Chapter 6 – Chloe

Julie was at work for the day, and I was home alone. As usual. I got dressed anyway, though. I always felt better and cleaner when I was dressed and my hair and makeup were done, even if I wasn't going anywhere. I turned on the TV and ripped open a bag of chips. And that's how I spent my day, eating junk food and watching Teen Mom. Around eight, I got a text from Julie saying she'd be spending the night with Mike, her boyfriend. Looks like I was alone for the night. I couldn't even talk to Aubrey anymore.

Just thinking about the tall blonde made tears spring to my eyes. I missed her like crazy. I never should have ended it. I way overreacted about her not telling her dad; she was right. He'd flip. I sighed. It was too late now; she'd never take me back. I fell asleep on the couch with the TV still on.

Ding dong. I was jolted from my sleep by the sound of the doorbell. I wrapped a blanket around me as I was only in my tank top and denim shorts and it was freezing; a rainstorm had started while I was asleep. I saw the clock on my way to the door. It was two in the morning. "Who the hell comes over at two a.m.?" I grumbled. "Especially in this weather." I opened the door to find the last person I would have expected standing on my doorstep in a downpour. "Aubrey?" I whispered.

Her makeup was running, though from tears or rain I couldn't tell. Her eyes were red. Her blonde curls were matted to her face and her clothes were soaked and clinging to her body. She didn't say anything for a moment. She just looked at me. "I'm sorry." Her voice was hoarse.

I sighed and stepped out onto the porch, closing the door behind me. "No, I'm sorry. I never should have said those things."

"I ran off to come here after my dad left for work. I left him a note explaining everything. About you, about us, about how I don't care about anything or anyone but you," she said, crying.

"What did he say?"

She looked away. "Nothing yet. He hasn't even tried to contact me."

I took a step closer, feeling the rain make my hair heavy. I brushed her wet hair out of her face. "I'm here for you."

"Y-You'll take me back?" she stammered. Or maybe she was shivering. It was hard to tell out here.

I smiled and wrapped my arms around her neck, dropping the blanket on the ground. "You didn't think you could get rid of me that easily, did you?" Then I kissed her. I'd always dreamed about being with Aubrey, kissing her in the rain, right there on the sidewalk for everyone to see. She put her hands on my waist, hooking them through the belt loops of my shorts. She moved her body against mine, and I moved one hand to the place where her back arched, holding her tightly against me. The kiss lasted several minutes until I could feel her start to shiver beneath my touch.

I broke away and put my arm around her, gently guiding her to the door. "Why don't you come inside?" I said softly. "It's freezing out here." I sat her down on the couch and turned the fireplace on. Then I made us both some hot chocolate and sat beside her. "So what made you come?"

Her face tightened. "Well, I was kind of a mess these past two weeks," she admitted. "Then I realized you were right. So I waited until he was gone, then I packed my stuff and left him a note. And you know what happened next." She smiled.

I took her hand. "I never would have been brave enough to do what you did. I thought about calling you, but I was so sure you wouldn't want me back after that fight. I should have called." I pulled her closer. "You don't know how lucky I am to have a girl with guts."

She laid herself across my lap with a smile. I played with her wet hair. Suddenly, she sat up. "Where am I going to live now?" she exclaimed. "My father certainly won't have me back after this." She looked at me with fear in her crystal blue eyes.

I smiled and took both her wrists in my hands. "It's okay, sweetheart. Julie suggested when I first move in that you live with us. In my room," I added with a wink. "She'll be glad to have you."

She sighed in relief. "You are literally the best thing that's ever happened to me."

I kissed her, smiling. "I love you."

Julie came in with an elated shriek the next afternoon around two. Aubrey and I had fallen asleep on the couch together and slept super late. She must have seen us. "You guys made up!" she squealed, running to wrap us both in a tight hug.

I could tell Aubrey wasn't enjoying having all the air squeezed out of her. Julie let us go, Aubrey gasping for breath. "Yeah, I came for her," she said, tugging at her collar. She looked into my eyes with a smile. "I wasn't about to let her go."

Julie gave us her credit card. "Go for dinner at The Blue Palm on me."

I took it, my eyes wide. "Julie, I couldn't. You've seen their prices."

She refused to take it back. "Go. I just got paid and you two deserve it."

Aubrey and I showered – separately – and got dressed in our nicest clothes. We took her car. Mine was a junker and definitely didn't belong at The Blue Palm. The waiter went to get our food. I held her hand on top of the table. "I went to the lake every day," I told her. "I always go there when I'm missing you totally unbearably and need to sit and think about you. Usually it's only on Sundays when we can't Skype, but after that fight… well I could barely keep away from the place."

