*Repost*

Sorry... Been super busy with the horses (dad is away so I have all four to do myself and my big guy needed clipped for a show this weekend... Yada yada...). Anyways, I've tweaked this chapter a little bit, hence why it was taken down...

Thank you all for the (mostly) lovely comments. It's nice to know that Chloe is loved. :)

And... *drum roll* The first chapter of my sister story is now up! It's called Ahonui (Be patient, Tolerate) and I hope it (eventually) lives up to everyone's expectations.

The next morning, I roll over in bed and frown when my cheek comes to rest against something warm. It registers, somewhere in the fog that comes between sleep and waking, that I should probably open my eyes and try to figure out who's chest I'm drooling on but the weight of the (I assume) guy's arm around my waist feels so natural that I can't bring myself to move just yet. Breathing out through my nose, I hum softly and shift when a hand comes up to gently draw my hair away from my face.

"Chloe?"

"Hmm…" I force my eyes open and then tilt my head up to see who's chest I've inadvertently turned into my own personal pillow. When piercing blue eyes meet mine, I smile and mumble, "Hi," against Steve's collarbone.

"Hey," he replies, chuckling when I use his stomach to clumsily push myself up and then settle my head in the crook of his neck. "Comfy?"

"Yeah, you make a good pillow," I sigh, letting my eyes slide shut again.

I'm not sure how much time passes before Steve shifts - a few minutes, maybe? – but I'm on the verge on sleep and I mumble "Don't move," under my breath when the movement causes my head to slip down over his collarbone onto his chest.

"As much as I would love to stay here all day and snuggle with you, I have to go to work. I have a meeting with the governor this afternoon."

Blinking, I rub at my eyes and then push myself upright, clutching the sheet to chest as I scan the room for my clothes; they're sitting on a chair in the corner, neatly folded, and my shoes have been lined up in the space underneath. "I'll get out of your hair and let you get ready," I say, moving to swing my legs over the side of the bed. But Steve grabs hold of the sheet before I can stand and pulls me back down beside him, pinning my wrists against the mattress and pressing his chest into mine.

"You don't have to go just now," he says, nudging my chin back so he can kiss my neck. "Stay. Sleep a little longer."

"Isn't a little early to be leaving me alone in your house?" I ask as he trails kisses across my collarbone and then continues down my sternum, between my breast and over my stomach. "Steve… I thought you had to go to work."

"I do. In a minute," he murmurs, crawling back up my body to capture my lips. The kiss is oddly sweet and I end up wrapping my arms around his neck just as one of our cell phones lights up and starts to vibrate across the top of the nightstand to my left.

"Don't answer it. You can call them back in a few minutes."

"It might be the governor."

Leaning over me, Steve grabs the phone off the nightstand before it can work its way over the edge onto the floor and he brings it with him when he shifts to lie on his side with his head propped on his hand. Holding it up so I can see the screen, he raises an eyebrow as he says, "You might want to let your friend know you're okay."

Frowning, I take the phone from him and wince when I see I have six missed calls and numerous texts from Katie. They range from the standard 'Hey, where are you?' to the slightly more snarky 'Okay, it's been, like, four hours and I still haven't heard from you so I'm going to assume you're busy bonking Commander Sexy-pants' brains out and not lying in a ditch somewhere until someone tells me otherwise."
The last one simply reads 'CALL ME WHEN YOU GET THIS' and I groan when I realize she must have stayed up waiting for me to either get in touch or come home.

"Shit."

While I silently berate myself for being a bad friend, Steve slides out of bed and pads across the room to the en-suite, clad only in a pair of boxer shorts. Turning on the shower, he leaves me to stare up at the ceiling as I try to figure out what I'm going to do to fix things with my roommate. I really hope that she won't be too pissed with me and I even contemplate telling her that I took her advice and made the first move because I know she'll cave as soon as she figures out Steve and I slept together. When I hear the shower i shut off a minute or so later I hurriedly push up onto my forearms and then swing my legs over the side of the bed. The sheet comes with me when I head over to grab my clothes off the chair in the corner and I dress quickly, pulling my tank top down over my bare chest just as Steve reappears holding a towel around his waist.

"Would you mind taking me home?" I ask, quickly shoving my bra top into the waistband of my jeans as I slip my feet into my Converse sneakers. "If you have time, I mean. It's just that I have no idea where the nearest bus stop is and my phone is about to die. Also, I'd kinda like to get the walk of shame over and done with before my neighbors start taking their kids to school."

"Sure," he says, pulling a button-down on over his grey t-shirt. Rummaging in the nightstand, he pulls his weapon and badge from the bottom drawer and clips the gold shield to the waistband of his cargos. The gun goes in the holster at his hip and then he scoops both of our phones off the tabletop and holds mine out to me. It get shoved it in my pocket as I follow him out onto the landing that runs the length of the upper floor, peering over the handrail as I take the steps two at a time.
I wasn't exactly paying attention to the décor when I stumbled in through the front door last night but I'm still a little surprised to find that the kitchen looks like it belongs in the 1990s, with its cream units and pink-and-white striped blinds.

"Coffee?" Steve looks over his shoulder to where I'm stood in the doorway leaning against the wooden frame and when I nod, he opens the fridge and pulls a carton of milk out of the door shelf. Unfortunately, it goes down sink before it can make its way into my coffee cup because, as Steve explains, "It went out of date last week." Setting the empty carton down on the counter behind him, he pulls a face as he adds, "I haven't really had time to go shopping lately."

