“Everly seems to think the two of you would be good together,” she says, trying to dig into my thoughts on the subject.

 “Yes, well, Everly also spent fifteen years thinking she and Finn Camden were a perfect match. You can’t always believe her.”

 “True enough,” Sophie agrees with a laugh.

Eight

 Boyd

   At ten minutes to ten I knock on Chloe’s apartment door. I know I’m early, but I also know that in another five minutes she’ll be waiting for me in the lobby. I’m sure I’m breaching some safety rule of hers by coming to her door, but fuck it. I want to see where she lives.

 The door flings open a moment later and she’s shaking her head and throwing her hands up. “You’re early,” she says, leaving the door open and pivoting around. Fucking hell. She’s got another pair of those goddamned leggings on. If she were anyone else I’d think she was doing it on purpose, forcing me to spend the day averting my eyes from the perfect curve of her ass, but I don’t think Chloe has a clue. Today’s pair is solid navy, and they cling to every inch of her from waist to ankle. She’s wearing a long-sleeved white t-shirt that ends mid-hip, which does nothing to cover my view. I find myself wondering if her jacket will be long enough to cover her ass or if I’m going to be spending the day fighting a hard-on.

 I follow her into the apartment and realize it’s just a room—a studio apartment. A small kitchen with older appliances sits in an alcove to the left. Her bed—looks like a full size—is straight ahead, placed along the long wall. The bedding is fluffy and white, the bed neatly made. There’s a small gray two-seat sofa under the window facing the door and a dresser on the short wall across from the bed that also serves as a TV stand. A Tiffany blue-painted trunk is serving as a coffee table in the few feet of space between the small sofa and the bed. A small wood table with two chairs painted in the same color as the trunk sit in the corner to my left and completes the apartment.

 “Lucky for you I’m just about ready,” she says, disappearing into the bathroom through a door at the end of the tiny excuse for a kitchen.

 “Take your time,” I say magnanimously as I inspect an arrangement of frames hanging by the tiny table. It looks like an assortment of shit from a garage sale, to be honest, but I stop to inspect it anyway. There’s a needlepoint of an owl that looks to be at least two decades old. An old ticket to Hershey Park layered on top of a picture of a what appears to be pre-teenager Everly with her arms wrapped around an equally young version of Chloe. And a love note, written in colored pencil to Miss Scott from some asshole named Mark. Based on the handwriting Mark is probably eight, so I’ll let it go.

 I walk towards the bed to take a look out her windows. Shit, that bed is small. It’s Chloe-sized, at best. I stop at the coffee table and look over her reading materials, grabbing the book on top and flipping it open as she walks back into the room midway into slinging her hair into a ponytail. “Chloe, you cannot be serious,” I say with a laugh as I flip through the pages. “No one your age is using this,” I say, holding up her copy of Dating for Dummies.

 Her eyes widen and she stops midway through pulling her hair back. “That’s a gift,” she says, looking away. “For someone else. I was just about to wrap them up.”

 “Nice try, but you highlighted this copy, you little nerd,” I say, closing the book with a shake of my head. I’m about to set it back on the coffee table when I see the second book and it hits me that she said she was about to wrap ‘them’ up. “Sex for Dummies?” Oh, fuck me, if she highlighted this one I will lose my shit.

 I lock eyes with her and raise my brows in challenge as I grab it off the coffee table. Chloe shrieks and makes a dash towards me, diving for the book, but I’ve already got it. I raise my arm, holding it out of her reach as she collides with me, her tits pressing against my chest as she stretches her arm out, fingers extended, trying to make a grab for it. The top of her head only reaches my chin, so she doesn’t have a shot at getting this book out of my hand. I should give it to her. I should. I will. In a minute. I hold it up, still closed, and look at the cover again while she makes a futile jump and her tits slide against my chest. She smells like fucking vanilla, God help me.

 “Dr. Ruth K. Wertheimer,” I read off the cover. “Chloe, come on. You are not getting sex tips from”—I glance at the cover again—”‘America’s favorite sex therapist.’ She must be eighty years old.”

 “Well, I’m sure they had sex the same way in her day,” she replies smartly, making another jump for the book. “And I’m a good student. I’m better with books than people.”

 “I can teach you anything you want to know,” I hear myself saying. Jesus, that was creepy. She must think so too because she stops jumping and gives me an odd look. Then she steps onto the couch and yanks the book out of my hand.

 “Very funny,” she finally says, stepping off the couch and setting the book on the coffee table. “I know it’s stupid, okay?” She stacks the two books together, squaring them up before she moves away from both me and the table, stopping to pick up the hair band that fell on the floor and sliding it over her wrist like a bracelet. “You don’t have to tease me. I already know how ridiculous I am.”

 Fuck.

 I need to remember to be careful with this girl. She’s so… unsure of herself. She seems self-reliant, yet there’s this undercurrent of doubt that I don’t yet understand.

 She walks across the studio and pulls a denim jacket from a small closet and shrugs into it, then picks up her bag and slings it over her shoulder. “Are you ready?”

 I nod and follow her out, watching as she locks the door then tugs on it to make sure it’s locked. We take the elevator down in silence then hit the sidewalk outside before she asks if we’re walking or driving.

 “Driving,” I tell her, nodding to the parking spot I got in front of her building. I unlock the car and open the passenger door for her before walking around and getting behind the wheel.

 “This is nice,” she says, glancing around the interior of my Range Rover. “This is more James Bond than FBI though,” she says, with a little wrinkle of her nose, her forehead creasing in concern.