For the Love of Kimchee (Book 1)

43

Chloe

For the second time that day, Chloe's breath was taken away. Daniel's family home was gorgeous. It was the definition of rich meets minimalist.

Everything was white, angled, and flawless. Chloe looked in awe at the home as they drove up the long driveway. She looked over at Daniel, but his face gave none of his emotions away. In fact, Chloe couldn't read him at all. It was unsettling.His face was like a block of stone. Unreadable. Cold. Detached. Chloe grabbed his hand, and he turned towards her almost as if he had forgotten she was sitting next to him.

"Umm Daniel?" Chloe looked over at him unsure. "Are you good?"

"Yeah, sorry." Daniel's face regained some of it's emotions back. He gave her hand a squeeze and gave her a tight smile. "I just zoned out."

That looked a helluva a lot more than zoning out, but Chloe dropped the topic. Chloe looked out the front view window.

The house was beautiful and sat on a hill overlooking mountains. She couldn't see everything, but from where she was sitting, it looked like everyone's dream home. The driver pulled in front of the house and came over to open the door.

Chloe glanced back at Daniel and he was back to sporting the facial expression of a piece of granite. This was not the Daniel she knew. They shuffled out of the car in silence.

Daniel put a hand on her lower back and began ushering her to the front door, but Chloe turned and stopped him with a hand on his chest.

"Daniel what's the matter? One hour ago, you were jumping for joy at this meeting and now it's like you aren't even here anymore?"

She pulled his hand to her chest. "I'm going to need some emotions to start going through that face of yours or I'm out." Chloe tried to lighten the mood with a joke, but it was hitting a little too close to the truth. "We can't both be scared out here."

Daniel rubbed between his eyes.

"I know. I know. I'm sorry, it's just this house" He took a deep breath. "It just has never been a good place for me. I thought that I might react better because you were here with me, but I guess I was wrong." He looked down to the ground, the frustration was clear on his face.

She knew he didn't have the best relationship with his family, but his reaction was scaring her a bit. Instead of the confident Daniel that she knew, here was this stoic and wavering Daniel. Is this who he was around family?

"Daniel look at me." Chloe looked up at him waiting for him to meet her eyes. He looked down at her locking their eyes.

"We need to be a united front in here. I don't know what's going to happen and I need you to be present." Chloe sighed. She was no good at this. Daniel was the comforter, not her. "Please?"

Her voice softened to a whisper. She needed him to be strong. She could handle him being vulnerable but him being shook was new. It was actually giving her anxiety and she had enough of that already.

She put her hands on his face, drawing his face to hers close enough that their noses were touching but not their lips.

"Let's do this" She said fiercely to him.

Daniel nodded and tried to collect some of the confidence that had fallen off of him. He placed his hand back on the small of her back and led to the house.

Upon ringing the doorbell, the door swung open and a cute chubby girl beamed at them.

"You must be Chloe!" The young girl's smile seemed to overtake her face as she grabbed Chloe's arm and pulled her inside leaving Daniel at the door. The young girl paused for a minute at the entry for Chloe to take off her shoes and then once again grabbed her arm. Chloe was shocked as she was pulled into the house, her shoes barely off her feet.