His Kiss and His Bargain

CHAPTER 2

For a moment Chloe wondered if she had the wrong room, but that thought quickly evaporated when her eyes landed on her bed and her brain confirmed those were her sheets and her little blue teddy bear seated on the pillow.

Her eyes swept back to what had frozen her in the doorway like a statue.

The floor of her room was littered with at least two empty bottles of alcohol and several shredded papers. And from the doorway, she could already tell the room smelt just as bad as it looked. A second sweep with her eyes revealed that used tissues were also part of the mess.

Chloe frowned. 

She shared the room with Brooke. A cheerful, full-of-life young lady. Although they had entirely opposite personalities, they had always gotten along well and respected the space they shared. 

They were both the same age, twenty-one. But had different backgrounds and had gained unique experiences through life lessons. So naturally, they had gravitated towards different hobbies and priorities. Chloe was a boring bookworm, focused on graduating, and Brooke was the party girl enjoying the life of being young, beautiful, and in college.

Chloe had never judged Brooke’s life choices. That was until she walked into their room and could barely recognize it.

She looked around the room again in disapproval. Brooke’s choices had never before bled into the room they shared. An uneasy feeling settled in her gut. Chloe really didn’t have the energy for this. Whatever this was.

Just then, she heard sniffing and what sounded like a hiccup. A frown firmly fixed on her face, Chloe walked further into the room to investigate. 

It was a ten by ten-foot room. There wasn’t a lot of room for mystery. The few scattered pieces of furniture in the room included two single beds, a rather long desk that sat by the window which they shared, and two wooden, hard chairs. 

There was no wardrobe or chest of drawers or fridge in the room. And the room was definitely not self-contained. Showers and toilets were down the hall and shared by all occupants on their floor. Almost all the rooms in their building were the same. They kept their clothes in suitcases under the beds unless the student could afford more furniture and pimped up the room. Chloe was not one of those, so her clothes were definitely in an old suitcase under her bed. 

The desk at the window was usually only covered in books and boxes of cereals. But Chloe could see the disregarded tissues and empty bottles hadn’t spared it as well. She could only hope none of her books were damaged. She would strangle Brooke with her bare hands if her books got damaged, Chloe thought.

From the doorway, she could only see her bed and the desk. She had to be fully in the room to have a look at Brooke’s bed. When she did finally have a full view of it, she realized the sight was even more alarming.

With half the sheets almost off the bed, Brooke’s bed looked like monkeys had enjoyed some playtime in it. Chloe would have assumed Brooke had just brought her boyfriend to their room for some rough partying, if not for the fact that the girl in question was seated on the floor next to the messy bed with red, puffy eyes and a pink nose like she had been crying for hours.

Chloe gave the room another glance. It looked like Brooke had been crying and drinking for hours.

Tentatively, she closed the door and made her way to her roommate, trying not to step on anything breakable and disgustingly dirty. 

Brooke was watching Chloe from her position where her head lay heavy against her right arm on the bed like it was too heavy to lift, but there seemed to be no recognition in her eyes. It was as though Chloe wasn’t even there.

“Hey, Brooke?” Chloe started slowly. “You had a party here?”

Brooke sniffed, bringing up her left hand to reveal a soggy tissue that she used to wipe at her nose. But she didn’t respond to Chloe’s question. 

Then Brooke reached for a half-empty bottle on the floor that Chloe hadn’t noticed. Chloe quickly reached for it, taking it away and saying, “I don’t think you need more of this.”

Chloe lifted the bottle closer to her face and read the alcohol content. ‘Forty-three percent.’ She cringed and put the bottle as far as possible. Brooke definitely didn’t need more of that, she thought. By the looks of it, her roommate had already had enough. It was a wonder the girl was still conscious and able to coordinate a single finger.

More sniffs escaped her roommate. Chloe once again wondered what the hell was going on. She had never seen Brooke in such a state. Even as a drunk, the girl was always a happy drunk. This was new and worrying.

“Hey, Brooke? Are you ok?” Chloe asked, full of concern.

Brooke shook her head. No.

Chloe waited a minute, hoping her friend would elaborate. But there was only silence again, and the occasional sniff from the stuffy, pink nose. The exhaustion Chloe had been battling with all-day pulsed in her temples. She closed her eyes for a second as she tried to figure out what would be the quickest way to handle whatever was happening with her friend and then throw herself in bed and sleep.

Her eyes still closed, Chloe asked, “Brooke? Did you receive bad news?”

Since her eyes were closed, she couldn’t see if Brooke nodded or not. But it worked to her advantage because her friend also seemed to realize she needed to use her voice and not sign language.

In a choked, slurred voice, Brooke answered, “He dumped me.”

Chloe’s eyes flew open. She hoped like hell she had heard wrong. “What?”

Brooke nodded the way only a drunk person would. “He dumped me.” She then threw her hands in the air unceremoniously. “Just like that.”

She didn’t need to ask who the ‘he’ was. Chloe had heard nothing but praises and stories about Brooke’s new boyfriend. It was a relationship destined by the stars, which had apparently only a life span of two weeks. 

Chloe gave her friend a critical look. Brooke was devastated about a relationship that had lasted less than half a month. She didn’t want to judge, but in her humble opinion, she didn’t think that was long enough for the drama she was witnessing.

Chloe never had the opportunity to meet the charming boyfriend Brooke had been head over heels about from day one. But from everything Brooke had been singing about him, the guy could do no wrong. In fact, he hung the moon every night and lassoed the sun in place in the morning.

