When Chloe disappears, Xavier stops Bianca from following her for a second. “Do you want me to come with you guys?”
“No, that’s okay, I think . . . I think she . . . I think she wants to talk and you might . . .”
“Yeah, no problem, just . . . She’s sure he’s gone?”
Bianca’s entire expression softens at his question for a second, before she raises a slightly challenging eyebrow. “We’ll be fine, I promise. I can handle myself.”
“It’s not that . . .” He huffs out a frustrated breath. “I just . . . worry.”
“Well, you don’t have to. That’s my job.”
He hums acquiescence, but doesn’t say what he’s thinking, that she seems to worry about everyone else, but no one seems to worry about her, not really, not the way she deserves.
“If it’ll make you feel better, come with us.”
He shoots her a grin, which makes her smile in return.
“For the record,” he says, turning down the heat on the oatmeal, “it’s not that I think you can’t handle yourself. It’s that you shouldn’t always have to.”
Chapter 12
When they pull into the parking garage under Chloe’s condo in Burbank, Xavier insists on coming up with them. It’s a bland building, harsh stucco edges and large black frames on the windows dotting each level, no balconies or outdoor space, just concrete and cinder block.
Inside is better, though a little early 2000s chic, with beige porcelain tile lining the floor and a slightly darker beige paint on the walls, large mirrors reflecting against each other in the main lobby, trying to make the space feel bigger than it is.
Bianca spends the entire ride upstairs pressed against the back wall, holding Chloe’s hand, hoping fervently that Josh is actually with his parents and not upstairs waiting for her to come home.
She’s not scared, not really, she’s pretty sure Josh wouldn’t actually hurt any of them, but Chloe had looked pretty shaken last night and Bianca’s almost positive her friend had downplayed just how bad the fight got.
Having Xavier with them doesn’t exactly ease her anxiety either.
Not that she’s worried about him being able to defend them. It’s that she doesn’t want him to, doesn’t want anything tohappen to him, and definitely not because of her, even in a sort of roundabout way.
But Chloe needs to get back into her place and he was so insistent about it that she just found herself agreeing.
When the elevator dings and the doors open, Chloe slides out first, her key in hand. Bianca reaches for Xavier, stopping him just as they step into the hallway.
When her hand lands on his forearm, he glances down at it and then looks at her expectantly. “Let’s keep everything calm. Hedidn’thurt her. Promise me, okay?”
He pats her hand with his and nods. “I promise.”
When they catch up to Chloe, she’s standing in her doorway stock-still, not moving into the small condo they bought years ago – their starter place, she’d called it at the time, with enough room for them and a guest room that could maybe turn into a nursery in a couple of years.
That isn’t going to happen now.
“Chlo, what?” Bianca asks, stepping up beside her. “Oh.”
“Did he . . . did he move out?” Chloe asks, but neither of them answer her.
The main living space is empty except for a chair Bianca recognizes from Chloe’s apartment before this one and the stools at the kitchen counter.
Everything else had been Josh’s before they moved in together and it looks like sometime last night, he’d come back, taken all of his stuff and left.
Chloe marches into the space, through the empty living room and dining area and down the hallway to her bedroom. Bianca follows, feeling Xavier just a couple of steps behind her. As they pass the kitchen, she spies a key left on an otherwise empty key ring on the granite countertop.
When they move through the bedroom door, Chloe’s got the closet open and it’s half empty.
“So when he said he was going to stay with his parents, he meant he’s moving back in with his parents,” she says and her voice cracks on the last syllables and her shoulders hitch.
