Page 50 of Spark
“Yeah.”Her smile turned a little sheepish, but she didn’t hold back.“I’ve never really been a grace under pressure person.Not having control over most of my life was stressful as hell, and I didn’t have the first clue how to deal with it, so I jammed it all in.But when I’m in the kitchen, it’s different.I can breathe.”
A smile hinted at the edges of her mouth.“After I was stalked, baking was the only thing I did that let me still feel like myself.Being in the kitchen was a big part of my recovery, along with therapy and meds, obviously.Sometimes I still go a little overboard when I’m stressed, but the kitchen is my safe space.My guaranteed peace.If I’m scared or anxious or mad, I can let that out when I’m baking and it makes it more manageable.”
Tyler shook his head, absolutely blown away by her candor.“You’re pretty open with your feelings, huh?”
He fully registered the thought only after he’d blurted it, but Chloe didn’t show a single sign of offense.
“Well, yeah,” she said, in the same way she’d acknowledge a universal reality like water being wet.“I spent so long stuffing the few feelings I let myself have way, way down, so I guess now I’m making up for it by havingallof my feelings out loud.It’s like feelings-palooza up in here.”She paused to lift a brow.“Which I’m sure seems very weird to you.You know, with the whole cyborg thing you’ve got going on.”
She used her index finger to make an imaginary circle over her face while giving up an expression so serious, it bordered on a frown.
He snort-laughed.“First of all, I don’t look like…whatever that was.”He mimicked her finger-circle/comical frown.“Secondly, just because I don’t wear my feelings like a Christmas sweater doesn’t mean I don’t have them.”
“You never let them show,” Chloe said.
“Not usually.”Tyler stuffed two more hangover kits before going full fuck-it.“Aren’t you afraid of being vulnerable when you let all those feelings out?”
She tipped her head to one side to meet her half-shrug.“Sure, I guess.But if I’m vulnerable around the right people, then I can trust them not to hurt me.”
They finished assembling the rest of the favors, the conversation drifting to Ryan and Addison’s wedding and the last-minute details for the party.Only after Tyler had helped Chloe tidy up her living room, kissed her softly goodnight, and made his way back to his own apartment did he let himself think about the scorching-hot sex they’d shared.She’d trusted him, not just with her body, but her feelings on top of it.
And even though it was the worst sort of dangerous, he was tempted to trust her back.
16
As it turned out, there was one thing that could bust Chloe’s stress better than baking, party planning, and yoga classes combined, and that thing was Tyler Gates’s tongue.
She gripped the MINI Cooper’s steering wheel, her face—along with a few places due south—flushing at the memory still fresh in her mind from a day and a half ago.The slide of her mouth on his, hungry and insistent.The painstakingly sexy way he’d explored her body to uncover exactly what lit her up.The intense, breath-grabbing pleasure of her very first man-made orgasms.Chloe had thought she’d feel self-conscious telling Tyler exactly what she wanted, then watching as he gave it to her, but instead she’d felt the opposite.Bold.Empowered.Safe enough to come flying apart in his arms.Twice.
Between the endorphins, the free-flowing conversation they’d had afterward, and the absolutely-still-normal texts they’d been sharing since yesterday morning?Her stress had definitely taken a temporary sabbatical.
Which was a good thing, considering she was about to have her daily FaceTime with Esme, then get an update on the Navarro case.
Pulling into the parking lot behind the Thirty-Third, Chloe reached for her cell phone and scrolled through her contacts, sliding the phone into the holder on her dashboard before tapping the FaceTime icon next to Esme’s name.Although Esme had grumbled about the frequency of the check-ins, at first—“hello, I’m not an infant”—she seemed to understand that they were for her physical safety as much as her emotional wellbeing.Ever since the day Chloe and Tyler had gone to tell her about the fire, she’d begun to come out of her shell, at least about things like her English language arts class, which she hated, pizza and skateboarding, which she liked, and a band named Jimmy’s Pants, which she’d said was “absolute fire” and made Chloe listen to twice.She was still prone to stiff-arming Chloe when their conversations edged toward anything personal, but shewastalking, and more importantly, she was safe.For now, Chloe would take the win.
“Hey.”Esme appeared on the screen on Chloe’s phone, looking slightly bored but not entirely put out.
Okay, this Chloe could work with.“Hi, checking in.How’s today going?”
Esme lifted a shoulder halfway before giving up and letting it drop.“Well, I had school, so, you know…”
Chloe took the lead-in.“Did you learn anything interesting?”
“Other than the fact that I hate literary analysis and Jacob Wazowski is a try-hard?Nope.”
Taking the lesser of two evils, Chloe went for the English.“Ugh, I had a hard time with literature analysis, too.I’m not sure I’d be much help, but I could give it a shot, if you want.”
Esme shook her head, her purple-and-black bangs covering her eyes.“Nah.I’ll figure it out.”
“Okay.Let me know if you change your mind.And maybe try to take it easy on Jacob, just a little?”Chloe softened the words with a smile and brow-lift combo.“There’s a lot worse than someone who’s trying hard.Maybe he wants to impress you.”
“Ew, he does not,” Esme said, but her blush told Chloe she hadn’t been entirely off-base in suggesting a crush.“Anyway, I already have to live with sharing a name with a character fromTwilight.No way am I going to hang out with a boy named Jacob.”
At her exaggerated shudder, Chloe laughed.“Your name is unique.”
“That’s the kiss of death in middle school,” Esme said, and eh, she had a point.
“Fair.All I’m saying is it might be worth it to keep an open mind.It could be worse.”
