Chloe pulled into the side street before the light even changed.
Old habit. She always had an exit.
She cut the engine and sat with both hands on the wheel, watching the parking lot exit in her rearview mirror. The Ivy's valet stand glowed white in the afternoon sun. A BMW pulled out. Then a Tesla. Then a woman in Lululemon loading shopping bags into a Range Rover.
No white Civic.
Good.
She counted to thirty in her head. Then counted to thirty again.
This was so stupid. The thought hit her the same way it always did after these dates, right when the professional mask started peeling. Like her brain waited until she was alone to start screaming at her. This was so, so, so stupid, Chloe.
She'd picked Long Beach specifically because no one from Pacific Crest would be caught dead at The Ivy on a Tuesday afternoon. The clientele skewed forty-plus, the menu had nothing vegan, and there was no street parking for showing off. It was safe. It was supposed to be safe.
And then Ricky showed up.
Ricky, who knew the exact tuition at Pacific Crest.
Chloe pressed her forehead against the steering wheel and let out a sound that didn't belong to either version of her.
She'd dug herself into a corner on that one. She'd slipped up because he'd seemed so normal, asking genuine questions with his stupid newly cut hair and his bomber jacket that still had the fold lines from the store packaging. She'd let her guard down for four seconds and suddenly they were playing a guessing game about her school.
The worst part? She'd confirmed it. Not out loud, but she'd hesitated, and hesitation was the same as a confession to anyone paying attention.
And Ricky had been paying attention.
She exhaled through her nose. Okay. Damage assessment. He knew she went to Pacific Crest. He didn't know her name. He didn't know what she looked like without the mask and sunglasses. Her blue streaks were distinctive, but blue streaks weren't exactly rare on a college campus. She'd be fine. She just needed him to be the kind of person who kept his word.
If I do see you on campus, just pretend you don't know me.
He'd said deal. No negotiation. No condition attached. Just deal, like it was the easiest thing he'd been asked all afternoon.
She replayed the whole date in her head, picking it apart the way she did with every interaction that deviated from the script.
He hadn't simped. That was the first thing. Most of her coffee date clients showed up with this eager, slightly unhinged energy, talking too fast and laughing at everything she said. One guy had literally brought her flowers, which, given that she was wearing a face mask and sunglasses in a public restaurant, had been genuinely insane. Ricky had just sat down and asked if she wanted to hear his honest answer about why he'd bought the package.
He'd also let her eat in silence. Nobody ever did that.
She'd lowered her mask twice. Twice. For bites of salad, yes, but still. She didn't do that. The mask stayed on. The mask was part of the deal she'd made with herself before the first coffee date, before the first subscriber, before any of this.
Ricky had made her forget the rule twice.
A white Civic rolled past the side street entrance.
Chloe sat up immediately, fingers going tight on the wheel.
She watched the car continue down the main road, no brake lights, no hesitation. Not looking for a side street. Not looking for her.
She released a long breath that deflated her whole chest.
Okay. He wasn't following her. Good. He was a normal, non-stalker person who'd bought a package, showed up, had lunch, and went home. This was fine. She was catastrophizing because she always catastrophized after dates. It was a reflex at this point, as automatic as checking her ring light before she hit record.
She gave it another minute, then started the engine.
Merging back onto the main road felt like surfacing from underwater. The afternoon traffic had thickened, people leaving work early or heading to school pickups, and Chloe slid into the flow of it with both hands steady. The radio came on automatically. Some pop song she didn't recognize with a key change in the chorus that was technically impressive but emotionally hollow.
She turned it off.
The silence felt better. She thought better in silence, always had. Her dad used to say she was born humming, that even as a baby she'd make little melodic sounds instead of crying, like she was already composing something. He'd said it like it was the best thing about her.
I want to hear your song on the radio before I go, he'd told her. This was two months before the diagnosis got a name, four months before it got a timeline, six months before it killed him. He'd been so certain she'd get there. That kind of certainty, the bone-deep, no-question-about-it kind, was something Chloe had never managed to feel about herself, not once.
She used about eight hundred a month from Calypso's earnings toward her mom's medical payments. The rest covered housing, food, Daniel's college fund, and maintaining the appearance of a girl who belonged at Pacific Crest. The singing lessons were a hundred and twenty dollars every other week, which was a luxury she could technically cut, but she didn't. She wouldn't. That money kept the promise alive in the most literal way she knew how.
One day the account would be big enough, stable enough, that she could actually focus on music. That was the plan.
The plan required her to not get exposed on a random afternoon because she'd slipped up talking to a subscriber about tuition pricing.
Traffic slowed at the light ahead. Chloe coasted to a stop, and that's when she saw it.
White Civic. Three cars ahead.
Same year as hers, maybe one newer. She could see the back of a head through the rear windshield. Hair that was dark at the sides and lighter on top.
Her stomach did something uncomfortable.
She was probably wrong. There were a million white Civics in Southern California. They were the most statistically average car on the road. This meant nothing.
The light changed. Traffic moved. She stayed in her lane.
The white Civic stayed in her lane too.
She told herself it was nothing. She told herself that at the next light, when the car was still there. She told herself that when they passed the Pacific Crest campus turnoff and the car didn't take it.
The campus turnoff. He hadn't taken it.
He didn't live in the dorms.
===
A/N:
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