Chapter 506 | The Debriefing, with Snickerdoodles

Chapter 506: 506 | The Debriefing, with Snickerdoodles

Jordan laughed, a real laugh that shook something loose between his shoulder blades, and the Civic drifted half a foot toward the lane line before he corrected it.

"I sent up lobster," he said. "And cake she’ll pretend she hates."

Kumiko made a sound like a kettle with a broken whistle. "You’re the worst person I’ve ever loved, and I’m going to write that down exactly."

"Come home now," Chloe said, and the call clicked off before he could answer.

The Cooper Garment Lofts parking structure was empty at 9:40 on a Tuesday, all concrete pillars and the tick of his engine cooling. Jordan grabbed the cat slippers off the passenger seat on instinct and took the stairs.

Miss Valentine’s plate sat outside 405 with a dozen snickerdoodles under plastic wrap. The card propped against them said FOR WHOEVER IS HAVING A DAY in shaky cursive. Jordan ate one in two bites on the walk to his door.

The door opened before his key touched the lock.

Kumiko hit him at sternum height, all lavender cardigan and loose twin tails and strawberry shampoo, arms locking around his ribs hard enough to crush the slippers between them.

"You smell like the Ritz," she accused into his chest. "You smell like a hotel lobby and mustard and sad rich girl."

"That’s a whole cologne line."

"Don’t be funny right now, I’m processing." She looked up at him, brown eyes huge and wet. "She’s there by herself. In a giant bed that’s too big and too cold. With nobody to sing the forest spirit song, and she doesn’t even know the second verse, because I only got through the first one before she fell asleep on my dumpling pillow."

Jordan set his palm on top of her head, in the part between the loose tails where her hair was warmest. Warmth slid out of his hand into her scalp.

Kumiko’s shoulders dropped three inches at once. She swayed into him until her forehead rested on his chest.

"Unfair," she mumbled. "I was going to spiral so good. Crying in the bathroom. Texting her at midnight to make sure she’s breathing. The works."

"Spiral tomorrow. Send her the song."

Kumiko’s head snapped up so fast a twin tail whipped his chin. "I can record her the song. On the eBay microphone. In the bathroom, because the tiles make everything sound like a concert hall." Her pupils had gone enormous. "Verse two. Tonight. Oh my god, why didn’t I think of that?"

She snatched the slippers out of his hand, hugged them to her chest, and bolted for the couch, phone already open.

Chloe sat cross-legged on the kitchen island in his charcoal henley, the one Alexis hadn’t stolen yet, gold glasses low on her nose, the yellow legal pad balanced against her knee. Her chamomile had gone cold an hour ago, and she was drinking it anyway, because Chloe Kim did not waste anything she had already paid for.

She looked at him over her glasses for a long time. Jordan let her.

"Show me your wrist."

He held it out. She turned his forearm under the pendant light and studied the four pink crescents like figures in a quarterly report. Her thumb traced them one at a time.

"She held on," Chloe said.

"Pretty hard, yeah."

"And you still left." She wrote something on the pad without letting go of his arm. Jordan read it upside down. ALEXIS — NIGHT 1 — $749 + room service, and underneath, in smaller letters, he walked out. Two underlines.

"You’re grading me."

"I’m documenting you. There’s a difference, and Brooke will explain it with a chart." She slid off the island. "Kumiko, it’s my night."

"It’s your night!" Kumiko called from the couch without looking up. "Page thirty-four, sub-point C! I’m going home to record verse two, don’t wait up, don’t knock on the wall unless there’s a fire!"

She kissed Jordan’s jaw on the way past, kissed Chloe’s cheek, and vanished into the hallway clutching the slippers. Three seconds later the door of 403 opened and closed.

Jordan’s phone buzzed. He took it out, because Chloe was watching and hiding things from her had a terrible return rate.

A photo. White marble, a rainfall showerhead, steam fogging the glass so heavily that the only clear thing was a single hand pressed flat against it, nails painted soft Newport pink.

Alexis: The water pressure is criminal. I’m still mad at you.

A second photo a minute later. A silver room service cart, a lobster tail, a side of fries she had absolutely not ordered for herself, and a slice of chocolate cake with one forkful missing.

Alexis: The cake is mediocre. I’m eating all of it out of spite.

