2.

Eva.

Chloe's room was exactly how I remembered it. Too big, too pink, and smelling like she'd bathed in three different perfumes.

“Maybe, I didn't make a bad decision Afterall.” I nosed the room, letting the rich scent envelop me. 

When I was done I dropped onto the edge of her bed while she wrestled my suitcase open like it had personally offended her.

"You packed one bag," she said flatly pretending not to have heard my compliment. 

"I packed enough."

"Eva." She held up my pink sweater and stared at me. "This is the third time I'm seeing this sweater."

"It's a good sweater—."

"It's a cry for help."

I snatched it from her. "Can you not psychoanalyze my clothing right now?"

She sat cross-legged on the floor beside the suitcase and started pulling things out slowly, like she was doing an inventory. Which, knowing Chloe, she probably was.

"Okay so." She held up the red velvet dress. Her eyes went wide. "You brought this."

"Chloe?"

"Not my fault, you said you weren't going to wear it."

"I'm not."

"Then why did you pack it?"

I opened my mouth. Closed it. "...Just in case."

Chloe screamed. Not a very loud scream. Just a sharp, delighted little sound that meant she had filed that information somewhere and certainly was going to use it against me later.

"Just in case," she repeated slowly, grinning. "Just in case what, Eva? Just in case you accidentally became that girl?"

"Chloe."

"Just in case you look incredible and someone accidentally noticed?"

"I will pack my bag and go home."

"Mateo already left," she said cheerfully, folding the dress like it was sacred but almost immediately her face dropped dead serious. "You're stuck."

I fell back against her pillows and stared at the ceiling. It was quiet for a second though the good kind of quiet. 

Then Chloe said, "How are you actually doing?"

And I knew what she meant.

"I'm fine."

"Mm."

"I am."

"You keep slumping into that bed and looking at the ceilings. You're obviously overthinking it." Then, she looked at me. "Eva Miller, is that fine behaviour?."

I laughed a little. And I guess Chloe is right… I am thinking it but I'd never agree to over thinking it. "He sent a voice note, Chloe. A voice note. Am I some group chat he's leaving?”

"Of course you're not."

"Not even a call. Just a vn of forty seconds."

"I feel so sorry for him," she said quietly.

"Forty-three seconds to end two years?”

Chloe was quiet. Then— "Men are genuinely so lazy. It's almost impressive."

"Right?"

"Like the audacity." She shook her head. "The sheer, unbothered audacity."

"And the cheating!" I sat up. "The cheating few months ago. Like, fine, you don't want me anymore. Okay. People fall out of things. But you cheated, I over looked yet—"

"I know."

"While I was literally—"

"I know, Eva. We don't have to dwell on an asshole.”

“Yh, you're right. Actually, he's a Sleazeball.”

"Ass hole, Sleazeball." Chloe nodded seriously. "That's him. That's his whole personality actually."

I laughed again. Longer this time. It felt strange in my chest, like a muscle I hadn't used in a while.

"How's Blaise?" I asked, mostly to change the subject.

Chloe's face did something complicated. She started refolding a shirt that was already folded.

"He's fine."

"Chloe."

"He's Blaise." She shrugged one shoulder. "You know how he is."

"I know how he was. Is he still—"

"I don't know." She said it too quickly. Then softer— "I think he's losing interest. Or maybe I'm just paranoid. I can't tell anymore."

"Has he done anything?"

"No. Nothing I can point at." She finally looked up. "That's almost worse, you know? When it's just a feeling and you can't even be mad because there's no proof. You just sit with it."

"Yeah," I said. "I know that feeling. Though I'm thinking you're going Paranoid.”

We looked at each other.

"We're a mess," she said.

"A beautiful mess," I corrected.

"Obviously." She stood up, dusting off her silk shorts. "Okay. I'm hungry and this conversation is making me sad. Kitchen?"

"Kitchen."

