Les Tales (22 page)

by

Fiona Zedde

Chloe Graham used her hip to shut the door of her green Honda Civic. She tripped over the sidewalk and cursed, almost falling over her small suitcase.

“Shit!” she muttered under her breath as she grabbed the handle of the suitcase and wrestled it up onto the sidewalk. Then she picked up her duffel bag and yanked it up to her shoulder.

In black stilettos, a short yellow skirt, and a barely there sheer blouse that exposed her black bra and diamond belly ring, she was definitely not dressed for moving. But it was what she felt like wearing. It had been a real hell of a week, and she wanted to feel at least a little pretty to counteract some of that. Never mind the fact that it was October in Atlanta and what she could actually feel was the bite of the wind on just about every part of her skin.

Shivering, Chloe quickly made her way up the driveway, past a gleaming black convertible, to the light green, three-story house that belonged to her mother and stepfather.

Even with the wind, the mid-afternoon sun warmed her arms and shoulders, sinking into her halo of natural coils and into her scalp as she hurried up the drive. She was tired and sad. But she didn't want to look like either of those things, hence, the stilettos and tiny skirt. They were her armor against all the bullshit the world had recently thrown at her in the form of an unfaithful girlfriend and the need to move back home at the ripe old age of twenty-three, just because she lost her high-paying, straight-out-of-college job to said ex-girlfriend and side chick drama.

She'd already had a long day, having dropped off in a storage unit nearby the meager possessions she'd gathered in the five years of living away from home. With the U-Haul returned and her car off the tow dolly, she felt a bit more like herself. More free.

She clattered up the front porch with her bags and fumbled to unlock the door, nearly dropping the keys twice in the process. As she pushed open the door, the smell of fresh baked bread flowed out to meet her. She heard raucous feminine laughter, Goapele's light and sensuous voice on the stereo singing about angel wings fluttering. Stepping into the bright living room of her parents' home, which was like a page from
Southern Living
magazine, Chloe immediately felt an unburdening, a sense of everything being better with the world. The familiar feeling of belonging whenever she was in Atlanta.

“Honey!” Her mother jumped up from the couch with a wide and welcoming smile. “I didn't know you were coming today.”

Kai, the other woman sitting on the couch, crinkled the corners of her eyes but did not stand.

On the coffee table were the remnants of a pumpernickel loaf and two glasses of hot apple cider. Her mother, a gourmet caterer and personal chef, must have just baked bread and invited her friend over to sample it.

“Surprise,” Chloe said, weakened by her mother's happiness and Kai's unexpected presence. She had barely dropped her bags on the floor before her mother swept her up in a tight hug, kissing her cheeks. Her eyes tingled with the tears she hadn't shed the entire time her ex-girlfriend, Jerica, had been tearing her life apart.

“If you'd told me you were coming today, we would have helped you.”

Her mother, slender and beautiful with her short silver hair and a knee-length orange sheath dress, spoke automatically for her best friend, who only leaned back farther on the couch to watch them.

“Hey, Little Bit.” Kai greeted Chloe with a widening of her smile, calling her the nickname she'd used for her since she was a child.

Kai was coolness itself, as evidenced by her masculine sprawl in her corner of the couch. As she tilted her head at Chloe, her waist-length copper locks caught the sunlight pouring in through the windows on both sides of the room. The multicolored scarf she wore over the thin cotton shirt she'd paired with loose jeans fit her sinfully well. When she was younger, Chloe often teased her that she was like a female version of Lenny Kravitz.

“Hi, Mom. Kai.” Chloe smiled despite the exhaustion of the day. And despite the knocking in her chest at the sight of her mother's best friend. “You know I had to do things on my own. Everything's already been put into storage. This is all I have with me until I sort out the job in New York.”

Her mother tugged at a long coil of Chloe's hair. “What on earth are you wearing?”

“Clothes.” Giving her mother a devilish look, Chloe pulled away and waited for Kai to approach her.

Light flickered in the depths of Kai's green and gold eyes as she took in all of Chloe. Moving with her typical lethargic grace, she rose from the couch for her hug. She never rushed to do anything, even when she was supposed to be in a hurry.

“You used to dress like this back in the day, Noelle. Don't even act.” Kai pulled Chloe into her tall body.

