirror was smooth and calm; her hair freshly washed and groomed until it radiated like a black sun around her face. The only sign of her agitation was her lips, already chewed bare of lipstick and nearly raw from her teeth.
“Chloe, honey! Dinner’s ready.”
She chewed on her lips again, feeling a fluttering in her belly. She pressed cold hands against her thighs, trying to still their tremor.
“Woman up.”
She said the words out loud as she glared at her reflection. She said them again until she was able to stand.
Finally, Chloe took a calming breath and left her room. She stepped into the hallway, feeling the familiar creak of the wooden floors under her feet, the smooth banister under her palms as she took her time heading downstairs.
The skylight above allowed in the bright half-moon, the glow from distant stars. She remembered sitting on those very stairs as a teenager, wondering what Kai was doing, dreading running into her with one of her lovers but at the same time desperately wanting to see her. Eight years later she was still feeling the same anxiety, torturing herself over the same woman. Maybe in another eight years she would have moved on from her obsession with Kai to find real happiness with another woman.
“There you are, Chloe. I called you for dinner ages ago.” Her mother waved her into the room.
She and Duncan had dressed up for dinner, her mother in an off-the-shoulder dress of green velvet and her stepfather in a blazer and button-down shirt. They sat at the dining table, which was set for only three. Covered serving dishes sat in a neat row in the middle of the table, while candlelight flickered from the silver candelabra.
Chloe stood in the doorway, staring at the three place settings. “Where’s Kai?”
“Come sit down,” Duncan, an old-fashioned gentleman, said as he rose to his feet, waiting for her to claim her chair.
Chloe sat down across from her mother, her stomach churning with disappointment.
“She had to fly out for work,” her mother answered. “There was some sort of meeting in New York or someplace that she forgot about. She didn’t sound too clear about it, but I do know she said she couldn’t be here tonight.”
“That’s too bad,” Chloe said. She had dressed for Kai, had prepared to face her attraction for the other woman head-on. And now she wasn’t even there. She fiddled with the knife near her plate. “Did she say when she’d be back?”
“A week or two. Although she did mention that she might end up leaving from New York to go to her overseas meeting at the end of the month.”
Chloe drew a surprised breath. “That’s a long time away.”
“She has an apartment in New York, where she stays when she has to work.” Her mother shrugged. “Don’t waste your time feeling sorry for my world-traveling best friend. Sometimes I think she would rather be on the road than here at home.”
“I don’t wonder why,” Duncan said. “Aside from you, there’s really nothing here for her. She works hard and spends most of her time jet-setting to those hippie festivals all over the world.” He took the cover from one of the serving dishes and began to make his wife’s plate.
For the rest of the meal, Chloe tried to pay attention to what her parents were saying instead of to the dismay sitting in the pit of her stomach. Kai didn’t have to be gone tonight. She definitely didn’t have to go as far as New York. She was just avoiding Chloe because of what had happened between them at the fair. She swallowed, feeling sick, although she’d barely eaten a bite of what her mother had prepared.
The lobster penne with Gruyère and goat cheese was one of her favorites, but she stirred her fork in the food, her appetite gone.
“You’re strangely quiet tonight, Chloe.” Her mother watched her with keen eyes, the candlelight flickering over her soft cheeks and silver hair. “Don’t you like the food?”
“It’s wonderful. I just don’t have an appetite tonight.”
“You?” Duncan stared at her as if she’d grown two heads. “The one I usually have to fight for the last bite of anything your mother cooks?” He nodded at his wife. “Yes, something is definitely wrong with your daughter.” His mouth twitched with amusement. “I hope it’s curable.”
Her mother’s look narrowed. “You’re not sick, are you?”
“No, no. It’s not that. I just . . .” She pressed her lips together, not sure how much she could say. “There’s someone I’m into. I’m just not sure if she likes me.”
“Are you kidding? Of course she likes you. What woman wouldn’t?” Her mother pursed her lips as a thought seemed to occur to her. “She is gay, isn’t she?”
Chloe smiled weakly. “Yes, she is. I’m very sure of that.”
“Then there shouldn’t be a problem. If you like her and she’s a lesbian, then of course she likes you back.” Her mother gestured to Chloe with a bare fork. “She’s not blind!”
“And you have a wonderful personality,” Duncan said, chiming in to reassure her.
Her mother sipped her wine. “That too.”
“She could just be intimidated by you,” Duncan said. “When I first met your mother, I was so bowled over by her looks that I almost didn’t approach her. Once I introduced myself and found out what kind of woman she was, it still didn’t seem possible that she could ever care for someone like me.”
“But here we are, seventeen years later.” His wife leaned into him and squeezed his hand as they shared an intimate smile. “You should have something like this too, Chloe. Happiness like this is worth the risk.”
Was it? It would be nice to think she ever had a chance to create something with Kai that would last for a decade and more. That fantasy tempted her, but what chance did it have of being fulfilled?
“The moral of our story is, you should go after this woman, and don’t worry about your insecurities,” Duncan said. “She probably has the same fears and worries as you.”
“I doubt it.” Chloe felt odd listening to her parents’ advice on winning over Kai, although obviously they didn’t know who she was talking about. “But thank you both for saying that.”
Their advice was impractical for her, but for a moment, she allowed herself to wish that she could take it, that she could be a woman with a simple crush who could just go and tell another woman what she felt. But things weren’t that simple.
Her parents seemed content with her response to their advice. They went back to their food, gently teasing her that it hadn’t taken long for her to find a woman in Atlanta. Chloe stayed at the table with them, drinking from her glass of water more than eating but still enjoying their company and their love, which seemed to shine through everything they did.
The more she watched them, though, the more envious she became, wanting something like what they had for herself. The way they looked at each other, laughed, and had this effortless rapport with each oth
er made her think achingly of Kai. Of what could be between them.
As she ate, she slowly formulated a plan.
When she forced down her last bite of food, Chloe put down her fork. She took a sip of water and wet her lips. “Can you give me Kai’s address in New York? I have something I want to give to her.”
Her mother rattled off the Greenwich Village address. “Can’t it wait until she gets back?”
“It could, but I want to give it to her now.”
After dinner, Chloe searched the metal bread box where her mother kept all the spare keys and alarm codes. Sure enough, she found a brass key ring with Kai’s initials; four keys dangled from it. She made a note to write down the codes and get the keys copied the next day.
Chapter 5
Chloe rolled her suitcase through the long hallway, looking for the right door. The hall was endless, but brightly lit with artificial lights, the doors staggered on either side gleaming with the number nine and a letter. Soon she came to the apartment. She’d used the code to get into the building but abruptly lost her nerve when faced with Kai’s locked door. She tucked the stolen keys into her purse and rang the doorbell.
She had to wait only a moment before she heard noise on the other side of the door, the sound of locks being undone. Then the door opened.
“Chloe?”
Kai stood in the doorway in a green tank top, tie-dyed harem pants, and bare feet. Her toes were painted a surprising orange, and her waist-length copper locks were loose around her face. Slight shadows smudged the tender skin under her eyes, and she looked like she hadn’t slept in a while.
“Hi.” Chloe greeted her with a smile, as if it was perfectly natural to show up unannounced on the doorstep of her New York apartment. “Can I come in?”
She suspected it was more from politeness than from any real desire to welcome her that Kai pulled open the door and stepped aside to let her in. “Of course you can.” The “But what the hell are you doing here?” was clear in her voice.
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