14
She constantly worried about him. With the looming court date with Miss Enright, she had every right to be worried.
He'd mostly healed up but his broken arm was still healing. His bruises were faded but people still stared when she took him to dinner or the park to watch her little cousins.
"Is it so bad that I'm worried?" she demanded as he scowled at a corner, shadowed by darkness.
They were at the park, watching the neighbor's kids play. Well, actually, only Chloe was supposed to watch them but they were too much for her to handle alone so she brought Derek as back up.
The sun was at its peak and it was humid outside. Kids screamed around them and kicked up gravel; moms and dads told their little kids to stay away from the "big bad man with bruises", Chloe heard a mom tell her little girl.
"How's your arm?"
He shrugged like it was no big deal. "I doesn't really hurt," he said, biting into his popsicle.
The ice cream man had come and she'd brought them (and the Johnsons's kids) popsicles. And wet wipes. She laughed to herself as she rounded up the kids and wiped off their sticky little hands and fingers and laced her own hand with Derek's.
Janet bounced on his shoulders as the boys sword-fought with sticks.
"Dominic, Isaiah, stop it," Derek said sharply to the two boys, who dropped the sticks.
Jeremiah hugged Chloe's hip and sucked his thumb, blinking big, grey eyes at her.
The boys were content to twitter about the Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh cards they'd gotten on the way to the park.
Janet was chattering Derek's ear off as she smoothed and spiked up his hair, her little feet swinging.
"I'm guessing this is what it's like to have kids…when they behave," Chloe giggled.
Derek's good hand slid into hers and his fingers squeezed gently.
By the time their parents were home at six thirty, the kids were asleep.
All of them were curled up in their spots.
The boys on the couch, the girl curled up in the middle of the blonde mom's rocking chair.
The moms—it was a same sex couple and Chloe thought it was the cutest thing ever—hugged them both and slipped twenties into their back pockets.
On the way home, Chloe stopped Derek and asked him to bend down.
He obeyed and she climbed into his shoulders.
"I feel so tall!" she laughed as she ran her fingers through his soft, silky hair.
He rumbled something that might've been a laugh as he shook his head and they headed home.
Aunt Lauren was already in the kitchen, burning popcorn, when Chloe unlocked the front door and pranced in, followed by Derek.
"You burnt popcorn," he said, scowling at the smoldering bag.
"I put it in for too long," she admitted with a chuckle.
"How about we order pizza?" Chloe suggested, waving the twenty in the air.
Lauren agreed.
"He can eat one by himself," Chloe said.
"Order from Carson's Pizzeria," Derek rumbled. "It's my uncle's place."
"Your uncle runs the best pizza shop in Buffalo?" Chloe said as she spun around to face her boyfriend. She noticed the door was still open and thought she saw something.
Derek closed the door and slid the dead bolt into place, the click making her feel somewhat safer.
"It's okay," Derek told her, stroking her hair.
She smiled and excused herself to take a shower and get changed. She could feel his eyes follow her up the stares. Maybe he was admiring her butt.
The bathroom steamed up rather quickly as she ran the hot water, a prickling crawling down her spine. It's just nerves, she told herself as she quickly stole a 360 around, looking for shadows or mysterious figures. Nothing. She chanted over and over it's nothing as she sank into the hot water—oh, the soap just hit that huge scrape on her knee from tripping yesterday—and yet, she continued to look around, to look for shadows.
The mirror was fogged up and the window too; she could see fine. Everything was sluggish and muggy, like on a hot day.
Chloe felt sleepy and sank lower into the water, feeling her eyelids close slightly.
The doorbell rang and jolted her awake.
She glanced at the clock. She'd been asleep for maybe ten or twenty minutes. She slowly rose and washed away the soap suds and, as she wrapped up in a fluffy pink towel, she noticed something on the mirror and the window.
It looked like a faded handprint, far bigger than anyone's she knew (well, except Derek maybe), and two more smaller ones on the window, like someone had been peering in.
Her room was on the second story, there were no vines or trees that anyone could've climbed and she felt a chill sweep down her spine. Ghosts weren't real. It was probably just her eyes playing tricks on her. Yeah, that's what it was. The room was muggy and she was half-awake so it was easy to see things.
In fact, when she looked back after she dressed in the linen closet, the handprints were gone.
Derek rapped on the door. Asked if she was okay.
She threw her wet hair into a ponytail and answered the door with a grin, leaning up and kissing his lips gently.
She had to stand on his toes to kiss him.
"Let's go eat," Chloe suggested and they headed downstairs.
Feigning that she needed to dry her hair a bit more, she doubled back upstairs and checked her windows. Locked. All of them. It felt like someone was watching her.
She glanced around, saw nothing but still felt chills. She even shone a flash light on every dark corner, every shadowy place. Nothing. Still, she couldn't shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen.
The smell of greasy pizza beckoning, her stomach rumbling, Chloe slipped out of her room and closed the door. She thought she saw a shadow under the door.
"Chloe!"
"Coming!"
She ignored her paranoia and headed down stairs.