Disclaimer: Anything familiar to you, I don't own. This is a work of fanfiction for personal amusement, fulfillment and a bit of self-therapy. I make nothing from any of it.
Chapter Fifty-Three: Hippeis
February 14th, 2012 3:03 PM
The fact that Max had asked to wait for Rachel by the photography classroom for the second day in a row more or less took away any doubt in Chloe's mind about precisely what Max was doing. The way the girl glanced occasionally into the classroom and then quickly away from it and the fact that until yesterday she had been beating a hasty retreat from the classroom every day as soon as the bell rang were testament to the fact that Max was genuinely concerned about Victoria Chase being in a room with Nathan Prescott. Maybe Jefferson's presence made it worse for her. Chloe didn't know. What she did know as she adjusted her bag on her right shoulder and balanced the skateboard beneath her left arm, was that Victoria Chase had spent months being a dick to Max. Yes, that began to change around November or so and her cooperation last month had been vital on advancing Max and Rachel's plan to join the Vortex Club, but this was Victoria.
As if summoned by the thought, the blonde in question approached, followed by her cronies. Max visibly relaxed as Victoria joined them in the hall, her shoulders dropping, hands unclenching. Max even adjusted the way she held herself so that she stood a little taller, as if she had been ready to bolt after someone or away from someone a moment before. The moment slowed as Victoria seemed to realize they were there and all but paused outside of the door. Over her shoulder, Courtney was giving Chloe in particular the stink eye. Frankly, the girl already got on Chloe's nerves in a way that not even Victoria had managed with her 'Kari Price' routine. It was hard to place precisely why but Max's playful assertion that it was because Courtney, too, liked to keep her hair short and dye it had managed to genuinely annoy Chloe once. Once Taylor realized that Chlor was looking at the two of them and not at Victoria, she visibly grew uncomfortable, rubbing at one arm and looking away, but not moving around Victoria and leaving yet.
As for the thin blonde in front of them, her focus during this momentary pause seemed to be on Max. A look of recognition had settled into the features of either photographer. Victoria knows Max is looking out for her and Max knows she's trying to figure out how to deal with it. It was with only great restraint that she did not roll her eyes at the scene. After all, with great eye rolling power came great responsibility. A second stretched to two and then three before someone spoke.
"Hi, Max, Chloe." Come the fuck again? Without a moment of hesitation, Chloe reached across her body with her right arm and pinched herself on the left. Nope, definitely felt that. The use of her actual name was so out of character, so absurd that a part of Chloe had momentarily that she was still in bed, making all of this up in her head. Victoria, eyebrow raising, turned away from Max and shifted her purse on her shoulder. Finally, there came the familiar haughty look over her features which said, 'you're so weird.' "What are you even doing?" Max sighed audibly. To Chloe, it was all a little funny, even if it was disturbing to hear Victoria not insulting them for a second.
"Sorry, just, thought I might be dreaming," Chloe replied, grinning smartly. Though it seemed to visibly frustrate the girl in what was probably a two hundred dollar top, Victoria blinked once, huffed and then shrugged as if to say she couldn't be expected to deal with this 'weirdness' and then, instead of walking away silently or making some sort of derogatory comment, wished them a nice day. When Chloe looked at Max, even she seemed slightly taken aback by this. Courtney and Taylor did not match Chloe's eyes as they passed. Chloe did, however, turn her blue gaze on Max, who was all but gaping at Victoria's back, as surprised by the cordiality as Chloe was. It was when Chloe joined her in looking down the hall that Chloe spotted Steph passing the blonde in question and approaching them with her backpack on. No Rachel with her? She must've needed to swing by her locker.
Steph, for her part, did not particularly make any sign to Victoria but did raise her hand in greeting upon seeing that she had been noticed by Chloe and Max. Chloe noticed immediately that while Steph was interacting with them, she was also moving quickly away and toward the doors. Steph had been wrapped up for the last couple of days in some project of hers that she was keeping, for now, a secret. The way the girl was all but speed walking suggested she was eager to get home and get to it. Chloe wasn't intent on leaving yet but the truth was she could not afford to be far behind Steph: she had things to do.