Warmth. The smell of the spicy-sweet cinnamon and rose body oil she wore. The strong arms that always seemed like they could handle anything. As they hugged, Kai's necklace, a fire opal set in silver and hanging from a silver chain, pressed into Chloe's collarbone.

“Thank you, Kai.” Chloe allowed herself to cling briefly to the other woman and breathe deeply of her scent. “It's good to see you.”

Chloe was in love with Kai, completely and unequivocally.

This unrequited love was the reason she'd left Atlanta to go to Los Angeles for school. Even though she would have loved to go to Spelman, her feelings for the older woman in her last few years of high school had been out of control. The only way she knew to get past them was to run to the other side of the country. And now here she was again.

Chloe bit the inside of her cheek and pulled back from Kai, even though she longed to lean on her until the exhaustion in her body went away, along with all the problems that had plagued her in the past year.

“Kai and I were about to go grab a bite at The Flying Biscuit. You should come with us. We'll buy you lunch, and you can tell us all about the drive from California.”

“That's the last thing I want to talk about.” Chloe made a face. “But I will take you up on lunch, though.”

“Good.” Kai glanced at Chloe's high heels. “You may want to change your shoes. We're walking down there.” The restaurant was less than half a mile from the house.

“Okay. Just give me a sec.” Chloe reached for her duffel bag, but before she could lift it, Kai took it from her.

“I'm surprised you didn't break your shoulder carrying this thing.” Kai lifted the bag to her shoulder. “What do you have in here? Weights?”

“Just a few books, shoes, and clothes.” Chloe shrugged. Plus, her vibrator and spare batteries.

“Like mother, like daughter.” Kai strode ahead of her with the duffel bag, her steps long and graceful as she headed for the stairs.

Her mother grabbed Chloe's suitcase. “Let us at least do this for you.” She turned to follow Kai.

Chloe stepped into her bedroom in time to see Kai drop her duffel bag on the bed. Her entire body prickled with awareness of the other woman—all five feet, ten inches of muscled flesh and confident beauty—who seemed at ease no matter where she was. How often had she dreamed of having Kai in her bedroom?

She slipped past Kai to unzip the duffel bag, trying to act naturally as the woman turned to leave the room. Behind her, she heard her mother curse softly and drop the suitcase.

“Grab this bag for me, please, Kai. My cell phone's ringing.” Her mother ran back downstairs.

“I can get it,” Chloe said a moment before Kai brushed past her to pick up the suitcase.

“Maybe next time, Little Bit,” she said with a grin. She rolled the suitcase into the room and against the far wall while Chloe dug into her duffel for a different pair of shoes to wear. Maybe even different clothes. She was suddenly self-conscious with so much skin on display in front of Kai.

The older woman hesitated in the doorway, hands in the pockets of her jeans, the patchwork scarf bringing out the fierce green in her eyes. “Everything okay, Little Bit? You don't seem like yourself.”

Chloe grabbed a pair of red Converse from the duffel bag, then, after a pause, sat down on the bed to take off her stilettos.

I wish you wouldn't call me Little Bit. I'm not a child anymore.

“Things are okay now,” she said instead. “My last few months in LA were a mess. It's good to be home, though.”

“If you ever want to talk about it, you know I'm here.”

“I do. Thanks.”

Kai nodded once, then slowly left the room. Chloe let out a deep breath.

Yes, Kai was there.

She couldn't forget that if she tried. Even now, her unsteady breath reminded her of the many daydreams she'd had about Kai, the times she'd touched herself to thoughts of the other woman simply kissing her. Chloe's fingers trembled as she searched her duffel bag for a pair of jeans.

Kai was the most handsome and most beautiful woman Chloe had ever known. Her mother had often teased her about how, when Chloe was a baby, Kai was the only person she would allow to hold her without fussing or crying with enough lung power to wake the dead.

If anything, her childhood adoration for her mother's best friend had grown only deeper. Her feelings had grown from an infatuation to a teenage crush to this deep and troubling desire that threatened to incinerate her from the inside out. She'd tried so many times to kill her love for Kai, to tell herself that it was wrong and that it could never bear anything more than rotten fruit. But her heart wanted what it wanted. And it wanted only Kai.

