Love, Chloe (31 page)

I’m okay. I’m sorry you were worried. I have to visit Nicole at the hospital. I’ll call you shortly.

It wasn’t romantic. It didn’t address his
I love you
at all. But hopefully it would calm his fears and stop any panic.

I saw dots appear, his response, and started toward Dante.

Thank God. Be careful and call me when you can. I love you.

That
again. I felt a burst of happiness. It felt strange, being happy on such a horrible day, and I locked the phone, feeling guilty, and tried to swallow my smile as I stepped into the cab.

Nicole’s skinny arm reached out from under the hospital bed’s sheet, waving for the purse. “Chloe!” she barked, and Clarke turned, his worried eyes meeting mine. I stepped into the hospital room and passed it over, her eyes meeting mine. “Did you get everything?” she asked pointedly and I nodded. “
Everything
?” she repeated.

“Yes.
Everything
.” I emphasized the word and I think she got the point, pulling the bag from my hands and peeking under the flap of it.

Clarke stepped toward me, lowering his voice. “She has some bad surface wounds,” he said. “But everything is superficial.”

“Really?” I glanced at Nicole, who closed her purse and clutched it against her chest like she might never let it go.

“She’s refusing X-rays,” he continued, and I nodded, unsurprised.

“I’m RIGHT HERE,” Nicole yelled. “And I’m FINE. Chloe, call the studio and let them know I can’t film today. And if I need a doctor, find one who will make house calls.” She tried to run a hand over the top of her hair, and I saw the tremble of her fingers.

“You’re not going to be able to film
today
?” Clarke turned to face her. “Nicki, you need to rest. Have you seen your face? You’ll have bruises, swelling—” I put my hand on his shoulder and stopped him, Nicole’s eyes widening as she lifted a hand to her face. Stupid man. He should know how much a threat to this woman’s looks would freak her out.

“Don’t worry about it.” I smiled in my best attempt at reassurance. “I’ll call them.”

“Good,” she snapped. “And get me a doctor. I want to be released from this hellhole now.”

I took her order and escaped, finding a nurse and communicated her demand. And, forty-five minutes later, she was released.

I leaned against a column in the parking garage and watched as Clarke and Dante carefully helped her into a car, her purse still in a death grip against her chest.

“We’ve got it from here,” Clarke said, shutting the door and looking at me. “You’ve had a hard day. Why don’t you head home?”

I nodded without argument, waving goodbye and watching them pull out of the garage and into the sunlight. I wondered, as I stepped into a cab, what more could possibly go wrong.

As it turned out? A lot.

The pregnancy news ate at me, devouring every spare brain cell, nothing else computing as I sat in the back of a filthy cab and tried to think. I needed to talk to someone, needed feedback, and my options were the girls or Carter.

Shit
. Carter
. I had forgotten all about him and the
I love you
texts.

It scared me, knowing that he might feel as strongly for me as I felt for him. Talk about a stupid fear to have. We were all running around this giant city trying to find love, trying to find soulmates. Looking for an all-encompassing, scary love just
like
this one. I should be jumping up and down in my Brian Atwoods and speed-dialing Carter’s number. Proclaiming my love to him and embracing the fact that—for once—I was experiencing this love with a
nice
guy. One who wouldn’t bang the maid, one who answered my calls, one who would put me before business. One who wasn’t, underneath all of his sexiness, an asshole.

A small bit of happiness sparked inside of me. Was this it? Could he be my person?

Could I do this? Could I be the girl who ran toward right instead of wrong?

I could swallow my fears and take the jump. I could.

The driver knocked on the plastic partition and I looked up, seeing our building. “Oh. Sorry.” I fumbled for cash and passed it forward. “Thanks.”

When I stepped out of the car, Carter was there, standing on the sidewalk, his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched forward. When he saw me, he relaxed, stepping forward and pulling me toward him, his hands gentle as they touched me, his eyes darting over my injuries.

“You’re hurt.” His voice was tight and low.

“No.” I shook my head. “Just scratches.”

“Thank God. Are Dante and Nicole okay?”

I nodded, trying to force out a simple yes, but my throat felt so full and I knew, right then, that I was going to cry. I fell into his chest and sobbed with no clear reason why. His arms wrapped around me, and he murmured my name into my hair, telling me it was going to be okay, telling me that I was strong and beautiful and amazing.

