Chapter 1
Oh my God, this is so boring!
Chloë sat in her desk chair, arms hanging listlessly at her sides, her head thrown back so that she was staring up at the ceiling. On the laptop screen in front of her, the instructor for the Business Economics 103 class was droning on about costs and benefits in that monotone voice of his that could put a hummingbird to sleep.
Not for the first time, Chloë wished she could be taking this and her two other courses in person. In actual classrooms. On an actual campus. At least then she’d be with other people and when the material got too boring, she’d be able to slyly check out whoever the prettiest girl in the class was.
But despite more and more vaccinations being administered, the Covid pandemic was still a thing and the community college she was enrolled in was restricting first-year business courses like this to virtual only. Unfortunately, with an instructor as dull as this one, it was like watching the worst TV show ever created.
Despite the dullness of the prat talking on the laptop, Chloë wanted to learn this material. It was her boss at La Vida Mocha, Vanessa, who had suggested that Chloë start taking some business courses because she could tell that Chloë was interested in learning how to run the coffeeshop beyond the usual opening and closing routines. And it was true. In fact, Chloë was hoping that one day she’d be able to emulate Vanessa and open her own coffee spot.
If she didn’t die of boredom first, which seemed a very real possibility.
Mercifully, the lecture ended a short time later.
“Thank fuck!” Chloë muttered. She closed her laptop and stood to stretch her back. At twenty-four, Chloë seemed taller than her five-foot-four frame due to her willowy build and long legs. Running her fingers through her platinum-blonde pixie cut hair she checked the clock. It told her it was almost twelve-thirty which meant it was time to get ready for her shift at La Vida Mocha.
She decided that before changing out of her pajamas she’d go into her tiny kitchen and get a bottle of water from her refrigerator.
Everything about Chloë’s place was tiny. It was, in fact, a tiny home.
A couple of years ago, Chloë’s dad got it into his head to jump aboard the tiny home craze and build one of his own in the backyard from a kit he ordered online. It was the ultimate DIY project, he told his wife and daughter, one that would really sharpen his home-improvement skills. Chloë’s mother, meanwhile, referred to it as the ultimate mid-life crisis project, one that would most likely end up with her husband maiming himself.
Everybody Chloë’s dad consulted about building the tiny home told him it should take no more than six weeks. It took him five months, and that was only after he reluctantly agreed to hire two local guys who looked like lumberjacks and who had their own business building tiny homes in the Carlsbad/Oceanside area to finish the job for him.
Once it was done, however, the result was adorable.
Chloë’s tiny home was modern with clean, sleek lines that made it look like a miniature Frank Lloyd Wright creation. Inside, there was a living room, kitchen and bathroom on the first floor while storage stairs led up to a loft that served as Chloë’s bedroom.
After opening the bottle of water, Chloë heard her phone ringing somewhere.
Shit! Where is it?
She was always misplacing her phone. No matter how many times she told herself that she needed to start being mindful of where she put it down, she still just tossed it wherever once she got home. One time she found it in one of her red Mary Jane pumps. She was still trying to figure out how that happened.
This time it sounded like it was coming from the loft. After scampering up the stairs on bare feet she stood stock still and tried to determine where the ringing was coming from. The space available in the loft was dominated by the unmade queen-sized bed, and there really wasn’t room for much else except one bedside table with a lamp sitting on it and two rolling clothes racks which served as her ersatz closet. Along one wall, cleverly designed storage drawers were built-in, making that wall essentially one big dresser, and apparently her phone was in one of those drawers. She eventually located the right one by placing her head near the wall until she determined which drawer was ringing the loudest.
“Hey!” Chloë answered the smartphone.
“Hey,” her friend Sienna answered back. “Took you long enough. So where was it this time?”
Chloë blushed. “In with my panties.”
“I hope the clean ones!” Sienna exclaimed. “Considering how many times you’ve ever handed me your phone!”
“Shut up. So, what’s going on?
Chloë heard Sienna take a deep breath.
“You’re booked for Saturday at seven.”
“Yay! I’m so excited!” Chloë said. She went over to one of her clothes racks and started deliberating on which dress to wear to work today.
“Yeah, well, I’m a wreck,” Sienna said softly. “Are you sure you don’t want Lexx to do it?”
“No way,” Chloë insisted, choosing a casual swing t-shirt dress in gray from the rack. “This will be your first tattoo as a licensed artist, dude! I want first dibs! This way, when you’re rich and famous I can point to my hip and say, ‘I own her first ever licensed tattoo!’” She tossed the dress on the bed. “Why aren’t you more excited? Tattoo artists are supposed to be bad-ass!”
“I’ll focus on being bad-ass after I do this first official tat. Lexx already warned me how closely she’ll be watching me.”
Sienna had just finished her long tattoo apprenticeship and Chloë wanted to be Sienna’s first client now that she was a licensed artist. It would only be Chloë’s second tattoo and unless she changed her mind sometime later down the road, probably her last. She just didn’t have the desire to decorate herself with a lot of ink; besides, she didn’t find women who covered large swathes of their bodies with huge tattoos very appealing. In her mind, large tats obscured the natural artistry of the female form and were nothing more than visually distracting.
“You’ll be fine, dude,” Chloë assured her, and then said in a teasing voice, “I’m the one who should worry, having such a rookie tattoo my beautiful skin. I hope I don’t end up scarred for life.”
Chloë heard Sienna suck her teeth and then say, “Whatever. Anyway, listen…do you want to maybe hang tonight? My stress levels are through the roof.”
Chloë, cradling her phone between her ear and shoulder, shucked off her pajama bottoms and stepped out of them.
“Yeah, that’s cool. I’ll be home by eight, I think, unless you want me to come there?”
“No,” Sienna said. She then explained that her roommate’s brother was visiting. ?
??He’s cool and all, but I’m super stressed which means I want to be super loud.”
Chloë bit her bottom lip as her clit pulsed.
Her and Sienna had been enjoying a friends-with-benefits arrangement for a couple of years now. Whenever they were both between girlfriends, as they both presently were, they would meet up occasionally to satisfy their carnal needs, provided the other was up for it. No expectations. No strings attached. No jealousy when one of them eventually did pair up with another woman. And though they had great sexual chemistry, both of them knew it would never work between them as a couple.
“Super loud, huh?” Chloë asked, knowing exactly which of Sienna’s buttons to push for the desired effect.
“Uh-huh,” Sienna confirmed. “Well, not loud enough to wake up Ma and Pa Marchand, but still…”
Chloë laughed. Fortunately, her parents’ property contained not only their large house but also an enormous backyard and so Chloë’s tiny house wasn’t exactly pressed up against the main dwelling. In fact, it was a good fifty yards away. And back when Chloë had moved in, she conducted a noise test. While her parents were out one night, she went up to their bedroom and then sent a text signal to two of her friends who were in the tiny house, giving them their cue to start screaming and generally making a lot of noise. Either the tiny house was extremely well insulated or Chloë was going deaf early; either way, Chloë hadn’t heard anything, which always made her feel comfortable whenever she brought a woman home to do more than watch Netflix.
“Anyway, come by any time after eight,” Chloë told Sienna. “I have to finish getting ready for work.”
***