Chapter 49: Pouts and Pending Calls

Chapter 49: Chapter 49: Pouts and Pending Calls

The walk to the parking lot went smoothly enough, right up until Nicole tried to convince me to give her a ride home, despite her perfectly functional car being parked right in front of us.

"I don’t see the problem," she said, looking between me and her Mercedes as though one of us had failed to understand something very simple.

"Your car is right there," I said, pointing at it.

She looked at me for a moment before turning to Chloe, apparently hoping for a more sympathetic audience. Chloe, who had spent the better part of the day making it clear that she supported Nicole’s interests whenever they involved annoying me, seemed perfectly happy to let me suffer.

"She has a point," Chloe said, nodding thoughtfully. "I mean, why drive yourself home when you could have my big brother do it for you?"

I narrowed my eyes at her.

"I’ll stop talking now," she said.

Nicole smiled, clearly enjoying herself, while Chloe stretched out her hand toward me.

I looked at it, then at her face. "What?"

"Keys."

I gave her a curious look.

"I’m going home with you," Chloe continued. "I just wanna sit in the car and wait."

I glanced at her, then toward Nicole, who was still standing beside her car, watching us with a curious expression.

"I thought you’d spend the night at Nicole’s," I said.

"Yeah." She turned toward Nicole with a perfectly innocent smile. "But if I stay there one more day, I’ll officially become Nicole’s sister. By blood."

I considered arguing with the logic, but I couldn’t find anything wrong with it that didn’t require a level of effort I wasn’t willing to put in.

Nicole folded her arms and looked at me with a small pout. "See? I’ll be lonely."

"You’ll survive," I said.

She intensified the pout, which would have been more effective if I hadn’t spent enough time around her to recognize it as a negotiation tactic. Chloe laughed, then headed toward my car before Nicole could recruit her into another argument.

I watched Chloe for a second before turning back to Nicole, who was still looking at me as though I might suddenly reconsider my position.

"I’ll see you later," I said.

She sighed, then finally turned toward her car. She pouted all the way there, which was impressive considering the distance was only a few steps.

She opened the driver’s door, paused, and stood there for a moment with one hand on it. Then her expression changed.

I’d learned that particular look by now. It was the look she got whenever a new idea occurred to her, usually an idea that would somehow become my problem.

"I’ll call you," she announced.

I waited.

"Video call," she added, making sure there was no room for misunderstanding. "Don’t sleep."

"Sure."

She smiled at me and started getting into the car.

"What about your things at my place?" I asked.

She paused just long enough for her smile to widen, then she got into the Mercedes, closed the door, and drove away without answering.

I watched her go for a moment before turning toward my own car—

Chloe was already standing beside the passenger door, looking at me with the kind of expression that suggested she’d been waiting for this exact moment.

I stopped.

She raised her eyebrows.

I reached for the door handle. "Don’t."

Her smile widened. "I didn’t even say anything."

I opened the car door and got in, accepting that the drive home was apparently the least complicated part of my evening.

—

By the time I got home, showered, and changed, Chloe had already started making dinner. We ate together, talked about the campus tour, and went through the usual back-and-forth that came with sharing a house with her. Nothing particularly interesting happened, which was probably for the best after the evening we’d had.

Later, I settled into my room with my books open, determined to get some studying done before the night got any later. Nicole had said she’d call, and I was perfectly aware of that. I was also perfectly capable of studying while waiting for a call, so there was no reason to keep checking my phone every few minutes to see if she’d messaged or called yet.

I checked it again anyway.

I was putting it facedown on my desk when I heard a knock on my door.

"Come in," I said.

The door opened, and Chloe walked in.

"Do you have any first-year Mechanical Engineering materials I can study?" she asked.

I looked up from my notes and smirked. It was the look of a proud older brother, the kind who would never admit it out loud.

She caught the look on my face and folded her arms, a smug smile settling on hers. "You’re not the only one who’s always top of their class, you know."

I shook my head, still smiling, and pointed toward the small bookshelf beside my wardrobe. "Bottom shelf. Most of the first-year stuff should be there."

Chloe immediately crossed the room and crouched in front of it, scanning the books and folders I’d kept over the years. She pulled one out, checked the cover, then looked at the rest with growing interest.

"Wow. You have a lot."

"I had to keep them for an annoying little sister of mine who also wants to study the same course as me."

She glanced over her shoulder. "I’ll ignore the annoying part and take the compliment part of it."

I turned to face her. "There was no compliment part."

She grinned and went back to looking through the books. After a little more browsing, she picked out a book and stood up, then walked over to my desk. Before I could ask what she was doing, she reached over and took the pen right out of my hand.

"Thank you, big bro."

"Hey!"

She was already heading for the door, holding the book against her chest with one arm and my pen in her free hand. At the doorway, she turned back with a smile that told me she was entirely too pleased with herself.

"Love you too," she added.

Then she closed the door and left.

I stared at it for a moment before letting out a quiet huff of laughter.

Annoying as always.

I got up, went to the drawer to find another one, and returned to my desk.

As soon as I sat down, my phone buzzed.

I picked up my phone immediately, only to find an advertisement from a company I was fairly certain had no idea what personal space meant.

I frowned at the screen. At this point, I was willing to have a very long talk with whoever was responsible for these messages, assuming I could find them. Alternatively, I could burn the entire company down. Whichever worked.

I closed the message and glanced at the time. 10:47 PM.

I stared at it for a moment, then looked back at my books. Nicole had said she’d call, and while I wasn’t particularly concerned about the exact time, I was starting to wonder why she hadn’t called yet. She’d been very specific about the video call part, too, which made the silence a little harder to ignore.

I let out a sigh, shook my head, and returned to my notes. If she was going to call, she’d call.

In the meantime, I had actual work to do, and unlike certain people, my coursework had the decency not to make promises it couldn’t keep.