Mo’s eyes flickered, unease rippling over her face.“I didn’t say that.”
The numbness was spreading.Chloe couldn’t feel her hands, her feet.“That’s what you’re implying.”
The unease on Mo’s face grew.“You have to understand the impact something like this could have on our reputation, Chloe.”
“Jesus, Mo, listen to yourself,” Jesse urged.“You don’t hear how fucked up that sounds?”
“You want to talk about fucked up?”Mo countered.“You two aremarried.What the hell are you’re doing with my niece?”
“We’re consenting adults, and so is she, and it’s none of your damn business,” Jesse countered, walking around Knox to get in Mo’s face.
Chloe fought with the ties on her apron, finally dragging it off to lay it on the counter.The raised voices were starting to draw the attention of the other bar patrons, conversations quieting and heads turning to watching and listen, the humiliation of that had her hurrying out from behind the bar.
Mo stopped shouting at Jesse to frown at her.“Chloe?Where are you going?”
She shook her head and kept going.
“Chloe?”Knox called.
“Shit,” Jesse muttered.
The kitchen door swung open to reveal a sweaty and irritated Carrie.“What the hell is going on out here?I can hear you over Mike’s shitty punk music in the kitchen.”
Chloe just kept going.
She grabbed a coat off a hook in the office and walked out the back door into the falling snow.
Chapter Sixteen
She walked aimlessly, Carrie’s wool pea coat wrapped around her, while fat, thick flakes of snow fell onto her hair.Streetlights cast puddles of light, turning the snowfall into magic, but she didn’t notice.Her canvas shoes grew damp, but she didn’t notice that, either.
Her thoughts were in knots, her emotions a tangle.She didn’t know what to do with any of it, so she just walked, the cold biting at her face and sucking the breath from her lungs, until she didn’t feel like screaming anymore.And then she walked some more.
When she finally stopped to look around she was in the center of old downtown, quaint and quirky shops and restaurants tucked away in the brick buildings and the old gas lamps, long converted to electric, giving the street an old world charm.A coffee shop beckoned, its brightly lit window promising warmth and comfort, but she’d walked out of the pub without any money.So she found a bench, brushed the snow off the seat, and sat to contemplate her life.
Maybe Bailey was right and she just wasn’t cut out for no-strings affairs, because she’d certainly made a mess of this one.She’d thought she could keep her emotional boundaries clear—it should have been easy, because, hey, married men.But they’d gotten so blurred so fast, she couldn’t even pinpoint when they’d fallen apart.And now here she was, half in love with both men, possibly about to lose her job and her family, with no idea what to do about any of it.
And she was somad—at Mo for being a dick, at herself for falling in love with two men and causing the whole mess to begin with.At Jesse and Knox for being loveable.And at that foolish, foolish birthday wish.
“Dopey birthday wish,” she said out loud and tipped her face up to the sky.
It was really starting to snow, she realized, blinking away the flakes that fell on her lashes.She was going to have to go back soon.Her feet were wet, the shoes she had on no match for the weather, and snow fell into the collar of the too-big coat no matter how tightly she wrapped herself in it.She imagined her phone was going wild with missed calls and messages, but she’d left it behind in the apron, so she’d worry about that later.
She sighed, watching her breath puff out in the cold air, then blinked when someone said, “Chloe?”
Resigned, she dropped her head, prepared to face the music.Then blinked.“Sawyer?”
“I thought that was you,” Sawyer said, his peridot eyes twinkling with his smile.He had a knit cap over his dark hair nearly the same color as his eyes.“What are you doing sitting out here in the snow?”
“Oh, just contemplating the wreck of my life,” she said cheerfully.“You?”
“Ah…I’m headed in for some hot chocolate,” he replied, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the coffee shop.He eyed her warily.“You okay?”
“No,” she said frankly.“My life is a wreck.”
“Okay,” he said, still wary.“Anything I can do?”
“Do you have a time machine?”So I can travel back to my birthday and not make that dopey wish.