{—}

The Callahan kitchen; wide marble counters, copper pots hanging from the ceiling, a window above the sink that looked out into snow-dusted hedges. Warm and bright and smelling faintly of something Chloe had probably burned earlier and blamed on the oven.

I found the eggs in one of the cupboards to the left. Chloe found the cheese and immediately started eating it.

"Can you not eat the ingredients?" I said.

"I'm tasting."

"You're eating a full block of cheese."

"Quality control." She broke off another piece. "This is actually really good. Do you want some?"

"I want you to put it down."

She put it down. Then picked it back up. I let it go.

I was halfway through cracking eggs when I heard footsteps. Unhurried ones. Immediately, I felt my pulse rise and I secretly prayed it wasn't who my mind pointed at. As the footstep approached with increased weight so did the beating of my heart. 

Then, he appeared in the doorway in a grey shirt, dark joggers, hair slightly undone from whatever it had been earlier. He looked at the counter, then at Chloe eating cheese directly from the block, then at me.

“Oh!, my God. Why does the universe keep doing this to me?” I muttered to myself, carefully turning so I wouldn't be forced to look him in the face.

"You cook?" he asked.

His voice was even. Not unfriendly. Just... measured. Like he chose words carefully before the came from his mouth. 

"Apparently I'm the only one who does," I said, nodding toward Chloe.

"I'm supervising, Dad,” Chloe said.

Dominic almost smiled. Next, he moved to the fridge, pulled out a bottle of water, and leaned against the counter.

"Eva," he said. Voice deep and gravelly, that shifted something in me.

"Mr. Callahan," I said quietly. 

"Welcome. I'm pleased to have you." He unscrewed the cap. "Chloe was convinced you weren't coming."

“Thank you, Mr. Callahan. I'm honoured.” I raised my hands over my cheeks trying to cover the redness. 

"I said I thought she might bail," Chloe corrected. "Which was valid."

"I didn't bail," I said.

"You almost did."

"I thought about it."

"See!"

Dominic watched us a mixture of confusion and amusement. He took a slow sip of water and didn't say anything else. I kept trying to move between cracking the eggs and not taking surreptitious glances at him. There was always something easy about his presence, which unsettled me, because I wanted to find him awkward. I really need to. 

He stayed for a few minutes. Long enough to watch me flip the eggs and Chloe drop a spatula and blame it on the floor being slippery. Then he pushed off the counter, said something low to Chloe I didn't catch, and left the same way he came. Unhurried.

Chloe turned to me the second he was gone.

I pointed the spatula at her. "Don't."

"I didn't say anything."

"You were about to."

She pressed her lips together. Grabbed the cheese again. "He has barely spoken since days.

"I'm not shocked."

"Yh, and I'm glad he respects me by respecting my friends." She grinned. "He once went three days without talking to Aunt Lydia and nobody noticed until she complained."

I laughed despite myself.

“I might be one lucky charm,” I muttered to myself.

“You wish.”

We ate standing at the counter because Chloe said sitting made meals feel formal and she was on holiday. I didn't argue. The eggs were good. The cheese helped. Outside the window, the snow had picked up slightly, soft and unhurried, coating the hedges in white.

It felt quiet in a way my house never did. Full, instead of empty.

I was still thinking about that when Chloe suddenly put her fork down with the energy she always did whenever she's about to suggest a plan that likely not going to sit well with me. 

"Okay," she said, her face beaming with a mischievous smile.

I looked at her.

"I'm throwing a party."

"Chloe—"

"A pool party." She was already nodding to herself. "Night swim. Lights in the water. We'll invite the neighbors, a few others. It'll be good."

"It is December."

"The pool is heated."

"That's not—"

"Eva." She turned to face me fully, and her voice dropped just slightly. Still Chloe, always dramatic. But underneath it, something real. "You came here to breathe. So let's give you something to breathe in. Yeah?"

I looked at her for a moment.

"You're going to make me wear something skimpy," I said.

She grinned. Slow and certain. "I wasn't going to say anything."

"Chloe!!”

"Yes," she said. "Obviously yes."