The only good thing about being bombarded by memories and her desire for Kai was that it distracted her from what she had just gone through with Jerica. The pangs of her ex's betrayal were already less than when she'd walked in the house. If Kai kept up this palliative effect, Chloe would be over all her ex drama by the next week. Hopefully.

She smiled wryly at herself in the mirror before quickly changing into a jacket, tight jeans, and her Converse.

Downstairs, she met Kai and her mother at the door.

“I'm ready,” Chloe announced.

They left the house and took the winding sidewalk toward the Candler Park neighborhood, strolling shoulder to shoulder through the fallen leaves. Chloe drew in a deep breath of the autumn air, enjoying the crispness of it in her lungs. This was nothing like LA, and she was grateful for that.

“That looks much better,” her mother said, eyeing Chloe's outfit. She looped her arm around Chloe's.

“Or at least warmer.” Kai's bright eyes skimmed over Chloe's body in a casual appraisal. “But you look beautiful no matter what you're wearing.”

Chloe nearly stumbled at the unexpected compliment, far used to the other woman being more sparing with her praises. She found herself staring at Kai, then forced her eyes away when her mother asked her how long she planned on staying in Atlanta.

“I'm here only for a little while. A month, maybe less. Once that job comes through in New York, I'm gone again.”

“That's so soon. I thought you'd at least be here through Christmas,” her mother replied.

Chloe shook her head. “Definitely not that long. If it hadn't been for Jerica, I'd probably still be in LA at Creative Faces.” She named the special effects studio where she had worked until her ex-girlfriend's antics in the parking lot got her fired.

She had loved that job, had taken pride in being able to call her mother and say that she'd done the monster makeup for a movie showing on TV. Most days, Chloe mourned the loss of her job more than the girl who'd cheated on her.

“I told you Jerica was bad for you,” her mother said. “You were much better off with that other one. What was her name? The artist who did nude paintings of you . . . Khaulah, I think her name was.”

Chloe exchanged a laughing glance with Kai. “You know very well that was her name.”

Her mother had liked Khaulah for Chloe only because she had had a minor straight-woman crush on her. The curly-haired artist had been profane and funny, perennially sexy in a V-necked shirt, with whiskey-colored eyes that laughed before her mouth did. But Khaulah had wanted important things that Chloe hadn't, at least not yet—children, a home, marriage—so they had to go their separate ways.

Her mother looked at her with mischievous eyes and squeezed Chloe's hip. “She was such a little devil. She would have made your life so interesting.”

Chloe swore that if her mother hadn't been happily married to her stepfather for over fifteen years now, she would have made a play for the light-skinned artist.

“I don't need
interesting,
Mom,” she said with a faint smile. “Jerica gave me plenty of that, and I'm so over it.”

Chloe nodded in greeting as they passed other people making the Saturday afternoon walk down to the little strip of restaurants and independent shops. The day hummed with the sound of the wind through the trees, the rustle of fallen leaves stirred up by passing cars, and the faint rattle of the MARTA train nearby.

“If you need anything regarding the job, just let me know, Chloe,” Kai said, breaking the comfortable silence. “I have some contacts in New York who might be able to help you.”

Chloe nodded, thinking the last thing she needed was to create any sort of connection with Kai in New York. Especially when she was trying to run away from her attraction to the woman. “Thanks, Kai. I'll let you know if I do.”

They continued down the hill toward The Flying Biscuit, chatting about inconsequential things. The Southern food restaurant was one of her mother's favorites and a place Chloe had practically grown up in. The staff and the signature T-shirts had changed over the years, but the menu had, thankfully, stayed the same. She was addicted to their wheat biscuits and apple butter.

Over lunch, she caught her mother and Kai up on the latest drama in her life, including Jerica's latest stunt, which was the last straw. Not only had she come to Chloe's job acting a fool so many times that the police were called and Chloe was eventually fired, but Jerica had also broken into Chloe's apartment, begging for a second chance at the relationship, swearing that Chloe was wrong and that there was no other woman. Chloe knew Jerica had been telling the truth about that one thing: there had been no other woman. There had been
dozens
of women. So many that Chloe was embarrassed that she hadn't realized the sheer magnitude of Jerica's infidelity.