Pulling up in front of my parents’

Pulling up in front of my parents’ house, I laughed thinking back on the first time Chloe and I had come here together as a couple.
It was three days after her presentation to the scholarship board. Two of those days we’d scarcely left my home or my bed. But after the constant calls and texts from my family asking us to come over, for me to let them share some time with Chloe, we agreed to a dinner at my parents’ house. Everyone had missed her.
We talked on the drive, laughing and teasing, my free hand entwined with one of hers. Absently, she ran the index finger of her other hand in small circles over the top of my wrist, as if reassuring herself that it was real, that I was real, that we were. We hadn’t faced the world outside yet, other than that night out with her girlfriends following her presentation. The transition would no doubt be at least a little awkward. But I would never have expected Chloe to be anxious about any of it. She’d always faced every challenge with her own brand of bullheaded fearlessness.
It was only when we stood on the porch and I reached to open their front door that I realized her hand inside mine was shaking.
“What’s wrong?” I pulled my hand back, turned her to face me.
She rolled her shoulders. “Nothing. I’m good.”
“Unconvincing.”
She threw me an annoyed look. “I’m fine. Just open the door.”
“Holy shit,” I said on an exhale, stunned. “Chloe Mills is actually nervous.”
This time she turned to glare up at me fully. “You spotted that? Christ, you’re brilliant. Someone should make you a COO and give you a big fancy office.” She reached to open the door herself.
I stopped her hand from turning the knob and a grin spread across my face. “Chloe?”
“I just haven’t seen them since before . . . you know. And they saw you when you were all . . .” She made a gesture around me, which I gathered was meant to indicate “when Bennett was a complete disaster, after Chloe left him.”
“Just . . . let’s not make this a thing. I’m fine,” she went on.
“I’m just enjoying the rare sighting of a jittery Chloe. Give me a second, let me savor this.”
“Fuck off.”
“Fuck off?” I stepped in front of her, moved until her body pressed into mine. “Are you trying to seduce me, Miss Mills?”
Finally, she laughed, her shoulders surrendering their tense determination. “I just don’t want it to be—”
The front door flew open, and Henry took a step forward, enveloping Chloe in a massive hug. “There she is!”
Chloe peeked up at me over my brother’s shoulder and laughed. “—awkward,” she finished, wrapping her arms around him.
Just inside the doorway stood my parents, wearing the biggest shit-eating grins I’d ever seen. My mom’s eyes were suspiciously misty.
“It’s been way too long,” Henry said, releasing my girlfriend and looking right at me.
Groaning inwardly, I registered that this entire night could very easily turn into a giant recap of what a trial this whole thing had been for Chloe, of how impossible I’d been to work with; the details of Miss Mills’s challenging attitude would be whitewashed for history.
It was a good thing she looked so damn fit in her little black dress. I’d need the distraction.
I’d called Dad the morning of Chloe’s presentation, telling him I’d planned to attend and convince her to present the Papadakis slides. I told him, too, that I was going to ask her to take me back. As usual, Dad had been supportive, but guarded, telling me that no matter what Chloe said, he was proud of me for going after what I wanted.
What I wanted now stepped into the house and hugged my mother, and my father, before looking up at me. “I don’t know what I was worried about,” she whispered.
“Were you nervous?” Mom asked, eyes wide.
“I just left so abruptly. I’ve felt bad about that, and about not seeing either of you for months . . .” Chloe trailed off.
“No, no, no, no—you had to put up with Bennett,” Henry said, ignoring my irritated sigh. “Trust us, we get it.”
“Come on,” I groaned, pulling her back. “We don’t need to make this a thing.”
“I just knew,” Mom whispered, putting her hands on Chloe’s face. “I knew.”
“What the hell, Mom?” I stepped closer, hugging her first and giving her a scowl second. “You ‘knew’ this even when you set her up with Joel?”
“I think the phrase is ‘shit or get off the pot,’ ” Henry offered.
“That is absolutely not the phrase I would have used, Henry Ryan.” Mom threw him a look and then wrapped her arm around Chloe, urging her down the hall. She turned to talk to me over her shoulder. “I figured if you didn’t see what was right in front of your face, maybe another man deserved a shot.”
“Poor Joel never had a shot,” Dad mumbled, surprising all of us and apparently even himself. He looked up, and then laughed. “Someone had to say it.”
Climbing out of the car, I smiled at the memory of the rest of that evening: the ten minutes during which we’d all dissolved into hysterics over our shared experiences of getting food poisoning at inopportune times, the unbelievable crème brûlée my mother had served after dinner, and, much later, the way Chloe and I had barely made it back inside my house before falling into a tangle of limbs and sweat on my living room floor.
I turned the knob on my parents’ front door, knowing my dad would still be up, but hoping not to wake my mother. The knob creaked and I eased it open with familiar care, lifting it slightly where I knew the wood swelled a little at the threshold.
But, to my surprise, Mom greeted me in the entryway, wearing her old purple robe and holding two cups of tea.
“I don’t know why,” she said, extending one cup to me, “but I was pretty sure you were going to turn up here tonight.”
“Mother’s intuition?” I asked, taking the cup and bending to kiss her cheek. I lingered there, hoping I could keep my emotions in check tonight.
“Something like that.” Tears filled her eyes and she turned away before I could say something about them. “Come on, I know why you’re here. I’ve got it down in the kitchen.