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The smile that spread across her face confirmed what I’d long hoped—Chloe cared. A lot.
“Well, I thought for sure you’d trade it in once you knew you got your first real job,” she said, changing the subject.
“You heard about that?”
I was surprised since I’d only found out the day before that I’d gotten a job in the communications and social media department at an online-based retail company just outside of Boston. It would be a thirty-minute commute each way, but I was excited to start.
“Of course I heard about it,” she laughed. “Aunt Maddie was practically singing it from the mountain tops. That doesn’t answer my question about why you’re still driving this dad car, though. It completely clashes with your image.”
I chuckled as I put the car into gear and pulled out of her driveway. “Volvos are dependable cars and I don’t want to spend the money on something new until this one is officially on its last leg.”
She laughed. “You have no idea how much shit my dad has given me over the years about how I need to be more like you when it comes to money. Ever since you got your first job the summer we were fourteen, you’ve basically saved every penny you’ve ever earned.”
“Not quite every penny,” I countered, thinking of the heart necklace I’d bought her years before. “It’s true that while I lived at home I didn’t see any reason to use most of what I earned because my parents paid for all my needs. When I moved out at the start of my junior year of college, I had to dip into what I’d saved working for the previous years.”
“Whereas I blew all the money I earned on my car,” she sighed. “Even with Dad matching the funds I had and paying for half, I was still left with almost nothing. In retrospect I realized I should’ve gotten a cheaper car.”
“Nah, with a cheap car you might’ve gotten stuck with a ton of repair bills. Keep it for a few more years and it’ll be well worth what you spent.”
Her sweet laugh filled the car. “If someone told me this morning that I’d be talking to you about cars and finances right now, I wouldn’t have believed it.”
“Something has changed,” I said. I was fishing to see what she would say in response.
“Yeah,” she agreed, “it has.”
I waited for her to say what that something was, but she didn’t and I didn’t have time to press her on it since we were pulling into the parking lot of my apartment building. As I neared the spot where Alec’s car was, Chloe and I simultaneously started laughing. This was due to the fact that Alec and Caroline were up against his car making out like they were somewhere private.
“I knew she liked him!”
“That’s good because he more than likes her,” I answered as I pulled my car up behind Alec’s car. The two idiots making out didn’t even notice that we were there.
“I’m glad he likes her because the way she was talking earlier was making me want to go full psycho on him,” she whispered.
I wrinkled my forehead as I turned her way. “Full psycho?”
Chloe slashed her hand through the air. “Full Norman Bates Psycho,” she murmured. “Caroline told me she thought she was too heavy to catch Alec’s eye and that made me want to cut a bitch. Him being the bitch, obviously.”
“Obviously,” I said dryly. “Good news though, you have no reason to. He’s been into her since they started talking a few months ago. I kept telling him to ball up and make a move, but he said she was giving off some weird vibes that made him question if she was even interested.”
Chloe’s expression was contemplative as she nodded. “Some things can’t be rushed. They can only happen on the timeline they’re meant to,” she said.
My head reared back in surprise and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. Madam Aria had said nearly the same exact thing to me the year before about Chloe and me.
Before I could say anything else Chloe reached her hand out and pressed my horn. I turned from looking at her just in time to see the tail end of Alec and Caroline springing apart. They then hurriedly got into my back seat like two kids who’d been caught wandering off on a field trip.
“Glad the horn worked because the next step was hosing you off,” Chloe teased.
They told us to shut up in unison, which just made Chloe and me laugh. It was contagious, and we were all chuckling right up until Chloe yelled out, “Shit, if we don’t get this show on the road we’re going to be late. I’ve heard horror stories about how she reacts to tardiness and I’m so not into that. We’ve got to go, go, go. Slip this baby into drive and head for the high school.”