"I'll be back to hang out at the house in a few," Chloe called to her as the girl passed them. When she glanced back to follow Steph's path, the auburn-haired artist shot a pointed look toward Max and then toward the retreating form of Victoria Chase. Chloe only shrugged in response and, given that Max was still distracted, Steph chose the opportunity to call a quick 'be good' at the brunette before disappearing through a set of double doors from the hall out onto campus. At this point, Max shrugged, herself, and turned towards Chloe. Chloe wasn't sure precisely where everyone stood when it came to this new potential friendship. Really, we should send Rachel in to figure it out, since Victoria's probably sweet on her.
Max was just starting to speak when Chloe caught sight of Rachel rounding the corner near the vending machines and gestured once with a nod. As they watched and exchanged under their breaths theories about precisely where she had been that had taken so long, an exceptionally cute smile lit the approaching blonde's face. It was either a warning sign that Rachel was plotting something or that she was just in an exceptionally good mood that day. Neither option was theoretically impossible but Chloe had to admit that she, at least, had not been in a good mood since the weekend. She couldn't shake the idea that Rachel was up to something as she approached.
"What are you doing?" Max asked the blonde suspiciously once she was in range. Shaking her head as if affronted, Rachel attempted to put on an air of innocence. The thing was, now that she was up close, Chloe watched how she was holding her backpack so that it hung down in front of her from both hands and saw that the smile on her face was, however cloying, genuine. Apparently realizing that neither Chloe nor Max were buying her innocent routine Rachel sighed.
"I'll tell you when we get outside." At that, Max reached out and took Chloe by the hand, trying to prompt her to follow so they could get to the bottom of the mystery earlier. Chloe, mostly jokingly, dug her heels in. That was only effective up to a point and when Rachel moved one of her hands from her bag and began to push Chloe along from the back, that point had officially been reached. She laughed at their antics, feeling a bit of relief for the first time all day. The truth was, Chloe thought as she blatantly ignored David Madsen skulking around in the background, glaring daggers at them, that she felt alright as the girls hustled her down the hall and toward the nearest exterior door. Sure, her eyelids felt heavier than they should, but compared to even last Tuesday she was doing better. Perhaps it was the promise of what the rest of the day had to offer her.
"Alright, alright," Chloe informed them both, breaking free of either girl as she pushed open the glass door in front of her and stepped out into the cool February air. The ground was dry and cool, grass a sort of sickly, slow growing brownish-green. Try as Samuel might, Chloe thought as she hit the bottom step outside of the doors and stretched, there was no making the grass on campus look particularly nice. As Chloe pulled her hat down against the cool air and turned over toward Rachel, shifting her board so that she was holding it by its front axle, the blonde opened her bag and began to pull something blue from it.
Once upon a time, Chloe had been 'given' several of Rachel's shirts when the girl had implied her wardrobe could use a sprucing up. Nowadays it was not too terribly rare for her to occasionally wear one of Rachel's shirts, but she definitely recalled the one Rachel was shoving towards her. When it had made its way back to Rachel, Chloe wasn't entirely sure but she did grin as she took it. Typically worn like an overshirt, it was designed to look like a mechanic's uniform. Well, a specific mechanic named Hank. The cheese of the gesture, an hour and some change before she was supposed to show up for her interview at the brake and tire shop in town was not lost on Chloe.
"Aww," Max called playfully as Chloe shook the shirt out with her one free hand and then, after examining it, threw it over one shoulder. "How sweet."
"Hey," Rachel called at Max to get her attention. As soon as she had it, she wasted it by sticking her tongue out at the photographer. Deciding to put an end to this before it devolved into something completely, inescapably goofy, Chloe put herself between the two so that she could, setting her deck down for a moment, give Rachel a large hug. Whatever the next stage of the two of them teasing would have been, Chloe chose to forego it and hold tight to the stockier blonde until such time as she stopped returning the hug. Chloe knew that her behavior over the last month or so had been concerning to them and the support both girls had shown her since she started looking for a position at that shop had been unwavering and enough that many times when she felt the most down about herself, it brought her back up.
"I promise to wear this today to make sure this guy's not some hardass who can't take a joke," Chloe told Rachel, surprised at how serious she sounded. I'm not gonna go get sappy and cry or anything am I? A moment of searching herself for signs of being absolutely ridiculous later, she decided she was not. The truth was, though, as she and Rachel pulled apart and Chloe felt Max's hand briefly brush her shoulder supportively, Chloe was as nervous as she was excited. She wanted to find a job, sure but she vastly preferred working with her hands on something that she was somewhat familiar with. The other option was learning some new tedious skill that she would either have to stay in a job she might not like to make any long-term use out of, or completely abandon when her time at the job was up. However, she was not about to subject herself to another asshole, not for the sake of a brake shop in Arcadia Bay.
