Picking up the iPhone from where she had left it on the sofa cushion next to her, she checked the notification.
Hi! I’m here!
Chloë smiled and got up. Grabbing the spare remote off the hook by the front door, she left her house, stood on the stoop and pointed the remote at the gate.
After the tiny house had been built, her dad had decided to replace the original wooden RV gate at the side of the main house with a remote-controlled wrought iron one so that Chloë could have her own private driveway into the backyard. As usual, Emile had planned on doing the install himself, and he had started off gangbusters. But he quickly learned that removing the old wooden gate was the easy part. He also learned that wrought iron gates are heavy and that when you order one and simply tell the delivery guys to “Just leave it over there in the side yard; I’ll get to it later,” it may not be the best strategy. He also learned that he had no idea how to lay down the track for the iron gate to roll on, nor how to hook up the motor assembly to the electricity on the property. Eventually, LeeAnne made an executive decision as wife and called the same two guys who had built the tiny house. They had the job done quickly and without any risk that each time the gate’s motor was activated, it would cause a fire in the laundry room, say, or flood the master bath.
Chloë saw a Civic pull into the backyard, slowly drive along the gravel driveway which led to the tiny house and park next to her mother’s year-old Jetta, which as of last week was now Chloë’s car.
“Hey!” Chloë said, coming to greet Morgan at the driver’s side door.
“Hey, yourself!” Morgan replied, getting out of the car. She was dressed in skinny jeans, a peasant top that bared her shoulders and high heels. Chloë took all of this in and bit her bottom lip.
The two women stood there for a moment somewhat awkwardly, unsure of what form their greeting should take.
“Can I hug you? Is that weird?” Morgan finally asked. “I mean, I know the CDC would have a fit, but…”
“Dude, who cares?” Chloë said, and then, before Morgan could ask any more questions, she embraced the older woman. With her heels on, Morgan was a bit taller than Chloë, who hadn’t yet changed into her own high heels and was wearing flip-flops, and so Chloë found her face nestled in the crook of Morgan’s neck. She breathed in her former teacher’s scent. Princess, by Vera Wang.
When they separated, Morgan looked at Chloë’s place and exclaimed, “Oh my God, this is so cool! It looks so modern!”
“Frank Lloyd Wright?” Chloë asked.
“Yes!”
Chloë laughed.
“Everybody says that.”
She decided to be bold. Taking Morgan’s hand, she said, “Come on in, I’ll show you around.” She stopped and looked at Morgan seriously. “I mean, only if you have two full minutes to spare? That’s literally all it takes.”
Morgan laughed and squeezed Chloë’s hand, unwittingly making Chloë’s center begin to warm.
It turned out to take longer than two minutes because Morgan asked a lot of questions. Chloë ended up being thrilled with how Morgan reacted to her home and this in turn made her feel like a child eagerly showing off some new toy. What she especially liked was the fact that even though she had been living in the tiny house for close to two years now, Morgan being here made Chloë appreciate it all anew. Sure, she eventually wanted to move into her own home somewhere that wasn’t in her parents’ backyard, but for now, she had to admit, she had a pretty cool spot.
And women loved it. Chloë had learned that as an aphrodisiac, oysters had nothing over giving a woman a chance to have sex in a place that could be de
scribed as “adorable.”
Well, gay women, at least. Morgan, being straight, might not be similarly affected, Chloë reluctantly admitted to herself.
“God, it’s like I’ve stepped into a dollhouse!” Morgan said after Chloë had given her the downstairs tour. “And I love that track lighting,” she added, looking up at the recently installed fixture added by Emile. “So chic! Can you turn them on? I want to see what they look like lit up!”
“No!” Chloë blurted, alarmed. True to his reputation, Emile’s installation of the lighting hadn’t gone exactly to plan. Technically, they worked; you flipped a switch and the track lights came on. But somehow the refrigerator would simultaneously go off. LeeAnne had already been informed and had promised to come by this weekend to fix it.
“I’ll explain later,” Chloë said.
“So, I assume your bedroom is up in the loft?” Morgan asked.
“Yep,” Chloë confirmed.
Morgan stared at Chloë expectantly. She even crossed her arms, her weight balanced on one leg, looking so much like a schoolteacher expecting a student to come solve the math problem on the whiteboard or there might be a punishment administered, that Chloë’s core decided then to start making her panties damp.
“Well?” Morgan asked, and Chloë wondered how a one-word question could be so damned sexy?
She laughed and once again decided to be bold. Taking Morgan’s hand, she led her up the storage stairs and into the loft. Morgan immediately took a seat on the edge of the bed and looked around. Chloë also looked around, trying to see the space through Morgan’s eyes. The exposed wood-beam ceiling which Chloë had strung with fairy lights. The dormer window with cushioned bench seat. The ingenious wall storage and the clothes racks. Thankfully, Chloë had had the foresight to straighten up here in the bedroom before Morgan arrived and so the space was neat and tidy. Only a pair of ballet flats on the floor over by her nightstand that she had somehow missed could be viewed as out of place.
Well, the ballet flats and the fact that the Morgan Banks was actually sitting on her bed.