AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Old? Hell, I haven’t even broken her in yet.” He winked. “Only 22,000 miles on her.”
“How long have you had her?” Did she really just say that?
“Drove her off the showroom floor on my sixteenth birthday.” He grinned at the memory.
Chloe raised a brow. “Guess you don’t drive very much then. She must get sad all alone in your garage with nowhere to go.”
She turned in her seat to look at him. Brendan looked back at her. It took everything she had to keep a straight face. Holding in her laughter, her lip began to tremble. Chloe couldn’t contain it one more second. It burst free with a snort and soon they were both clutching their bellies.
“There’s my Chloe.” He put the car in gear. “Where to, sweetheart? Jesse’s place?”
Jesse’s. Taylor’s. Separate condos. Same building. Silly, when they were always together in one or the other, but no, that’s not where she wanted to go. Not right now anyway.
“No. Mine.”
Brendan nodded and without saying a word pulled out onto Oak Street. Neither one of them spoke on the short drive to her greystone. He pulled up in front of her building and put the car in park.
“Thanks for the ride, Bren.” She leaned over to kiss his cheek and unlatched the seatbelt to get out of the car.
“Wait.” His arm came across her lap and he took her hand in his. “I know you miss Linn and being able to talk to her about all that girly shit you girls talk about—and whatever that is, I do not want to know.” The corner of his mouth lifted in a smirk and he laced their fingers together. “But I think you need…Look, I know I’m a poor substitute, but I’m always here for you if you want me to be.”
Chloe squeezed his hand. “I know.”
“Everything okay, sweetheart?”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“Good.” He let go of her hand and kissed the top of her head. “He loves you, you know.”
“Jesse?” She smiled. “I know.”
“Taylor.”
“Tay?” Jesse called out to him as he walked out of the en suite looking sexy as fuck in just a towel wrapped low around his hips.
Taylor sat up against the headboard going over some lyrics Sloan had sent him. “What the fuck is going on with him? More sad depressing shit.”
“Who?”
“Sloan.”
Jesse shrugged. “Tay, I think you need to spend some time alone with Chloe. Without me.”
Now where the fuck did that come from? Taylor didn’t disagree. He’d been thinking that for some time. Wanted that. He and Jesse had known each other for a long time, Chloe and Jesse for a few years, but he and Chloe met only a few months ago. And in the months the three of them had been together, he and Chloe hadn’t had much, if any, significant time for just the two of them. Hell, he couldn’t even recall having sex with her without Jesse being there too. Not once. They needed that, didn’t they?
“I do.”
Jesse pulled on a pair of black slacks and came to sit beside him. “I’m at Charley’s until eight and then I’ll be at Kodiak’s for a bit.” He winked. “Chloe’s at her apartment watering the plants. I think…”
Taylor leaned over and kissed him. “I think you’re going to be late unless you get your arse moving.”
He’d never been to Chloe’s apartment. Wasn’t that odd? Taylor knew that it was, but then she was always over there with them. She only went by her place to check the mail and water her damn plants. He wanted to surprise her with dinner and ordered takeout from her favorite restaurant—that little French bistro near Coventry Park. Some wine. Flowers. He carefully carried it all up the three flights of stairs and knocked on her door.
The door swung open and there she was, lovely as always. Her auburn hair was in a pile of loose waves on top of her head. Even in the muted light her sea glass eyes shimmered; he could discern flecks of copper and gold and blue. Then she smiled. He could breathe again.
“Tay?” Chloe stepped back to let him in and relieved him of a couple of the packages he was juggling. “What did you do?”
“Dinner,” he spoke as he followed her down a short hallway that opened to an oblong room. There was a lounge area with a fireplace and a pink velvet sofa to his right. Really, Chloe? Pink? He chuckled because it was just so her. The kitchen with a small breakfast bar island was to his left. Her little apartment was charming.
