Chloe
The screaming had stopped.
To their credit, Mom and Grandma had refrained from all the I told you so’s I’d expected from them. Mostly, it was them yelling the more I told of the story, saying how selfish and awful Will was, and how he’d set a trap for a naïve young woman and how they’d hang him up to dry by his toes.
I’d stuck up for him at first, but the more they went on and on, the less I knew what to say. They had a comeback for everything, reasons built by decades of experience that I didn’t have.
So, once again, like I had that morning… I just felt like a foolish little girl.
It seemed to soften them, the more they realized I didn’t want to argue. It was like I was a poor fox that had stumbled upon a bear trap they’d warned me about in the woods. They were mad because they were afraid, but really, they just wanted to make sure I was okay.
Grandma had made tea while Mom assured me it would all be okay. She said nothing needed to be figured out right now, and that I should stay with them for the night. I hadn’t really agreed, but I hadn’t declined, either.
I didn’t know what to do.
Now, hours later, it was quiet in the house, Grandma tinkering with a new bread recipe in the kitchen while Mom and I watched an old Gilmore Girls episode. My head was in Mom’s lap, her hands playing with my hair as I cried silently and swiped the tears away before they could hit her leg.
My heart felt like it was being crushed inside my chest. I couldn’t stop reliving last night, couldn’t stop replaying the last few months and looking for clues that what my mom and grandma said was right. Did he really just use me?
It didn’t sit right, the thought of that possibility. I knew from the moment he stormed through the pool house sliding glass doors that first night that it was more. I could see it in his eyes, could sense it in the way he took me, the way he touched me, the way he drove me over the edge of desire.
Even before that, I could see the admiration in his eyes when he saw me working at the school, could feel the way he’d soften whenever he observed me with Ava. I thought about the nights in the house watching Jeopardy, the mornings at the breakfast table, the games, the pool…
And through all of that, I never saw any signs that Will was some horrid man just out to bang his nanny.
It just wasn’t who he was.
Chef Patel’s words were what I clung to more than anything — perhaps foolishly. I wanted to believe she was right, that he was just scared like I was, that he needed a moment.
But my heart kept banging against my ribs and reminding me that she could be wrong.
It was nearly four o’clock now, and I still hadn’t heard from Will.
Mom laughed at something Lorelei Gilmore said, her belly jiggling against my head and drawing me back to the present. I watched the screen with my eyes losing focus, and then, the doorbell rang.
“I got it,” Grandma called.
Mom barely acknowledged it, and I was too weak to move from where I laid.
That was — until I heard a familiar, deep voice.
I shot upright, eyes wide and hands flying up to try to tame what I knew was a wild bird’s nest of hair.
“What?” Mom asked, alarmed, but I was already on the move.
I wiped my face just in case there were any tears still there, hands smoothing over my wrinkled dress as I rounded the living area into the foyer.
My legs stopped working as soon as I saw him.
Will stood in the doorway, his expression solemn and sincere as he said something to my grandmother. When he saw me, he stopped mid-sentence, his eyes taking in what I knew to be a haggard appearance.
But he looked at me like I was everything.
His eyes were wide, brow creasing a bit like he immediately wanted to hold me and erase the pain I knew was laden in every feature. He looked like just as much of a mess as me, his face long, fatigue written all over him from his tired eyes to his slumped shoulders.
But God, he was still gorgeous.
He was still the man who had framed my face last night and kissed me oblivious. He was still the father who cared more for his daughter than anything in the world. He was still the starting goalie for a playoff hockey team, the friend who bought me, a grown woman, a makeover at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique.
King of my heart.
Said heart thumped faster when Will took a step, his eyes locked on mine, jaw tight.
But Grandma pressed her metal spatula into his chest, keeping him from moving one more inch.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve showing up here,” she grumped at him, and I didn’t need to see her face to know it was the one I used to get when I’d make the mistake of talking back to her as a child.
“Grandma,” I hissed, rushing the rest of the way down the hall. I tried to scoot her aside, but the old woman was built like a brick house.
“You go on back inside, Chloe May, I’ll handle this one.”
I groaned, pinching the bridge of my nose when she started tapping her spatula against her other hand like it was a baseball bat and she was the leader of a street gang.
“Who is it?” Mom called, on her way to join us.
Great.
