What A Person Wants (16 page)

Chloe stood up with me, holding her own take out bag. “You’re not my backup. I didn’t even know you’d be here. Like I said, I was just picking up dinner and spotted you in the dining room. Is it so wrong that I just want to be around you for a while?”

“Wrong? No. Weird? Yes.”

She rolled her pretty gray eyes and for a moment, I got lost in them. Once upon a time, her smoky grays would captivate me from across the room. Some habits die hard, I guess.

“Look, Chloe, I don’t want any drama. I’m going home, I'm going to eat and then I'm carry my ass to bed. I’m not up for any games today.”

I started to walk away when she grabbed my arm and twisted me gently towards her. “Then I’m coming, too,” she said. “We’ll have dinner together, talk for a bit, and then I’ll go home and let you rest.”

Not leaving me an opportunity to respond, she grabbed the rest of her things and headed out the door. I shook my head and followed. Sometimes I just don’t have the strength to fight.

                                          *              *              *              *

              It took every ounce of my strength to force my eyes open and sit up in the bed. My head felt several sizes too big and my stomach heavy, like I had feasted and then fought the night before. But that couldn’t have been right. All I had ordered from the restaurant the night before was chicken and rice. What the hell?

Groggy, I tried to make my way to the bathroom and relieve myself, still trying to remember the night before. I almost didn’t make it to the toilet. Evidently, my legs were replaced with rubber pegs and walking in a straight line was like walking through an obstacle course. Blindfolded. On rollerblades.

As I tried to clean myself up, images from the night before flashed before me. Sharae and I having a dull date and her slapping me. She was mad about a burger or something. It wasn’t clear. Then I remembered seeing Chloe. She came back to my home with me and-

A cold chill crept up my back. That’s what had happened. Chloe and I had come back to my place to finish off dinner and somehow I got the grand ‘ole idea to open up a bottle of Grey Goose Vodka. I couldn’t remember much else about the evening except she and I doing an awful lot of laughing. Shit! I couldn’t even remember if we had slept together.

Not good.

After I took a quick shower and threw on some fresh clothes, I had a somewhat clearer head on my shoulders. I remembered a little more from the night before. We didn’t sleep together, but that wasn’t for a lack of trying on my part. I tended to get a little playful when I drank. And by “playful” I mean “horny." She didn’t let me, though. Chloe kept true to her word. She just wanted company.

I made my way downstairs. I heard Chloe in the kitchen singing to herself. She had my front door wide open, letting in the cool morning breeze. She also had some music playing in the background. The whole downstairs was spotless like she had busied herself cleaning all morning. And something smelled very enticing.

I followed my nose to the kitchen and found Chloe dressed in one of my tee shirts, cooking breakfast and looking adorable. I grinned and said good morning.

Chloe spun around at the sound of my voice. “Good morning, babe! Sleep alright?”

I nodded. “If you call passing out 'sleeping well’ then, yeah, I slept ok.”

She laughed and returned her attention to the frying pan where she had some pancakes cooking. “Well, you did drink quite a bit last night. I told you not to do it, but you were all depressed doing that woe-is-me thing you sometimes do.”

I frowned and tried hard to remember what the hell she was talking about. Then I remembered feeling down about not speaking to Isabel that day.

“Wait a minute, Chloe,” I said hesitantly. “Did I, um, say anything, like—”

“Were you talking about
her
? Yes, you did an awful lot of talking about
her
.”

The “her” she was referring to was Isabel. Even though Chloe was careful about the tone of her voice, I could still hear a little bit of hurt behind that one syllable.

Sighing, I hopped onto my breakfast bar and spotted my cell phone on the counter next to the stove. I didn’t remember putting it there, but then again, there was a lot I couldn't remember correctly at the present moment.

I took a long look at Chloe in my shirt. Her long legs poked out from underneath it in such a way that made me think she wasn’t wearing anything else. Try as I might, I couldn’t help but get a little turned on by that.

“You know, Richie, your phone was going off quite a bit last night.”

I snapped back to reality. “Really? I don’t recall hearing it.”

“Yeah, well you were out of it. But I fixed it for you.”

Now I was really confused. I got up and walked up close to Chloe, folding my arms. “What do you mean you fixed it? I don’t understand. Who called me?”

Chloe rolled her gorgeous eyes towards me and smiled. “Isabel called, like, ten times last night. You were so deep into me and your drinks that you just ignored it. I got to tell you, though, I was surprised. I always imagined you would break your neck to answer a call from
her.
But, no. You kept sending her to voicemail."

I couldn’t place what I was hearing in Chloe’s voice, but I had a brief image of a wolf in sheep’s clothing as she spoke. It didn’t escape me that she never answered my original question.

I repeated myself. “What do you mean by 'you fixed it’?”

“Oh! Well, she was calling so much, I figured something must be wrong, so I sent her a text from your phone stating that you were tired and she should just stop by here in the morning.”

All of a sudden, Chloe abandoned her post in front of the stove and kissed me hard. Her hands intertwined in my hair while she pushed my head further down to meet her hungry mouth. I was beyond confused. I wanted to push her away, but instead, my arms wrapped around her and reciprocated the kiss. Hangover or no hangover, it’s kind of hard to ignore a female who knows what she wants.

“Ahem.”

Chloe and I turned to the foreign voice coming from the entrance to the kitchen near the front door.

Isabel.

I couldn’t have gotten away from Chloe’s clutches any faster if I wanted to. It was like getting caught jerking off by your mother. I was caught red handed and couldn’t do anything but stop and stare as my brain tried to formulate a plausible lie to justify my actions.