She blushed. "I sat in the bathroom when I missed you," she muttered.

I laughed out loud.

"What?" she said indignantly. "It's not like I could drive sixteen hours to our lake; I had to think of something. My bathroom was the only door with a lock."

"I can preesh," I giggled.

She rolled her eyes. "You know I hate it when you use slang."

"Aw, come on brah, lighten up, get swaggie," I teased.

She swatted my hand and leaned back with her arms folded.

"I'm just teasing you, come on." I grabbed her hand and pulled her back up to the table. "You know I love you like a bajillion times right?"

She smirked. "Well, at least I know that." She paused. "And I love you too." She gave me one tiny little kiss over the table. It was over before I even registered it had happened.

The waiter came back with our food just then. Aubrey went completely red and leaned back in her chair. She tried to slip her hand away from mine, but I gripped it even tighter. "Thank you," I said to the waiter with a beaming smile. "That'll be all for the rest of the night."

He nodded, looking almost relieved, and hurried off.

I pulled Aubrey back up close to me. "See, it's okay. He doesn't even know us."

"You know I hate PDA," she hissed, her cheeks still red. "It's embarrassing."

I feigned hurt. "What, you don't want people to know you're in a loving relationship?"

She glared at me.

I sighed, accepting defeat. "Fine. But Julie's out tonight so when we get home I'm gonna-"

I was interrupted by Aubrey stuffing a bite of her salad into my mouth. "I know what you're talking about, no need to finish that sentence," she said sweetly.

I giggled and swallowed the food. "You know you initiated that PDA just then, right?"

She sighed. "That's only because I'm so extremely happy to be here with you. Don't expect that to become a regular thing," she warned.

I smiled and squeezed her hand. "Okay."

After dinner, we didn't go straight home. Instead, we lay in the grassy field outside the restaurant and just talked. Aubrey sat leaning against a tree, and I lay with my head in her lap. She played with my hair as I talked.

"Do you remember when we were at camp and we'd make flower crowns?" I giggled.

She smiled wistfully and looked around. She shoved me off of her lap and went around the meadow picking little daisies and wildflowers and flowers I didn't know the name for. She threw the whole pile down in front of me with a grin. She didn't need to say anything; I knew what she meant. We began weaving the stems and blossoms together into beautiful crowns for each other.

"This is really relaxing," I commented. "It's like you can just forget the whole world when you're making these."

Aubrey smiled. "My hands almost go on autopilot," she giggled. "It helps me think."

"What are you thinking about?"

She shrugged. "You. Me. Us."

"Me too." I bumped her shoulder with my own. "I hope we're together forever."

She smiled at her lap and nodded her agreement. She finished her crown and held it up for me to see.

I squealed and clapped my hands. "It's so pretty!"

The crown she had woven was neat and tidy, not a petal out of place. Mine, on the other hand, was loose and looked like it was going to fall apart any second. But my crowns always held up much better than they looked like they would.

We entangled our arms, placing the crowns on each other's heads. I pressed my forehead against hers, planting a soft kiss on her lips. "I love you," I murmured, not pulling away.

She didn't reply; instead she began singing a familiar tune. "When I see your face, there's not a thing that I would change."

I jumped in with a harmony, not caring who heard us. "'Cause you're amazing, just the way you are." I grinned as we continued.

It ended just as quickly as it started. Just a chorus, nothing more. But it was our song and that was enough. We drove home and went up to our bedroom. I stripped down and so did Aubrey, but nothing more happened after that, to both of our surprise. We just lay in bed together, her arms encircled around my waist. The last thing I registered before I fell asleep was that Aubrey's head was nestled comfortably in the crook of my neck, her warm breath tickling my ear.

I grinned as I stretched in my bed, ignoring Aubrey's groans as my heels dug into her legs. "It's the 4th of July!" I cheered, standing up. Aubrey flipped over, her face in a pillow. I grabbed her hands and dragged her out of bed. "Come, on, we have a lot to do! Julie always has a grill party on the 4th and she wants us to go to the store and get food and stuff and we need to get dressed and do our hair and makeup all perfect and-"

I was interrupted by Aubrey's lips pressing onto mine. She pulled away, her eyebrows raised.

"That was a really nice way of telling me to shut up," I giggled breathlessly.