“If it’s Marv again, I already told him we—”
Mom’s words cut off when she joined us in the hall, and she narrowed her gaze before pulling me behind her like she had to save me.
“I know you aren’t stupid enough to show your face here after what you’ve put our little girl through,” Mom seethed.
My face was flaming hot as I grimaced and caught Will’s gaze through the blockade my matriarch had made around me. Sorry I mouthed, embarrassment flooding my nervous system.
But Will just smiled, the corner of his lips lifting before he stood taller, shoulders squared, and looked right at my mom when he said, “I’m afraid I am, ma’am. Stupid, that is.”
His eyes met mine again.
“Stupidly in love with your daughter.”
• • •
Will
I felt like a bunny rabbit trying to infiltrate a coyote’s den.
Chloe’s mom glared at me harder after the words left my mouth, and her grandma clucked her tongue like I was an idiot. I wasn’t here to argue that.
Instead, I kept my focus on Chloe, watching as her lips parted when I confessed what I’d known to be true far longer than I wanted to admit.
She was an absolute wreck — the most beautiful mess I’d ever seen. Her hair was matted and wavy, sticking to her neck and chin, the back of it fluffed up behind her like she was a pissed-off bird of some kind. Her face was ashen, save for the blush that touched her cheeks, and even with the distance between us, I could see evidence that she’d been crying.
I hated myself for that, for making her wonder where my head was all day long. I found myself again longing for a time machine to go back to this morning, to have climbed into bed with her and pulled her against me and woke her with a dozen kisses before telling her the truth.
That I was scared.
That I didn’t know what to do.
That I didn’t know how to act, now that the rules had been blown to smithereens.
But I couldn’t go back. I only had right here, right now — and apparently, we had an audience.
“Chloe, you know I’m no good with words,” I said, swallowing at the truth of that statement. “I never have been. It got worse after Jenny passed, and to be honest, I never cared. I never felt like I had a thing to say. Not until you came into my life.”
Chloe tried to squeeze through the barricade her mom and grandmother had made, but they snuffed her out, both of them arching a brow at me.
“But I’m going to try,” I continued. “For you. I’m going to try to voice what I should have a long time ago. I’m going to try to be better in every measurable way. Because that’s what you deserve. It’s what you make me want for myself. You…” I swallowed, shaking my head. “You have burrowed into my heart so deeply, it feels like you’ve always been there. It feels as if my heart would cease to beat if I lost you.”
Chloe’s eyes welled with tears, her nose flaring as she covered her lips with shaking fingertips.
“One day, I was just a shadow of a man going through the motions, surviving. And the next, I had you. Suddenly, I was awake. Suddenly, I was smiling, and laughing, and longing for someone in a way I didn’t know was possible. You… you altered my fucking chemistry, Chloe. You obliterated the dark haze I’d existed in for years. You brought in the sun.”
“Language, young man,” her grandmother warned, but I didn’t miss how she was now leaning against the door frame, her spatula lowered, her guard down.
“Apologies, ma’am,” I said, offering her a sheepish smile before my gaze was on Chloe once more.
I wanted to hold her. I wanted to sweep her into my arms and be able to touch her as I confessed every last word.
“I knew even when I set those flimsy rules between us that they were useless. That I was powerless against the way I already felt for you. I tried, Chloe. I did. I tried to stay away from you. I tried to keep us both from this… this pain, this foreign territory. I knew you weren’t looking for a man. I knew you didn’t want to date anyone. I knew I wasn’t worth dating, that I was so fu—” I swallowed, noting the warning glare from Grandma. “Messed up that I couldn’t be the man you deserved. But it didn’t matter. Not my best intentions, not my futile attempts to keep us both safe by drawing out the do’s and the don’ts.” I shook my head. “Because you are not the kind of woman any rule applies to. You are the exception. You are the one they’re meant to be broken for.”
Chloe smiled, crossing her arms over her stomach as her bottom lip wobbled.
“I’m sorry I left without a word this morning. I’m sorry I was too much of a coward to stay and work this out with you. I thought taking a little time and space would somehow make the answers magically appear. But the truth is I have no idea what comes next. I don’t know how we navigate the new road ahead of us. All I know is that the second I kissed you, everything changed.
“Maybe we’ll only make it a few months. Maybe I’ll give you my last name and we’ll grow old together. Maybe it’ll be something in-between. Whatever it is, I know that it’s worth any pain that might come, any challenges, any roadblocks. And I know I want this. I want you. I want us.”
