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

by Talia Hibbert

Strangely, she was now feeling much better. Perhaps because she had recognized and accepted the universe’s message. It was time, clearly, to get a life.

Cute as a button, but her tone cut like a knife.

High up on the list of annoying things about Chloe Brown was her beautiful bloody face. She had the kind of brilliant, decadent, Rococo beauty that made his fingers itch to grab a pencil or a paintbrush. It was ridiculously over the top: gleaming brown skin, winged eyebrows with a slightly sarcastic tilt, a mouth you could sink into like a feather bed. She had no business looking like that. None at all.

Happiness, independence, true solitude. Sweeter than oxygen. She breathed it in. This was, in a word, bliss.

Dark chocolate, obviously, was an extremely healthy choice. The antioxidants canceled out the sugar almost entirely.

“Can’t you bend the rules due to extenuating circumstances?” “Extenuating circumstances such as . . . the fact that you’re an extra special princess?” “Precisely. I knew you’d understand.”

“Want me to catch you?” “I’d rather die.” He shrugged, put his hands in his pockets, and started humming “Devil Woman.”

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.

“social nonsense” was Chloe’s succinct way of phrasing “the constant disappointment that is human nature.”

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.

“Oh, Chloe. You’re cute as fuck, you know that?” He had no idea how any of those words had slipped out, but he couldn’t exactly snatch them back. And he didn’t quite regret setting them free.

Cute as fuck, this button of a woman.

His lips twitched. Did she know she was adorable? Was she trying to be adorable?

He’d always thought she was beautiful, but she seemed to get prettier every time they spoke, which was bloody inconvenient.

I’m right and you’re wrong. I trust you understand.

“A week ago you barely even liked me.” Most people would probably deny that, but he just shrugged, smiling slightly. “You didn’t like me, either. But now that I know you better, I think you’re funny and secretly sweet, and I do like you. I’m hoping you like me, too.”

“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.”

She split time into something endless and wonderful, like crystal splitting light into rainbows. Or maybe he was so fucking hungry for her he was slowly losing his grip on reality. One of those.

Watching her made his heart feel oddly warm and . . . glowy. Like he could stand here and soak up her happiness forever. That sounded a little bit like heaven.

“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.”

Hand-holding had never been his thing, exactly, but it felt natural—or necessary—with Chloe. Like an anchor.

He put her down gently in the little nest she’d made on the sofa, then knelt on the floor beside her. “You know, for such a funny-sounding word, fibromyalgia is—” “A motherfucker.” “Chloe! Did you just swear? You never swear.” He paused. “That was fun. Do it again.” “No,” she said primly.

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

This was what came of liking men: rampant idiocy.

“As long as you cried, you’ll be okay. That’s what my mum always says.”

Her lashes fluttered. Eyes opened. She’d taken off her glasses, so she looked at him without focusing and gave him a soft little smile. Maybe every single atom in his body imploded, re-formed, and exploded at the sight of that smile. Maybe.

Starting my day with Chloe feels like starting my day in front of a canvas.

It felt right, when she stumbled into him. It felt right, gripping her waist to steady her. It felt right, her hands pressing against his chest. So right he didn’t move away.

Her lips brushed his again and the sensation seared through him like a shooting star, the kind that streaked the sky for long moments after it had passed. She tasted like minty toothpaste, sharp-tongued sarcasm, surprising hesitance. She was killing him. She was absolutely killing him. Red slid a hand over her jaw and tipped her head back. She sighed as he slanted his mouth over hers and gave her the sweetest kiss he was capable of, because that’s what she’d just given him. Slowly, carefully, he sank into the mouth he’d dreamed about.

Chloe hadn’t known it was possible to go from mildly embarrassed to melting like goo, but apparently all it took was five short words. This is your spot now.

He cupped her face in his hands like she was something delicate and kissed her like he’d missed her for a lifetime.

“You don’t know how much I want you,” he whispered, his gaze devouring her bare skin. “I can’t fucking tell you. I don’t know how.”

“You’re so beautiful. So beautiful, and the longer I look, the better it gets.”

Chloe: YES. Honestly, what on earth do you think of me? Red: That you’re short-tempered and always interesting. Chloe: You are a very difficult man. Red: That must make me perfect for you. ;)

“That’s my girl.” “Shut up, you misogynistic pig.” She kissed his right cheek, then his left. “I didn’t see you yesterday.” “No, you didn’t. Did you miss me?” “Choke, Redford. Just choke.”

He seemed to adore her more every second. This could be a problem. “Come here.” He kissed her again because she was addictive.

He wrapped his arms around her like he was a fucking koala and she was his forever tree.

But he would, because he loved her. The thought froze him for a second before he sank into it like a feather bed. Before it became the comfort that helped him figure out how to speak. He loved Chloe. He loved Chloe like a blank canvas and a finished piece and all the exhilarating, painful, stop-and-start moments in between. He loved Chloe like tearing through the night on his Triumph, feeling alive in motion when he couldn’t feel alive inside. He loved Chloe like every glare she shot him was a kiss and every kiss she gave him was a breadcrumb-sized piece of her heart in his hands.

“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.”

“Red, why did you do all this?” “For you,” he said, as though it was obvious. “It’s always for you.”

She was in love with Redford Morgan, and quite horribly, too. It smacked her over the head so hard she felt dizzy. She should be afraid, should want to hide it, but the knowledge lit her up until she felt just like the fairy lights, and hiding that would be something close to a sin.

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

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

Bravery wasn’t an identity so much as a choice. She chose him.

She looked at him, finally, and he sucked in a breath. Couldn’t help it. God, she was so beautiful. God, she made his head spin.

“Oh, wait. I forgot something.” He found her hand again, held on tight. “I love you.”

“Good. Because you mean the world to me and I don’t ever want you to struggle alone.”

“You,” he told her quietly, “are everything.”

This was where and who and how he should be: with Chloe.

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