Chloe read both over his shoulder. One corner of her mouth tried to go up, and she refused to let it.

"Good. Put it face down."

He put it face down on the counter.

She took his hand and pulled him toward the stairs. The loft smelled like lemon cleaner and fresh sheets, harbor light lying in long orange bars across the mattress. At the foot of the bed she turned around.

"You said no to a Van Der Berg in a seven-hundred-dollar hotel room." Her voice had dropped low and rough at the edges. "She was barefoot. She asked you nicely. You kissed her forehead and walked out."

"That’s the short version."

"I’ve been thinking about it for forty minutes." She pulled the henley over her head and dropped it on the floor, standing in the orange light in black lace and the thin gold chain at her throat. "I’m very annoyed at how much I want you right now."

He reached for her, then stopped an inch from her hip.

"Your back’s been bugging you since Friday."

"My back is a crime scene, and I want you anyway." She caught his wrist, the one with Alexis’s marks, and pressed his palm to the knot above her hip. "Fix it first. Then ruin me."

The massage skill woke under his hand like a warm engine turning over. The knot sat there, fat and stubborn from four days of hunching over the streaming desk, and he worked his thumb into it in slow circles while her breath went shaky against his collarbone.

"Mmmh. Jordan, that’s... ah, right there, don’t you dare move."

It broke under his thumb with a soft pop he felt more than heard. Her knees buckled. He caught her around the waist and walked her back until her calves hit the mattress, and she fell onto the grey sheets dragging him down by his collar.

She kissed him all teeth and cold chamomile, hauling his shirt up his back in two fistfuls. He pulled it off. She bit the bruise Kumiko had left on his chest last week, dead center, until he hissed.

"Mine first," Chloe said against his skin. "Say it."

"You first. Always."

"Better." She shoved his sweats down his thighs, nails scraping his hip bones. "Now stop being a gentleman. I’ve had enough gentleman for one night."

He laughed into her neck, and she laughed back, breathy and sharp. Then she wrapped her legs around his hips and pulled him into her in one long slide that dragged a gasp out of both of them.

"Ahh, oh god." Her head fell back, black hair fanning across the pillow. "Every time. It’s so stupid that it’s every time."

He started slow, long strokes that curled her fingers into his shoulders. She held his face in both hands and made him look at her.

"Tell me what she said."

"Chloe."

"Tell me." Her heels pressed into the small of his back, keeping him slow. "When she asked."

"She said please." He pushed in deep and held there, and her breath stuttered. "She said she’d been thinking about it for weeks. And I said not tonight, and I kissed her forehead, and I came home to you."

Chloe’s eyes went shiny behind the crooked glasses. Then hard.

"Faster," she said. "Now."

He went faster. She growled his name through her teeth. The headboard found the brick. Thunk. Thunk.

Through the wall, Kumiko’s singing stopped mid-line. A faint "oh no" floated through the plaster. Then the singing came back two notches louder, aggressively cheerful.

Chloe didn’t care. "Ah, ah, Jordan, harder, I’m not fragile, I’m made of spreadsheets."

He gave her harder and hooked one of her knees up over his arm, and the new angle cut her next word in half. Her moans climbed into Korean, words he didn’t know and understood anyway. She grabbed his wrist, the one with Alexis’s four crescents, and pressed her own nails in right next to them, deliberate, a second set of marks.

"Mine," she gasped. "Mine, mine, don’t stop, I’m . . ."

Her whole body locked around him. She came apart with a cry that bounced off the exposed brick, spine lifting clean off the sheets, thighs shaking against his ribs, nails still in his wrist, and the clench of it pulled him over the edge three seconds behind her.

Afterward she hooked both arms around his back and pulled him down until his full weight pressed her into the mattress, and didn’t let go. Her heartbeat hammered against his chest and slowly, slowly eased.

Her hand drifted down between them and rested on her stomach, fingers splayed wide, and stayed there with a stillness that made Jordan’s throat tighten. She always did that when she thought he wasn’t looking.

Through the wall, Kumiko had found the second verse. Softer now. Not aggressively anything. Just a girl practicing, alone, a song about a forest and a lantern.

"She’s going to be okay," Chloe said into his skin, half asleep.

He didn’t ask which one she meant. He had a feeling she meant all of them.