Page 7 of Six Wishes

CHAPTER4

You kissed Van??

Chloe

First thing I do when I get home is to take my shoes off, then dump my dress and underwear in a small pile over them, and I jump in the shower.

My mind is going a mile a minute as I am scrubbing my hair, then the rest of my body. I can’t get Van’s kiss out of my head. What just happened there? And, Jesus, I roll my eyes now in embarrassment even though no one can see me, I have to cringe when I think on how Brian witnessed it all. Right after he had been this close to having his own lips on mine.

Thank God that didn’t happen, I now decide.

I step out of the shower stall and grab a towel. I left such a mess in here earlier today, I really need to clean. I need to clean the whole place. I only moved in here three weeks ago when Alison moved in with her fiancé and his nephew. The lease on her apartment still had close to a year to go, and I jumped at the opportunity to move out of my parents’ house. This apartment is nice and clean, and in a nice neighborhood. Not that it’s clean right this minute. I am pretty messy in general, and now that I am living on my own, I am taking it to a new level.

My cell phone starts ringing on the bathroom counter where I dropped it earlier, startling me from my impromptu assessment of my living quarters. I smile when I see it’s Alison.

“Hey, my favorite person ever,” I greet her in a happy voice. I do love Alison, and she has helped me so much since I landed the job as her assistant for her pre-k class. Then she went above and beyond to make sure that I could move into this apartment and no one would give me any trouble. She even left all the furniture, so I didn’t even need to worry about that.

“Aww,” she sighs happily over the line. “I am?”

“You know it,” I laugh out loud, then move to the bedroom to grab some clothes to sleep in. “What’s up?”

“Well,” she extends the L when she says it, and I frown at my underwear drawer. What is she up to?

“Well what?”

“Well, I got an interesting call tonight, and since we’re best friends now, I thought I’d let you know,” her voice sounds happy so I’m assuming that whatever she’s got to tell me is good news, so I relax.

“Who called?”

“A one Van Boyd,” Alison says with a flourish. “He asked me to confirm that you’re not some psychotic hockey fan because he really, really likes you, and he wants to take you out.”

“What?” I snort. “He wants to make sure I’m not some groupie?”

“Puck bunnies, they call them,” Alison deadpans, and I can’t stop laughing.

“I hope you told him I was a puck bunny,” we are both laughing so hard now.

“Seriously though,” Ali tries to calm herself down. “And don’t make me laugh again because I worry I’ll wake Ethan up, but I really think that Van wants to take you out, Chlo!”

“Oh,” the laughter dies on my lips. “I wonder why all of a sudden. He was such an asshole that first time we met.”

“I know!” Ali exclaims. “That’s exactly what I told him!”

“Wow,” is all that I can come up with in response to it.

“Is that a good wow or a bad wow?” Alison prods, trying to assess the situation. “And just so you know,” she continues before I get a chance to respond, “I already told him that I would kill him if he married you and whisked you away to New York.”

“Jesus, you did not say that to him!” I am appalled, and now I won’t be able to look him in the eyes if I ever see him again.

“She did,” Wyatt comments from the background, sounding like he’s eating something.

“You,” I start, but my phone dings with a text and I pull it down to see who it is from. “Hold on, Al,” I mutter into the speaker, “Hunter just sent me something.”

I open the text from my cousin and squint at the grainy picture she sent through, wondering what I’m supposed to be seeing there that’s so special. Maybe it’s a weird meme.

Me: What’s this?

Hunter: That’s you! On the HWags IG page!!! OMG!!!

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