For the next few minutes, Chloe allowed herself to sit and chat with Rachel and Max before boarding over to the parking lot. While the two of them went to find Kate and study, Chloe had three things on her mind: shower, eat and then unwind. With far too little time before her interview to do all of that, she decided that her meal was going to be a sandwich eaten on the couch while she watched television, hopefully with Steph. For the most part, everything went according to plan for the next hour and a half and Chloe found herself sitting outside of Kenny's Brake and Tire Shop a few minutes early feeling, if not good, then at least better than she had expected to. She wasn't sure if it had been the longer than average shower or dinner in the form of a turkey sandwich loaded down with mayo and potato chips, but somehow, as the clock ticked down and what looked to be the last of the shop's employees left for the day, Chloe felt ready.
In the mirror she tried to put on a nice, wide, respectful smile but it looked immediately and laughably fake. She was capable of being respectful, but trying to look like the main character in a 1950s PSA on how to find a job was bound to backfire stupendously. She was what David would have called, a punkass. She kept her hair short and bright, did not care if her clothes were cheap and wrinkled, wore too much 'black shit' around her eyes ('Hey, I like all that black shit', to quote Ally Sheedy,) and as of late had taken back to skating whenever she had the opportunity to walk. This last had led to a number of falls as she got used to navigating parts of town on her board all over again, resulting in, among other things, a nice scrape along her jaw.
All of this was to say that she was not going to be able to make herself look like someone fresh out of sunday service and she didn't care to try. Chloe made sure her hair was not sticking up anywhere she did not care for it to, set her beanie aside and gave the mirror one last look to make sure she had nothing on her face (mostly because, when she loaded a sandwich down with mayo, she really laid it on thick) and then climbed from the truck, slipping its keys into her right pocket. Before going any further she freed her phone from the left pocket and gave her inbox a quick once over.
Max
You've got this in the bag.
Rachel
Go kick ass, girl.
Me
I'm going in. Much love. Wish me luck.
With that, she muted the phone completely. She didn't want so much as a vibration to interrupt her focus. It was time, for a few minutes at least, not to worry about the big stuff and instead focus on the small stuff. Like getting a job. That's the small stuff? Jesus, what is your life? When she approached the low, squat and long building's front door, it was locked. She could, however, see far enough into the shop to tell that Kenny Peterson, the man who owned it, was waiting on her despite the fact that she was about a minute early. As she watched the man rose from his seat behind the counter and hobbled over to the door. He walked with a pronounced limp. Chloe thought back to the time Joyce had insisted she bring her truck to the shop for a lookover, citing him as an old friend whose work she trusted. (Kenny had looked the truck over himself and declared it to be a 'Miracle on Wheels' but also 'roadworthy to a point.') He had been limping even back then. Must have been an old injury, Chloe told herself, trying not to grimace at the slight look of pain on his face.
"C'mon in," the man grunted upon opening the door. As far as she knew, Kenny was not much older than her mother, but he had seen some hard times in his life and it showed on his face in the form of lines and the occasional mark that looked somewhat like an old scar. He shot her one look that she took to be at the pale blue overshirt, snorted a bit derisively and then limped his way back around the counter. Chloe stepped in as he bade and let the door shut behind her. There was no sign of anyone else up front, but from the back where she thought the office to be she could hear a male voice. While it certainly didn't sound like Skip or anyone else she might know, whoever it was seemed to be trying to order a part. "We're going to have to forego the sitting down at a desk bullshit and just talk," the man with the salt and pepper hair explained when he caught her looking toward the office. "Hope you weren't expecting it."
"Fine by me," Chloe shot back at the man as he looked ponderously at his chair and then instead leaned his body up against the counter as if to shift weight from his (left, I think) leg. As often happened on those rare occasions when she gave the man a look over, Chloe considered that he bore something of a resemblance to someone else she knew, but who that was she was never able to place. This was no exception. In the past, he had struck her as friendly enough to his customers but she only knew him from that side of the equation. As to how formal or informal he expected her to behave when trying to get a position from him, Chloe could not guess and she found not knowing a little bit uncomfortable. "I really do appreciate the opportunity," she told him. Though his response was to wave his hand once as if dismissive, nothing about his face suggested any ill will.
