"Chloe this is my friend Chris, Chris this is Chloe"
Chloe smiles and offers a little wave to the good-looking guy in front of her.
"And my job here is done" Chelle pretends to dust her hands and walks off, grabbing her beer from the table as she walks past
"So that wasn't half obvious" Chris smiles taking a swig of his own beer
"Yeah that's Chelle, known for her subtlety" Chloe grins back
"That and her exceptional taste in cheap overseas beer" Chris holds up the obscure branded bottle
"Oh you can't fault her exceptional eye for a bargain"
Chloe looks down at her feet, nervously peeling the label off the foreign beer,
"So can I shout you a beer?"
She looks up at his wry smile and blue eyes, not quite as blue as the ones she should be looking into but life doesn't always go according to plan. And with that cliché in mind she smiles and nods,
"Sure, that'd be great"
Six missed calls on her phone, two from Chris and four from Marshall, now she was busy dodging two men, god she really needed to get her shit together. Chloe looks up from her drink at the bar and over at her dancing colleagues, she had drawn the line at dancing, in fact she had been anything but social since she got here, it was enough that she was out. Her phone buzzes again and her heart skips as she reaches for it, three gins in she wasn't sure if she could dodge another call from Marshall. Her mums name flashes on the screen and she breathes a sigh of relief, one of the few times she was happy to see Gayle's name.
"Mother hi"
"Oh so you are alive"
Her mothers dry sarcastic tone seems to skip the delayed distance
"Ah yes, sorry to disappoint?"
"Had a few drinks have we Chloe?"
Chloe sighs, she hadn't been careful enough with her tone, usually she was armed and ready to talk to her mother.
"I've had a gin and tonic, last I checked drinking age here was 21 mother. What do you want?"
All formalities and niceties were dropped
"So that's where you are then, spending your time at a bar instead of answering your husbands phone calls?"
"Since when do you keep such close tabs on Chris mother?" Chloe signals the bartender for another
"Since my daughter is in another country and she isn't answering her phone."
"Cut the shit Gayle and just ask me" she swigs her fresh drink
"And what question would that be Chloe?"
Even the way her mother said her name sounded like an authoritarian instead of a maternal figure
"You wanna know if I'm with Marshall"
YOU ARE READING
Ghosts of the Past
ParanormalMarshall was Chloe's first everything; boyfriend, kiss, love. They met whilst at school when Chloe had moved to Detroit with her mum from Australia, although only together for two years before returning back to Aus it was meant to be them against th...
