Get a Life, Chloe Brown (The Brown Sisters, #1)

by Talia Hibbert

Lust couldn’t exist without vulnerability.

She was wearing her glasses now, at least, along with an enormous pink dressing gown and a pair of equally enormous bunny-ear slippers. The slippers surprised him until he remembered that Chloe used cuteness to disguise her inner evil. Sort of like Professor Umbridge.

Eve clearly didn’t realize that “social nonsense” was Chloe’s succinct way of phrasing “the constant disappointment that is human nature.” She’d learned the hard way that people were always looking for a reason to leave, that affection or adoration or promises of devotion turned to dust when things got tough.

Better to be alone than to be abandoned. She refused to let that happen again.

When she was sick and tired of being sick and tired, she clung to moments like this: the first shower after a flare-up. Bliss should be held on to with both hands.

“Knowledge is power,”

She made him irritable, yeah, but worse, she made him . . . curious. Oddly energized in a way he’d been craving, a way that felt so simply good.

Come on, Button, don’t be so bloody decent.

“So,” she asked softly, “will you help me?” And he, Mister Shit for Brains, said, “Yeah.”

He must be petty as hell, because he hoped prim and proper Chloe was an absolute mess over him, that she’d stayed up last night thinking about him with every ounce of the frustration he’d felt over her. No—double the frustration, just because.

“Whether something bad is coming from your body or your brain, it makes no difference. Still feels like shit, right? Still hurts. Still needs fixing. They shouldn’t have dismissed you, even if it was in your head. When it comes down to it, everything we feel is in our heads.”

“I’ve learned how to manage my symptoms, now, of course. I have medication, physiotherapy, cognitive therapy. I’m fine, really. But I feel like a part of me hasn’t caught up with that. Like I’m still afraid of myself. That’s what the list is for. To help me get my bravery back.”

“If this list is supposed to make you braver, you’re gonna be fucking Wonder Woman by the time we’re done.”

this attraction was forceful and unexpected, a riptide lying in wait beneath the smooth surface of her own mind. Now she’d sunk a bit too deep and been snatched under.

Being unhappy made her irritable. Even more irritable than severe back pain.

“I’m not flustered. And I don’t know who it is.” “You sound,” Gigi murmured, “as though you are telling fibs.” How could she tell? She could always tell. It must be a grandmotherly superpower.

Not so long ago, that sharpness would’ve jabbed him like a thorn. Now it popped his heart like a balloon, because he knew it meant that she was hurting, and hiding, and dealing with her feelings all alone.

“The thing is, Red . . . some of us have so many marginalizations, we might drown if we let all the little hurts flood in. So there are those, like me, who filter. I think you’ve noticed that I filter a lot. It’s not some inbuilt shield made of money. It’s just something I’m forced to do.”

Whether she admitted it or not, what Chloe really needed was a decent fucking friend. And what Red really wanted, badly enough to surprise himself, was to give her that. To show her every kindness she should take for granted. To make her smile and laugh and feel like herself. The way she did for him.

Always, she was better safe than sorry. And better left alone than left behind.

So I’m doing it for you because that’s how people should behave; they should fill in each other’s gaps.

He liked to let her lead, but God, someday soon, he’d touch her, too. Anywhere. Everywhere. He wanted to feel her stomach tremble under his lips when she sucked in a breath, wanted to hear her beg for more as he palmed her tits, wanted to taste her hot pussy melting under his tongue. But he had no idea if she was there yet, and the last thing he wanted to do was lose it and rush her. She’d only just decided, officially, to do this at all.

“Red,” she whispered. “You don’t always have to be okay.” She leaned closer and pressed a kiss to his cheek. He was still for a moment. But then he looked at her, and smiled, and murmured, “I know. But I am okay, with you.”

“Bad choices and fucked-up decisions. That’s me.”

“You were hurt, and you reacted. You were in an unhealthy situation in more ways than one, and you panicked and cleansed everything with fire. Don’t dismiss your emotions and your self-protection as just a fucked-up decision. Don’t reduce something so complex and real and important to nothing.”

“When you walked out,” she said, composed now, “it felt like I was breaking.” Red officially knew the feeling. “Baby.” She kept going, the words marching out like well-trained soldiers. “No one should be able to make me feel like that. No one should have that power. It’s not . . . safe.”

“You don’t need to be better, Red, not for me. Never. I should be better for you. For this. It’s been . . . perfect,” she said, so softly he almost missed the word. “But now it’s over. All right?”

“You are perfect for me, Chloe,” he said, determination stiffening his spine, strengthening his voice. Finally, his real self returned. He stepped into his confidence like a well-worn leather jacket. “I know you and I want you and I need you. We can do this. I’ll prove it to you.”

“You can’t, Red.” Her voice shook on his name. “This isn’t . . . Relationships aren’t supposed to hurt.” “Life hurts,” he said fiercely. “It’s unavoidable. But I know the difference between torture and growing pains.”

Because no matter what he felt, no matter what she felt, he’d still ripped her open and shattered her insides just by walking out the door. No one should be able to do that to her. Not like that. Not anymore.

Chloe put a hand to her raw throat and reminded herself that he’d left, and he’d do it again, and it wasn’t worth the risk, and she never should’ve bothered with a man anyway, not after she’d been so comfortable without one for years.

She missed him. She missed him so much that she was starting to hate him.

Love is certainly never safe, but it’s absolutely worth it.”

“I’m the kind of person who hurts. Too much.”

“You are a woman who, in a life filled with pain, came here to ask about love.”

She was the woman who’d decided to change her entire life with nothing but a list. She was the woman who survived, every single day.

He faced the window fully, put his hand against the glass, and she had the oddest feeling that this was one of those moments in life that could amount to everything or nothing. Could be a transformation or a regret. This was the sort of moment that reckless, exciting women experienced—

“But remember what you told me once? About filling in people’s gaps? You do things for me when I can’t do them for myself. I want to support you in the same way. Can we work on that? Together?”

“Just so you know, you aren’t ever getting rid of me. You’re it, and I’m fucked. I’m completely fucked.”