"So," the man all but grunted and when he inhaled a moment later it sounded just loud enough that she suspected he had some trouble with his lungs. "On one hand, I've got you being recommended by Skip, and while a good person, he can be something of a dumbass, so I'm not so hot about that. On the other hand, the Caulfields- who actually used to steal work from me, if you can believe the ungrateful bastards- sing your praises and say you learned everything they and your father could teach you back before you could reach an engine." There was nothing Chloe could do to hide the fact that she was caught off guard. Why in the name of hell would the Caulfields be giving input on her employment? She hadn't put them down as references or anything. Then again, judging by the good natured jab at the couple, (who come to think of it had run a small shop in town when Chloe was younger) the man seemed to be friendly with them and in Arcadia Bay just about anyone who had ever met her mother knew Chloe and Max. Did he call them? Or did Max- Oh. Oh that girl was going to pay when Chloe saw her next.
"On the other hand, you've got no official training." Chloe nodded as if that was a reasonable statement but thought it was kind of odd for a little brake and tire shop like this. People who changed oil, rotated tires and even replaced brake pads weren't always what most people thought of as actual mechanics, after all. People would be surprised, frankly, at the amount of repairs they could do in their own driveways with as little as youtube as a guide. It was mostly about having the tools and the confidence. Chloe had access to both. "Then on the other hand again, that bucket of bolts out there is still running, and that's fucking impressive as is." This time, Chloe failed to entirely suppress a frown. The truck was not in the best shape, sure. It also wasn't a 'bucket of bolts.' "So here's the deal. I'm tired, hungry and don't have time to fuck around anymore today, so let's cut to the chase. I'll pay you for this one job sitting out in the garage." At this the man nodded toward a door leading out to the connecting garage. She could make the tail end of what looked like an older Mercury Sable roughly the color of vomit through the glass window at the top of it. "You do it, I put your ass to work on Saturdays until summer comes." All in all, this had been much simpler than expected. All she had so far been asked to do was stand a bit awkwardly across the counter from this man, let him ramble for about a minute straight, listen to him call Skip a dumbass and then go do some work. Chloe could honestly say she had had a hundred conversations with David Madsen that were less fun than this had been.
"Point me toward the work and the tools," she replied, feeling comfortable enough exposing a bit of confidence.
"Good enough," he said, gesturing with one shaking hand's thumb toward the door in question. "My '02 Taurus is out there. Needs its tires checked. While you're in there, it needs an oil change and I had to pull off a wiper that needed replaced. Just show me you can handle this and we're done here." Chloe nodded and then made for the door, though personally she thought that the tasks assigned to her were small enough that they didn't say much about her ability to work there even if she didn't mess up. The oil change, on the other hand, would take a few minutes and was an odd choice for someone wanting to get down to business so they could get home.
Chloe passed from the front desk into the garage and was instantly struck by strong smell of oil. Though it did make her wonder how great breathing that air was for a person it also did remind her of parts of her younger childhood, when she and Max would sit on a bench in her garage or Max's own and play games while their parents popped a few cold ones and helped each other on the more time-consuming car repairs. In retrospect, the families had probably saved each other a fucking mint in car repairs. She pushed aside nostalgia only with some effort and turned to the car which was waiting for her with its hood up. It was after she had taken a quick inventory of the old toolbox open on the nearest bench and found that it had most of what she needed (not to mention the oil, filter and windshield wiper were lined up right next to it as if the man thought she did not know how to carry things herself) that Chloe turned around and, grinning, spotted what was going to make the oil change a far easier process.
The car was already in position over the lift, waiting to be hefted into the air. With the vehicle above the ground, it meant less crawling around on the cement and trying not to bump one's head on things. At least you're not laying in your driveway, she thought. Then, after admonishing herself for feeling quite so excited about the lift, she got to work. It was a quick thing to check the car's tires for their PSI and any wear and tear. Truth was, Chloe realized as she ran her hand along the tread of first one and then the next tire, the guy probably needed to go ahead and rotate these. They were worn as one expected from an old set of tires but it was getting to be a bit of an uneven wearing. Add that to the passenger rear being low (something she fixed in a few seconds without really asking) and the tires weren't in the worst shape in the world.