“Oh! Hi, Izzy!” Chloe said. She took a step back and returned her attention to her pancakes. “You’re right on time! I was just fixing Richie his breakfast. He had a lot to drink last night, but he still needs to start his day with something solid on his stomach, you know?”

I stayed frozen in my spot staring at Isabel who glared at Chloe. If looks could kill, Isabel would have be serving 25 to life. Her gaze on my ex was deadly. I couldn’t help but feel like I deserved to crawl in a hole and die, even though, technically, I knew I did nothing wrong. Chloe was an ex, I was single, and Isabel was just a friend. But I also couldn’t help feeling like I got caught cheating.
What the hell?

Somehow I managed to find my voice. “Isabel. What are you doing here?”

Finally, she took notice of me. Her brown eyes went from angry to hurt in less than a nano second.
Just dig the knife into my heart a little deeper, please
.

“You texted me at four this morning telling me to come over for breakfast. Don’t you remember?”

Chloe brushed past Isabel and me. She had fixed two plates and carried them over to the breakfast bar making sure to bend over a little bit as she set them down. I could see from my view that my assumption about her not wearing anything under my shirt was accurate.

“Izzy, I was the one who texted you,” she said.

Isabel took a deep breath and replied, “No, I got the message from Richie’s number.”

“Well, duh! I was with him last night. You kept calling and he was preoccupied, so I figured you could just come over and tell him what’s so important to his face.”

Chloe's voice oozed sweetness like honey, and yet I could hear a bit of attitude behind all the sugar she dished out. How could I have been so stupid? Isabel looked like she didn’t know whether to cry or scream, and the realization of the situation hit me so hard it made me sick to my stomach.

Chloe set me up.

She put on a show, fixing breakfast, kissing me, wearing my clothes all to make it look to Isabel that we had been together the night before. She didn’t text Isabel out of concern. She did it so she could make herself look good.

“You were here all night?” Isabel finally said after what felt like an eternity.

“Yep,” Chloe answered cheerfully.

“Isabel,” I interjected. “Nothing happened last night. We just had dinner, I got drunk and that’s all. This is not what it looks like.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not what it looks like! I just stayed here over night. In his bed! It’s just as well I put on his shirt before I came down to make him something to eat otherwise I’d be baring my ass right now.”

I glared at my ex. She sat on one of the barstools at my breakfast bar with her legs and arms crossed, a wicked expression on her face. It was at that moment that I realized how much I hated Chloe Childs. For her to use an innocent situation and pervert it to deliberately hurt someone…I was officially done.

So was Isabel. Without saying a word to either of us, she walked out of my home.

“Chloe! WHAT THE FUCK!”

“What is your problem?” Chloe asked, taking a bite out of the pancake.

“My problem is you! You, Chloe! Why can’t you just grow the fuck up? Nothing happened last night. You didn’t have to throw that nonsense in her face like that. This shit stops today!"

I left the kitchen.

She yelled after me. "Rich, I did your ass a favor! The sooner she gets it through her big ass head that she’s not good enough for you, the sooner you’ll be back here at home with me. She has nothing to offer you. The bitch doesn't even have a job! What can she do for you? Nothing! She’s wasting her time and so are you!”

It took every ounce of my being to not make an about-face and choke the hell out of Chloe. I did, however, go back into the kitchen and found her standing in the middle of the room with her hands on her hips looking just as evil as the devil himself. I walked right up to her and said in my gruffest voice, “Get. The. Fuck. Out. Of. My. Life! I’m through. Don’t talk to me! Don’t ask for me! If you so much as part your lips to say anything to me or Isabel, I will hurt you. Do you understand me? Are you
hearing
me?”

I didn’t wait for a response. I ran out of the house to find Isabel.

Isabel was already more than a block away by the time I. I spotted her. I ran like a maniac, my head aching and my limbs feeling like lead. It didn’t matter. I just had to get to Isabel.

She must have heard me coming up behind her because she stopped walking. She didn’t turn around, though, and when I finally caught up to her, I could tell that she was crying. Her shoulders were shaking gently as her head hung and it was all I could do to stop myself from walking into the street and getting run over by traffic. The last thing I ever wanted was to be the reason for her to shed tears. That hurt more than the physical hangover. That hurt my heart.

“Isabel, please, don’t leave like this! I can explain.”

“There’s nothing to explain.” Finally she turned around, but not without first wiping her face clean of her tears. Her amber eyes were glassy and bloodshot, but her face remained stoic. “You don’t owe me anything, Richie. I’m just tired of dealing with Chloe and her childish bullshit. You really should put a leash on your woman.”

“She’s not my woman!”

“Well, maybe she should be!” she yelled back. “Every time I turn around, she’s getting in the way. Busting out your car windows. Getting me fired! I mean, would she really be going through all this trouble if there wasn’t something there?”

“She’s only getting out of pocket because she knows her time with me is up. I don’t want her.”

“Did she stay with you last night?”

“Yes, she did. We had dinner and hung out at the house. But I didn’t sleep with her. I don’t know why she was acting that way when you got to the house, but I promise you nothing happened.”

Isabel shook her head. “Richie, with everything that she’s done to you, to me, you still let her into your home. You let her get close again. You haven’t gotten her out of your system. Why won't you just admit it?”

I couldn’t say anything. She was right. There was no reason to have allowed Chloe to stay with me the night before, but I did. My shoulders slumped in defeat.

“I don’t want her Isabel. I’m sorry if I’ve hurt you, but I swear I don’t want her,” I said quietly.

Isabel gave me a wry grin and said, “Well I couldn’t tell by the way you were kissing her. But it doesn’t matter either way. Like I said, before, you don’t owe me anything. Bye.”

With that, she turned and walked away. I didn’t even have the strength to stop her. I let her go.

ISABEL