He brought me inside and ran a bath. I watched the water and thought of the dust, tiny particles moving around the cab of the truck. He carefully undressed me and cleaned my wounds, his touch careful, his eyes concerned. I remembered the squeal of brakes, a honk, Dante’s shout. He’d shouted my name. The impact had been so loud. I could hear it, hours later. Without talking, without questions, Carter put me to bed, curling up behind me, one gentle kiss placed on the back of my neck.

It was exactly what I needed.

I did love him. I really believed that. I just didn’t know if I was ready to admit it.

I kept Nicole’s secret for all of sixteen hours. Anything past that would have been impossible, it was just too great for me to sit on alone. Which was why, at seven in the morning, I woke Cammie up with an enthusiastic use of her buzzer. Lucky for me, I was in a car accident the day before, so I got a free pass. Once we covered my injuries and got some coffee brewing, we sat on her couch, whispering so as not to wake Dante, and I spilled everything.

“Shut up.” Cammie’s eyebrows raised in evil glee. “She’s
pregnant
?”

“Yes.” I giggled despite myself. It wasn’t funny. But for all of the shit I’d watched Nicole get away with, the woman had it coming. I composed my face and tried my best serious face. “It’s not funny,” I admonished.

“It’s
kinda
funny,” Cammie mused, lifting her coffee mug for a sip. “Have you told Benta?”

“No. Don’t.”

She raised a hand in surrender. “No worries there.” Benta, God love her, couldn’t keep a secret for shit. You told her anything juicy and she’d have a
Times
billboard rented before the end of the hour.

It felt good to let it out. To have a sounding board. And, let’s face it, it felt great to hear her gasp of shock, to have someone who truly understood and appreciated the magnitude of the fact that NICOLE WAS PREGNANT. Cammie all but whipped out a calendar, trying to figure out ovulation windows and the probability of whose sperm was luckiest. Or rather, unluckiest. I tried to picture a pregnant, hormonal Nicole and saw absolute disaster. When I thought of her as a mother … well. I already felt bad for Chanel.

We talked for over an hour, and produced absolutely no game plan on how to handle the pregnancy test. I left with promises to keep her updated. So for right now, I was sitting on the information and trying to pretend I didn’t know it, and trying my best not to think about it.

Talk about an impossible task.

I knew from the news that my parents’ noose was tightening, their legal fight running out of options and funding. When I called on his birthday, Dad actually answered. We chatted about the Dolphins and then he shared a moment of truth, his voice tight and irritated.

“We just thought we had more time, Chloe. They came in so fast … they took everything. If I had known, things would have been different. The investigation wouldn’t have mattered.”

A bundle of sentences that took any remaining respect I had for my father and ground it to dust. I didn’t want parents who squirreled away money and then ran. I didn’t want to come from that stock. I wanted a dad who apologized to me. Who hugged me and told me that he screwed up. That he was sorry for not supporting me through the last year. Who said
something
that validated all of my love for him. On that call, he didn’t even tell me he loved me. It was as though my parents had only known how to show love through gifts and—without their money—had no feelings left for me.

I knocked on Carter’s door with one goal in mind: To Confess Love. He opened the door, and I didn’t even get out a greeting. He hooked a finger through my belt loop and pulled me into his chest. His mouth came down on mine, his other hand pushing the door closed and then I felt the full palm of his hand on my butt, squeezing hard. He gripped me like he thought I might slip away, his kiss deepening as we stood in place, my bag dropping through my fingers, my hands reaching up to grip his hair.

Any chance of talking disappeared in the pull of his mouth off mine, his hand pushing me back, and as my shoulders hit the door, his knees hit the floor, his fingers at the top of my leggings. His name was a question off my lips and he ignored it, pulling at the waist of my pants and my panties, and then they were skimmed down my legs and around my feet.

He was a man on a mission, and my flats were off, my left thigh lifted over his shoulder, and then his mouth was between my legs, my hands skittering over the door as I tried to hold on to something. “Carter,” I gasped his name around the time that his tongue found
that
spot, the one he discovered one morning and could barely hold me down after. It wasn’t my clit, it was further back … and when he flicked his tongue over it, I was gone. I collapsed against the door, my hands weak on his shoulders, my weight on him, his hands holding me up as he worshiped me with his mouth.

Light flutters, so light and constant and perfect—at that spot then up to my clit, his fingers biting into my bare ass, a guttural groan humming over my sensitive skin and spelling out his enjoyment. I wanted to move, wanted to not be standing, two wants that got lost in the swell of pleasure. When I came, my nails dug into his shoulders, my foot braced against the floor, my thighs tightened around his head, and everything in my mind went black.