Chloe didn't know much about Tauruses, except that at one point the Caulfield family had driven an older model than this for a year. Still, she did not expect an oil change to be too long. For some reason, Chloe had noticed when she first entered the garage and looked the car over, the engine was still a little warm, as if the man had done it on purpose. Dude's taking it easy on me, Chloe realized as the car slowly rose into the air. She wasn't entirely sure how she felt about that, but decided not to look too far into it this one time. It was genuinely possible he wanted things to go as quickly as possible so that he could get home. It was equally possible, Chloe reminded herself, that this test was mostly to see if she knew how to handle the basic tools needed for the job and how to not otherwise fuck up and get herself or someone else hurt.
After hunting down the one thing needed for her task that had not been in easy reach (an oil pan) Chloe returned to the car to find that at some point while her back was turned, Kenny Peterson had come out into the garage. He was not staring at her work or at her but instead looked to be tidying up another bench entirely. Still, she did not think his presence was particularly unrelated to the fact that some punk kid had his car in the air. Chloe felt a little more cognizant of how amused she was to have access to a lift to make the process easier when she glanced at the man as he hurled a wrench over his shoulder into a tall rusted toolbox behind him. He glanced up at her with a raised eyebrow as if he thought she had a question and Chloe shrugged a shoulder, offering a reassuring smile before ducking under the car.
Despite the fact that the boss was watching she allowed herself a second to consider the sheer amount of weight resting just above her head, held aloft by a bit of steel and hydraulics and then, lining the pan up as best as she could with the drain plug, raised the socket wrench and got to work. The first roadblock in her path was the fact that the bolt was definitely on there tight. Whoever had been the last to touch this thing immediately struck Chloe as something of a jackass. The good news was that stereotypes about women being inherently weak little princesses in a garage were ninety-nine percent bullshit and Chloe didn't much care to meet the one percent. It took her a few seconds more than she wanted to admit, but eventually she had the oil flowing. With only a minor correction to the positioning of the oil pan, there was little she could do but wait and keep an eye on things.
"So," she said as soon as she ducked out from under the car. "I had to hit the rear passenger tire, it was a little low. Your tires could use rotating, though," Chloe looked once over the nearest bench and approached to grab hold of a shop towel and wipe the oil from her hands temporarily. Just a bit farther down at the next bench, Kenny turned, still keeping his weight at least partially pressed against it and grunted to signify he'd heard her. "Want me to do that one today? It won't take too much longer."
"Not today," he told her. There was no sign of what he thought about her performance, but then again the terms had been pretty simple: do the job, don't fuck up, get hired. Stop overthinking it, Chloe told herself as the man turned back to his bench. He's just out cleaning up. It was hard, though, not to overthink him being in the room with her. She spent the rest of her time somewhat aware of him in the corner of her mind, aware of where he was if not so much what he was doing even though every time she looked at him he was either reading something or putting it away.
There wasn't much hurrying up she could do at this point with the tools available to her so she did her best to ignore him. The anxiety, if that was what it was, would have to go away on its own. For his part, he didn't seem impatient, though at one point she caught him grumbling to himself that he needed to buy this or that. Focusing on the task ahead, even if she mostly just repeated it to herself mantra-like while the last of the old, dark oil filled the pan beneath the car, kept her from being too worried. It took no time at all to remove and replace the old filter once the car was clear of oil about fifteen minutes after she had started. At one point, Chloe realized she had stopped paying much attention to the smell of the garage. With the bolt and new filter in place all Chloe really had left to do was lower the car, replace the oil and the windshield wiper. It was, all told, a fairly quick procedure and when it was done she did not feel so tired anymore. After three or four failed attempts to get her hands relatively clean with a shop towel and the time it took her to put away most of the tools laid out for her as best she could, Chloe double checked the oil level and shut the hood of the car.
"So I think that's it, unless you want the tire rotation. Sorry it took so long," at this last, Chloe felt more than a little frustration with herself. Peterson dropped the catalogue he had taken to reading on the bench beside him and approached her. He was attempting to look serious and imposing as he did so but the effect was lessened by the limp and the small smile turning up an otherwise tired, lined face. The smile, Chloe would think later, had probably come from watching her smear oil across her own cheek, but she hadn't been thinking about that in the moment.