Chloe was puzzled. In the morning, before she had left for class, she had heard Brooke laughing on the phone and looking as silly as a teenage girl with her first boyfriend. The breakup was rather sudden.

“What happened? Why did he end things?”

A hiccup made Brooke’s body spasm before she could respond. “He just said he didn’t want anything serious, and I was being too clingy. Am I clingy, Chloe?” Brooke blinked and looked at her expectantly.

Chloe’s bottom lip disappeared between her teeth. That was not a question she felt qualified to answer. Thankfully, her drunk roommate was too intoxicated to care about answers. She forgot she had asked a question and continued to talk.

“I really liked him. All the girls in my class said I was so lucky. I thought he was the one.”

“Brooke, you only dated him for two weeks.”

“But I knew!” Brooke insisted before slumping back against the bed in defeat. “He was perfect.”

Chloe highly doubted that, but didn’t voice her opinion. Her eyes wandered towards her bed. Now that she knew the problem wasn’t life and death, she just wanted to crawl into it and shut her eyes for a few hours. However, looking back at her friend, she felt sorry for Brooke, so she said what every good friend would say. 

“You will find someone even better than him.” She couldn’t even remember what the guy’s name was. It had only been two weeks, for heaven’s sake. And Chloe had been too preoccupied with her schoolwork to absorb every detail of her roommate’s ever-changing love life.

The sudden silence in the room caught Chloe’s attention. She looked at Brooke, wondering what her friend was thinking about now.

She didn’t have to wait long to find out.

“He took pictures of me,” Brooke mumbled.

That was not a news flash for Chloe. She would expect Brooke had a full album of the guy as well, so she didn’t understand why her friend was bringing it up.

“He will delete them or do whatever. It’s not a big deal,” Chloe said and shrugged.

Brooke turned her head and looked at her. For a second, she didn’t look as drunk as she had been moments before. Even her voice took on some seriousness. “He took nude pictures of me.... when…” Brooke looked away and cleared her throat uncomfortably before continuing. “When I slept with him.”

Chloe was on her feet in a heartbeat. “Are you mad?”

Brooke had the decency to look mortified. “He was just fooling around with the camera. He said he wanted something to keep him company at night when I wasn’t with him.”

“And you bought that?” Chloe asked with an incredulous shake of her head. She had little experience with relationships, but even she knew never to be that stupid.

Her roommate suddenly rose from the floor, swaying dangerously before she grasped Chloe’s arms for support and in desperation. “You have to help me get rid of those pictures.”

Chloe blinked. “And how the hell am I supposed to do that?”

Brooke let go of her arms and staggered a step back before throwing herself on the bed. “I don’t know. But my father would kill me if I ended up on some p**n site.” 

Chloe was dangerously tempted to ask her friend if her father made a habit of frequenting p**n sites, but bit her lip. That was not the point, and definitely not something she wanted to know.

“Just call the guy and ask him to delete them, then.”

Brooke gave Chloe a ‘are you stupid’ look and Chloe didn’t appreciate it. She folded her arms defensively. “What?”

“A guy would never delete pictures of t**s and pussy.”

The crude words made Chloe cringe. She frowned and looked away. “Okay, so what are you suggesting?”

Silence stretched in the room as Brooke seemed to genuinely think about the matter. At least Chloe hoped she was really thinking about it and hadn’t zoned out with the help of the alcohol swimming in her blood. After a long silence, her face lit up with excitement. “We will delete the pictures.”

Chloe had begun to hope Brooke was sobering up. Now she realized her friend was still drunk as a skunk. 

“We delete them?” she asked skeptically.

Brooke sat up, looking very excited now. “Yes. We sneak into his apartment when he is not there and delete them.”

A frown creased Chloe’s forehead. It wasn’t comforting how many ‘we’ she was hearing spill out of her friend’s mouth. She took a deep breath and shook her head.

After a few seconds, Chloe allowed her brain to process Brooke’s words critically. She skipped the suggestion of breaking and entering and asked the simplest question first. “Won’t he have his phone on him when he leaves the apartment?”

Brooke shook her head, almost falling over in the process. “He didn’t use his phone to take the pictures. He had a fancy camera. You know? Like one of those that comes with a bag. It will be in his bedroom.”

“A fancy camera?” Chloe shook her head in disbelief. “And that had not worried you at the time?”

Brooke shrugged, then frowned for a few seconds before a fresh flow of tears joined the mess on her face from her crying before Chloe had arrived. Her voice broke. “I really liked him,” Brooke mumbled.

Looking at her friend’s puffy, wet, red eyes and leaking nose, Chloe was glad she was not in love or like with anyone. Reluctantly, she sat on Brooke’s bed and put her arms around her friend. “Stop crying. No guy is worth your tears.”

“But why did he have to dump me?”

“I don’t know, but it’s his loss. You are a catch and someone else will see that and value you like a queen.”

Chloe sat with Brooke for nearly ten minutes until her friend calmed down and the tears stopped flowing again. 

“You are going to be ok,” Chloe assured her.

Brooke wiped her red nose and cheeks. There was nothing pretty about the sight. “I know. But we still need to delete those pictures. God. I can’t believe I let that happen.” She covered her wet face with her hands.

Chloe sighed. The offer David had given her looked more and more enticing by the second. It was clear she would not get her much-needed sleep anytime soon.

Resigned, Chloe asked, “How do we get into his room?”