She rolled her eyes with a playful smile and went into the bathroom. I followed her. It took us an hour to put on our makeup, do our hair, and get dressed. After a lot of begging, Aubrey finally relented and let me pick her outfit. I decided to go for the sexy look, giving her a pair of cut-off booty shorts and a white belly top. She wrinkled her nose, but reluctantly put on the clothes. When she came out of the bathroom, it was like a goddess emerging from heaven.

I gasped. Aubrey's long, tan legs were actually showing, and the top tied off to show her tight flat stomach. Her long blonde curls cascaded around her shoulders and down her back.

A few incoherent babbles escaped my lips before I figured out how to speak again. "Oh my god," I breathed. "You look… holy shit." She looked over her body in disdain. "I look like a slut."

I wrapped my arms around her waist from behind, resting my head on her shoulder. "No you don't. You look like a girl who knows what she's got and isn't afraid to show it off."

She cracked a little smile. "Well now I get to choose your outfit," she said with a sinister grin.

"Oh lord. Okay, go for it."

She handed me a long light blue sundress with slits in the skirt. I put it on and twirled for her, the sections of the skirt fluttering around my ankles. She gently traced a line down my face with her finger. "You look like a summer princess," she whispered.

I smiled at her electric touch. "And you look like my favorite girl, and she's about to have the best day of her life."

I took her hand and dragged her outside. "Come on, let's go buy some meat!"

She froze. "Chloe, I'm a vegan."

I laughed out loud. "Julie has like three friends who are vegan. You're covered."

Aubrey kissed me on the cheek. "I should have come here long ago."

She drove us to the store. I checked the list. "Okay, we need two packages of ground beef, eight hot dogs, tomatoes, lettuce, onions, cantaloupe, strawberries, mangoes, grapes, and raspberries," I read aloud.

She tilted her head. "What's the vegan food?"

I smiled. "Mike's making grilled fruit kebabs. I might have to steal one from one of you bitches." I winked and licked my lips.

Aubrey bumped my shoulder. "You get burgers, remember?"

I sighed and grabbed the hot dogs from the shelf. Aubrey tossed the beef into the cart with her nose wrinkled in that adorable way. "I don't know how you can eat that."

"Easy, it's delicious!"

She rolled her eyes. "Come on; let's just get the good food." She loaded up a ton of fresh fruit, probably plenty more than Julie needed. I could barely move the cart when she was finished. She checked her phone. "Shit, it's almost noon. We'd better get going." We went to the checkout lane and gave them Julie's card.

"We brought food," I announced loudly as we returned home.

Julie ran out from the kitchen. "Oh, good, I was just taking the brownies out of the oven. Now I can start kebab-ing while you two frost the brownies. Come on, wash your hands and get going!"

It started out as simply spreading frosting on brownies, but it turned into an all-out frosting war. We put on long aprons with sleeves. I suppose we sort of suspected something like this might happen. I accidentally flicked a bit of chocolate frosting onto Aubrey's shoulder. She turned to me with a smirk, tossing some back at me.

I raised my eyebrows. "Oh, it's on." I flung a huge blob of frosting at her. It smattered all over her face.

She shrieked playfully, picking up her bowl of frosting and walking over to me. She smashed the bowl over my face without a second's hesitation. When she pulled it away, my face was coated in chocolate and it was in my hair. I wiped my eyes and blew a sticky hair out of my face. I pulled her in and kissed her, the frosting on our faces mixing together. She tasted even sweeter than usual. I smiled, holding her forehead against mine. "I love you," I murmured.

"I love you too, my little Chihuahua," she giggled with a wink. She grabbed a towel and wiped her face clean before tossing it to me. "Here, wipe your face off."

I rubbed furiously at my face and along my hairline until there was no chocolate left on it. Then we brought the finished brownies into the kitchen. "We're done," I called in a sing-song voice.

Julie pointed to a counter and ran a hand through her hair. "Put them over there."

"You need some help?" Aubrey asked, sounding concerned.

Julie shook her head. "No, I'm almost done."

"Is she okay?" my girlfriend whispered to me.

I sighed. "She always gets stressed like this. She's fine. Come on, let's go fix our makeup." We went upstairs and re-applied. The doorbell rang downstairs. I squealed. "Yay! Let's go!"

Aubrey hesitated. "I don't know," she said uneasily. "I won't know anyone here."

I giggled. "Well, let's make some friends, silly!" I paused when she didn't follow me. I took her hands. "Give it a half hour. If you still don't wanna be there after that we'll go somewhere else, okay?"

She sighed. "Okay."

"I love you," I began.

She smiled. "Forever and always."