dining room table was covered with animal boards she was making for the adoption event. She’d been working like a fiend to prepare a board for each animal, and they were gorgeous. Of course, Chloe being Chloe, she’d made a checklist of the animals, their personalities, and all of their pertinent information, which would be listed on the boards and also available on flyers.
Her organization didn’t stop there. In the living room, there were two closed cabinets in the bottom half of her bookshelves. She’d adhered vinyl to the interior of one, and put a fireplace grate inside. She had wood stacked there, and beneath the grate she’d piled kindling. The other cabinet was stacked with fire starters, newspapers, two lighters, and metal skewers, which she’d said were for roasting marshmallows. For some reason, knowing she was as neat and organized as he was—at least in his house and office—endeared her to him even more.
He made the fire, and Chloe came out of the bedroom a few minutes later looking sexy and cozy in black leggings that hugged her curves, the Prince Charming shirt she’d bought the other day, and blue fuzzy socks. She held up her index finger and disappeared into the laundry room. When she came out, she was carrying the gray sweatpants he’d left there the other night.
“I washed these yesterday. Why don’t you give me your wet clothes and I’ll throw in a load?”
“You’ve been trying to get me naked since that first night on the beach,” he said as he took off his wet jeans. He stripped off his briefs, and her eyes went dark with desire, but her cheeks flamed pink. He’d never tire of that mix of innocence and temptress.
“Put that thing away right now, you wicked man,” she said with a laugh. “We need food and warmth before I let your python in my garden!”
“That’s definitely not the reaction I was hoping for.” He chuckled and pulled on his sweats. “Your eyes say yes. How about they have a chat with that naughty mouth of yours?”
“Leave my traitorous eyes out of this, and maybe later you’ll have a visit from my naughty mouth.” She snagged his clothes and headed into the laundry room.
A LONG WHILE later, they were sitting on the floor in front of the fire, their backs against the couch, surrounded by scrapbooks, their bellies full of pizza. Though Justin hadn’t found any hidden pictures of himself, he’d taken a visual tour of Chloe’s childhood through her college years. He’d seen a plethora of attendance and honor roll certificates and other awards his academic beauty had earned. There were pictures of her as a teenager when she’d gone through what she called her badass stage, dressed in all black, with gothlike makeup. He’d asked her where that wild girl was now, and she’d said she’d been more tough than wild, and he was bringing back the best parts of her. He’d learned that Chloe hadn’t gone to her senior prom, choosing instead to stay home in case Serena got caught with one of her mother’s boyfriends around. It made him sad that she’d missed so much of her youth, but at the same time, he admired her even more for all she’d overcome. They’d gone through pictures from her middle and high school graduations, each one accompanied by a photo of her and Serena. Serena held a sign in each that read SHE DID IT! They also had pictures of them celebrating with a cake they’d made together. Even though Chloe had lived at home for the first two years of college so she could be with Serena, she’d still applied to four-year colleges, and she’d kept all of her acceptance letters. She said they were proof that one day she’d be free of her mother, of that house, and of that life. She had no pictures of her mother, which was as heartbreaking as it was proof of her strength, even as a young girl.
There were a few pictures of Chloe with Drake’s family when they were younger, but not as many as he’d thought he’d find. Those came later, in the albums they were looking through now, when she’d reconnected with them after college. These pages were filled with a different, more confident and less haunted Chloe.
Justin turned the page, revealing a picture of Chloe standing in front of her car, the keys dangling from her finger. Serena stood beside her with a handwritten sign that read IT’S