My hands were shaking now, but I held her gaze, held my promise.
“I want your ridiculous fuzzy robes in the morning and your tea-breath kisses. I want your laughs with my daughter and your midnight existential crises. I want your cat hair on my clothes and your imprint on my heart. I want to watch you make a mess of our house with every new creation, want to listen to every wise word you share with my daughter who I know loves you more than even I do already. I want to feel you in my arms at the end of every night and inhale the scent of you on my pillow at the start of every morning.
“I’m going to screw up, that I know without a doubt. But I can also promise you that I will always make it right after. I will always come back to you, better than before, until I am everything you deserve and more. I will care for you, the way you care so fiercely for everyone around you. I will make you a home. I will protect you, and always make sure you have all the room you need to roam.”
I took a step toward her, not breaking through the human barricade, but standing tall on the other side of it, holding her gaze with the weight of the world resting on my shoulders.
“I will love you, Chloe, with every broken shard of what’s left of me. And I will rebuild with you — for you. If this is what you want. If you feel the same. And if you don’t, I will let you go.” I shook my head, throat tight as I whispered. “But between you and me, I am a very selfish man. And I… I don’t want to let you go. I don’t want to live another moment without you. All of you. In every way you’ll be mine.”
When the last word was said, I realized how hard I was breathing, how much my hands trembled before I shoved them into my pockets.
A quiet hum fell over the four of us, though in my mind, it was only me and Chloe in that moment. It was just me, standing there with what little I had to offer, and her, holding the power to crush me or make me whole again.
She rolled her lips together, sniffing before she tried to shove through her mom and grandma. For a moment, they resisted her. I saw them share a look, one I couldn’t quite read.
And then they parted like the Red Sea.
Chloe blinked, like she was surprised she didn’t have to fight them.
“I don’t know about you,” her grandmother said to her mom. “But Gerald never said anything like that to me.”
Chloe’s mom let out a puff of a laugh, waving her hand. “Please. Brian would sooner chew off his own foot than say a damn nice word about me.”
They both softened a bit, like they were in their own world, and then Chloe’s grandma pulled her into a hug, and her mom turned to look at me.
“If you hurt her…” she threatened, not even needing to lift a finger for me to feel the warning loud and clear.
“You have full permission to take me out,” I said. “In whatever way you want. I accept baseball bat to the head or being run over by a car.”
The woman’s mouth tilted at that, like she wasn’t sure how she felt about me yet — but she was warming.
“Come on, Mom,” she said, looping her arm through the older woman who shared so many similarities. “Let’s leave them to it.”
She stopped only long enough to touch her daughter’s cheek, thumbing it and whispering, “Be careful with that heart of yours.”
Then, the women left us, and Chloe rushed into my arms.
I pulled the door shut before crushing her to me, inhaling her sweet scent — chai and sugar and crayons. I clung to her like she wasn’t real, burying my face in her neck before I finally set her feet back on the ground.
“Okay, what was all that?” she said, sniffing and smacking my chest playfully. “I’m not good with words and then proceeds to wax poetry?”
“Honestly, I think I blacked out.”
She chuckled, winding her arms around my neck. Her eyes searched mine, her brows folding in. “You love me?”
I nodded, sweeping her hair back and running my thumb along her jaw. “Think you can love me back?”
“Hmm… maybe. You are pretty talented with a Popsicle…”
She smiled with the tease, pressing up onto her tiptoes until her mouth melted with mine. I slid my hands into her hair to hold her there, breathing in that kiss, that woman, that moment. I never wanted to let her go. I never wanted to remember what it was like before her.
“I love you already,” she whispered against my lips. “I fell for you long ago — even though everyone on Reddit warned me against it.”
I blinked. “Um… did you just say Reddit?”
Her cheeks flamed, and she slid her hand down to mine. “I’ll tell you about that another time.”
“I think I’d like to know now,” I insisted as I followed her to the car. She bypassed hers, a silent agreement passing between us that we’d worry about getting it later.
“Well, you’ll have to wait. Because right now, I want to go home.”
“Home,” I echoed, holding the car door open for her.
She paused long enough to press her lips to mine with a smile. “Home.”
Chloe slid inside the passenger seat, and I drove her to the house just as she asked, but I knew the truth.
Home was wherever she was.