When the kettle has boiled we take our (black) coffees through into the dining room and sit at the table that looks out over the lanai – the Hawaiian version of a porch - onto a private beach. One end of the room has been turned into a study and I find my eye being drawn to the photo frames sitting on top of the dresser behind the walnut desk. Pointing to the photograph of a young man in dress blues, I turn back to Steve, curious.

"Is that you?"

"My Grandfather," he replies distractedly, digging in his pocket for his ringing phone. Glancing at the screen he stands, muttering a polite "Would you excuse me for a minute?" and then heads out onto the lanai to answer the call.

Ten minutes later, I've looked at all of the photos on top of the dresser, as well as the ones on the bookcase next to the dining table. Steve's still on the phone, pacing up and down as he alternates between talking and listening, so I decide to make myself useful by taking our empty coffee cups into the kitchen. Washing them in the sink, I set them down on the draining board to dry and then turn around to head back into the dining room to wait.
I shoot back, clutching my chest in fright when I spot the woman lounging against the doorframe behind me and then drop my head as I will my heart rate to come back down to normal. It takes a good minute before I feel like I can trust myself to speak without sounding like I swallowed a dog's squeaky toy and I feel a little awkward as I gesture towards the dining room on my right.

"Uh, hi… Steve's outside on a call. You must be –"

"His sister. I'm Mary," the woman says, offering me a smile as she saunters past me to snag one of the clean cups from the draining board behind me. Flipping the switch on the kettle, she pushes herself up to perch on the counter to wait and her mouth quirks up into a mischievous smile as she swings her legs back and forth against the cupboard door below where she's sitting. "So, big night last night…"

"I'm sorry?"

Mary raises a perfectly manicured eyebrow. "It's an old house. Thin walls."

"Oh, God…" I hide my face in my hands and will the ground to open up and swallow me whole. "I'm so sorry."

"Don't sweat it." Waving a hand in the air like she didn't just tell me she could hear me having sex her brother, she leans forward and beckons me closer before she says, "I just broke up with my boyfriend so I plan on having a lot of guys over. It'll be a fair fight."

Steve appears just after that and – thankfully – herds me towards the door, citing the discovery of a body in the forest reserve just south of Dillingham Airfield as the reason why we have to leave right now. Pulling out of the drive a little too fast for comfort, he flips on the Silverado's lights and then takes off up the road like a man possessed. My – I think, not unreasonable - request to turn on the radio to break the awkward silence in the cab is met with a distracted no from Steve so I end up staring out of the window houses in the shadow of the raised freeway until I just can't take it anymore.

"So, your sister seems… nice. Are you two close?"

"Not really," Steve mutters distractedly, keeping his gaze fixed firmly on the road ahead. Rubbing at a mark on the doorsill, I glance down at my shoes as I tell him, "My brother and I aren't close, either. We talk on the phone every now and then but that's about it. He was in jail when I moved here so it's been a while since I've seen him; I'd probably walk right on by if we passed each other in the street."

"What was he in jail for?"

Shifting in my seat, I sigh and then quietly admit, "A DUI. The cops pulled him over. He panicked and tried to run… He violated his probation by failing to complete community service so the judge issued a warrant for his arrest and sent him to jail for ten days."

I'm still mortified that my brother was stupid enough to even think about getting behind the wheel after going drinking with his dumb-ass hockey buddies. I would have picked him up if he'd called; sure, I probably would have bitched about having to get up in the middle of the night to collect my pain-in-the-ass older brother but I would have done it, no questions asked.

"He was told to surrender the day before I was due to fly out. I refused to change the date on my ticket on principal. My mom was so mad but I told her that I didn't see why I should have to suffer because Jack had done something stupid; I don't think she talked to me for, like, a week after that."

At that point, Steve reaches across the center divide to squeeze my hand. "I'm sorry," he says sincerely, briefly meeting my eye when he glances away from the road.

"Why?" I turn to look at him as he crosses four lanes of traffic to get to the off-ramp. "It's not like you held a gun to my brother's head and forced him to get behind the wheel."

"No," he concedes with a small shrug, taking the ramp onto Ala Napunani Street. "But I do know what it's like. My sister doesn't exactly have the best track record when it comes to staying out of trouble."

Following the road south for a mile or so, we take a right and then a left followed by another left, and pull up to the curb outside my apartment building less than a minute later. Unclipping my seat belt, I twist in my seat, glancing around to make sure no-one's watching (because the flashing blue lights are bound to attract attention sooner rather than later). Leaning over to kiss him, I murmur, "Thanks for the ride," against Steve's lips before I pull away and then spin round sharply when someone unexpectedly raps on the window behind me.

It's Katie.
Of course it is, I think to myself with a groan. But instead of the dressing down I was expecting - and let's face it, I kind of deserve it for going incommunicado - she smiles a cheshire cat smile and then leans around me to wave at Steve, who smiles back out of sheer politeness.

"Friend of yours?" he asks as Katie motions for me to lower my window. Feeling for the door handle, I wrap my fingers around the cool metal and then look over my shoulder at him.

"My roommate. You may want to shift into Drive before I open the door," I tell him, only half joking. Taking a deep breath I push open the door and, as soon as my feet touch the pavement, I slam it shut behind me. When I look up into the face of my best friend, she grins at me and then reaches up to pat my cheek.

"Well, it's about goddamn time."