Chapter 455 | A Brief Oral Examination

Chloe was up and across the loft before he finished the sentence, the towel slipping off one shoulder. She took the phone out of his hand and studied the image for five full seconds, and he watched her jaw go still. Then she handed it back and pulled the towel up.

“She found a name on a public form,” Chloe said. “Anyone with a laptop and a grudge can find a name on a public form.”

“She has a laptop and a grudge, that’s literally her whole personality.”

“And now she has a registered agent who happens to be a double major in bioengineering and physics, which proves nothing except that we hire well.” Chloe was already reaching for her own phone on the nightstand. “I’m texting Brooke so she isn’t blindsided. Brooke hates surprises more than she hates the word synergy.”

“What do I tell Cassie?”

“Nothing, you tell her nothing at all. You’re asleep, because it’s eight o’clock and you had a long day and you’re a growing boy.”

She typed fast, thumbs flying, and Jordan watched her go from wrecked girl on a staircase to the woman who had built a six-figure empire out of a closet in under a minute. He had seen it happen a dozen times now and it still made his stomach flip. Some guys wanted a girlfriend who baked. He had one who could bury a federal investigation under a pile of footnotes and still remember to ask if he had eaten.

Brooke replied inside forty seconds. Chloe read it aloud in a flat voice that was an eerie impression of Brooke herself.

“‘Acknowledged. Registered agent services are a standard and legally mundane arrangement. I will prepare a one-page summary for Jordan to memorize in case of questioning. Please confirm he will read the whole page this time.'”

“I read things,” Jordan protested.

“You read sections four through seven because she highlighted them,” Chloe said, still typing. “I’m confirming on your behalf that you’ll read the whole page, and if you don’t, she’ll know, because she’ll quiz you.”

“She’s going to quiz me? Like a test?”

“She said, and I quote, ‘a brief oral examination.'” Chloe finally looked up and her mouth twitched at the corner. “Try not to get weird about the phrasing.”

He absolutely got weird about the phrasing, but only on the inside, where it was safe.

Chloe set her phone face down, which in her language meant the crisis had been downgraded to a tomorrow item. She crawled onto the bare mattress protector and flopped onto her back, the towel coming open, and she did not bother to fix it. Her skin was still flushed pink from the shower, and there was a new mark coming in on her hip where his thumb had pressed.

“Come here and fix my feet,” she said. “I stood at that ring light for three hours and my arches have filed for divorce.”

“Fix them? I’m a masseuse now, not a podiatrist.”

“You’re whatever I tell you to be until Friday night at eleven fifty-nine.”

He sat at the foot of the bed and pulled her left foot into his lap. She had tiny feet, the toes cold to the touch, with chipped navy polish in a shade too dark for her public persona but exactly right for the girl she actually was. The kind of detail no one else got to see. He pressed his thumbs into her arch and the skill woke up without asking, the warmth sinking in and finding the knots stacked along the bottom of her foot like little landmines of tension.

Chloe let out a noise that was half moan and half the sound of a balloon deflating, her whole body going loose against the mattress.

“Oh my god, oh my god, that’s so much better than sex, don’t tell anyone I said that.”

“I’m going to tell everyone you said that. I’m going to put it on a shirt.”

“If that shirt exists, Kumiko will buy six of them and I’ll have to move to Seoul to escape the teasing.” She cracked one eye open just enough to glare at him with zero heat behind it. “I will actually leave the country, Jordan, do not test me.”

He worked from her heel up to her toes and back again, finding every tender spot and pressing until the muscle gave up its complaint. She melted a little more with every pass, her body sinking deeper into the bed until her other foot was nudging his thigh in a wordless demand for equal treatment. Through the wall he could hear the faint tinny leak of Kumiko’s headphones, some J-pop ballad at a volume that suggested she was still very much awake and still drawing hearts on page thirty-two of whatever spreadsheet or fantasy journal she was maintaining tonight.

Chloe’s eyes had drifted shut again. Her voice came out slow and syrupy, the words half-formed like she was talking in her sleep.

“Friday’s going to happen, right? I’m going to sing for the internet and it’s going to go fine and I’m not going to panic in front of a thousand strangers.”

“You’re going to get your thousand followers and Lila’s going to pretend she’s not proud of you while she clips the whole thing for a highlight reel.”

“And Cassie is going to find nothing, and Brooke is going to quiz you, and you’re going to fail.”

“I’m definitely going to fail, she thinks I’m a golden retriever with a debit card.”

“You are a golden retriever with a debit card,” Chloe mumbled, and her mouth curved up while her eyes stayed shut. “You’re my golden retriever with a debit card, though, so it’s fine.”

He switched to her right foot. She was out cold before he reached her toes, one arm thrown over her head and the towel half off her, breathing slow and deep in the orange harbor light. Her phone lit up once on the nightstand with a new message from Brooke that probably contained an attachment.

Jordan kept rubbing her feet anyway, mostly because she had asked him to, and partly because the alternative was reading Cassie’s picture again. Down the hall, somebody’s oven timer went off.

Miss Valentine was a hero, and she was about to be a very busy one.