"See," the man said as he stopped just short of her. "Way I see it, kids these days are in a fucking rush to get everywhere." Ah damn it, I was just starting to like this guy. If he was going to go on a rant about 'lazy ass kids', she was going to need a drink. As far as Chloe was concerned, it should have been a social convention that if you go on a rant about something that annoyed you, you gave the person listening a beer. "People want to say it's all about being careless and whatever, but that's bullshit. That's the world, kid. Everyone's always on the balls of their feet, going where they have to go as fast as they can so nothing goes wrong in between. Shitty, but not any one generation's fault. When it comes to working on a car, though, you can't have someone rush through it. That's how stupid shit happens and maybe most of the time it's harmless, but the rest sure as fuck isn't. Harmless or not, stupid shit's bad for business. You took your time, did the job right and didn't fuck up. I wanted to see what happened if I walked in: if you'd try to hurry up, get sloppy." Chloe nodded. She had, at least, been spared a rant about her generation being lazy. It had just been replaced with 'the world's fucked up', which she could hardly disagree with. "Don't get me wrong. I don't want slow, I just want the job done right. Speaking of, you start this Saturday."
"Sounds good," she told the man, offering her hand. He gave it one firm quick shake in his calloused grasp.
"Good. I'll see you at 8 AM every fucking Saturday. Sucks to train you on the busiest day of the week but, best way to learn, plus, not a lot of choice." Considering the place closed on Sundays and Chloe was normally getting home from school about an hour and a half before the place closed at the earliest, Saturday was about her only option. "You're still under training until I'm sure you can handle most of what comes your way but you're on."
"Thank you," Chloe told him, having absolutely no compunctions about being considered in training.
"Sure," he replied. "Just don't fuck it up. One thing, though." Chloe, who had not moved away from him since he released her hand, simply fixed her eyes on him and waited. "It's pretty common knowledge you and your mother aren't having a great time. If she rolls in, I expect you to service her vehicle, no matter what." At this Chloe nodded, but she raised her right hand as if to stop him from going further.
"Fine," she said, "but if my ex-stepfather comes in, I don't want to touch it. If something went wrong and he wound up in some kind of crash, I wouldn't want to be accused of being the reason and bring shit down on the shop." The man snorted.
"He that bad? Bit of a windbag but..."
"Yeah," Chloe replied, not lowering her voice or at all playing herself off as deferential in this matter. "He's that bad. Bad enough he should probably have some jail time, but it's too late for that." Kenny fixed dark eyes on her for a few seconds, squinting and then shrugged.
"Hmph. Fine. You've got a deal there. Now there are some punks sitting in the back of that junk heap you call a truck who told me they're waiting on you." Oh, oh shit, Chloe thought, blinking as she rested a hand against her side. The man, somehow, took the gesture for a sign of amusement and his face hardened just slightly. "Go tell 'em not to pull that shit again, and, I don't know, to take you out for dinner or something to celebrate. If that's the Caulfield girl with her camera, tell her to have her parents call me... and get out of here." Chloe took the dismissal as being mostly playful, but figured it was in her best interests to first find out if those punks were her girls and then vacate the parking lot before Kenny actually got mad.
She excused herself after thanking the man once more and then strolled calmly out of the building. Sure enough, sitting in the back of her truck with the gate down passing something to drink back and forth as if they were pregaming for a football game were Rachel and Max. Kate, still dressed as if for class, leaned up against the side of it, talking to them. After a moment as Chloe approached, forcing her expression neutral to inspire at least some curiosity in the others, each of the three lifted their head to look at her in turn. Max and Kate at least were waiting with bated breath. Just before getting close enough to them to talk, Chloe raised an oil-slicked thumbs up. Rachel wolf-whistled loudly.
David will probably have a conniption the first time he rolls up on a weekend and sees me in here. Then again, summer was coming and that would mean even more chances to give him a heart attack when she moved up to a full time position. In the end, Chloe reached them and only allowed them a couple minutes of talking in the lot before they mutually agreed on fries and a burger from McDonalds. Before splitting to get into her truck while the others went for Rachel's car, Chloe was stopped by Max, who came in close for a kiss. Though she tried to keep a straight face after pecking the brunette on the cheek, she could not entirely manage it at the sight of a dark thumbprint along Max's chin.
In that moment, watching the others pile into Rachel's sedan, Chloe felt like like a lucky girl.