Chapter 4 #2
The surprise on Chloe’s face tracked, given their recent avoidance of each other and Tyler’s general disposition.
He was, by necessity, not a capital-F-Feelings kind of guy.
But he and Chloe had been friends—good ones, the kind who snuck food off each other’s plates and made goofy faces behind Ryan’s back to try to get the other to crack up laughing—before he’d gone and fucked everything up by kissing her.
Anyway, talking about her feelings was a whole different stratosphere than talking about his own, and it was better than the thousand-pound silence of their ride out here.
Apparently, she preferred the silence. “There’s not much to talk about, really. You said you already know the deal. Esme’s a foster teen. She witnessed a murder. Intelligence needed help and Esme needs an advocate. So, here I am.”
Tyler popped the locks on the Mustang and took a long, deep breath.
In the dozen years he’d known her, she’d never not wanted to talk about it if something was on her mind.
After this morning, she had to be contending with no less than six hundred fifty-two thoughts and emotions, most of which she was currently wearing on her face.
“If being back at Intelligence dredged up bad memories, it might—”
“It’s not that,” Chloe said, quickly enough to shut him up.
He used the handful of seconds it took them to get situated in the front seat to cement his calm into place. “Okay. So, what is it, then?”
“This case is just…a lot, that’s all.”
A beat of silence expanded between them, stretching further and further in every direction.
When it became five, Tyler put the car into gear and pulled into traffic, just to give himself something to do.
When it became ten, he was sure Chloe would stay clammed up and he’d have no choice but to let the whole thing go, which was probably for the best. He’d done his due diligence and waited for her like the decent guy he hadn’t been when he’d kissed her a couple months ago.
Now, he could take her back to her car, communicate with her as little as possible to plan this bachelor and bachelorette party, then go back to avoiding her while she returned the favor and avoided him.
But on twelve, she spoke. “Esme’s been in the system since she was a toddler.
Foster families, group homes. The works.
Her case manager, Tom, is great, but his plate is full to bursting, and it looks like the group home manager’s is the same.
She’s thirteen, and I’ve mentored enough younger teens in the past year to know that’s hard enough.
Their hormones could seriously be weaponized. ”
Tyler couldn’t stop one corner of his mouth from kicking up at that, but he didn’t interrupt as she kept talking, her words pouring out like they’d been uncorked.
“I mean, yeah, she’s got a chip on her shoulder the size of Mount Rushmore, and no, that doesn’t make any of this easier.
But now? After the trauma of witnessing a murder and having to wait while Intelligence investigates, then wait some more to see if there will be a trial where she has to testify?
Or worse, that could put her in danger? Ugh, that would make even the toughest person on the planet crack.
Esme talks a good game, but deep down, she’s just a kid.
What if Intelligence never finds this guy?
What if they do, and Esme has to take the stand and relive the whole thing?
What if this guy is really scary and he tries to hurt her? What if this is all just too much?”
It was more than Chloe had said to him over the past two months combined, and even though he knew he shouldn’t, all Tyler wanted was more.
“The situation is less than ideal,” he started, course correcting when she arched one red-gold brow at him from the passenger seat.
“Fine. No one should witness murders or feel scared or threatened, least of all a vulnerable teenaged kid, and the whole thing fucking sucks. But some of the stuff you’re worrying about hasn’t happened. ”
“Yet,” Chloe said, but Tyler shook his head.
“Maybe. Maybe not, though.”
“I’m Esme’s advocate,” she said, her other eyebrow joining the way-up game. “It’s my job to be prepared for whatever might happen.”
He nodded. “Yeah, but there’s a difference between being prepared for what you know is happening and worrying about what might happen. Getting spun up on the what-ifs will only fry your circuits before you can come up with a strategy to handle the right-now.”
Laughing wasn’t the least expected response she could’ve made, but it was damned close. “Riiiiight. I forgot. You don’t do feelings.”
“Ouch,” Tyler muttered. So, he was practical. It didn’t mean he was dead inside, and it damn sure didn’t mean he was wrong about this. “That’s a little extreme, don’t you think?”
The edges of her mouth quirked with the smile she was clearly trying to smother, and Christ, he’d missed this. “Tyler, please. My arm could be hanging on by two tendons and you’d be all, ‘Huh. Guess we should put a tourniquet on that and get you to the ED’.”
“That’s not extreme,” he pointed out, partly because it was true and partly because he was a selfish bastard who just wanted to see her cheeks flush. “It’s good strategy. Also, the best option to save your arm and possibly your life. You’re welcome.”
“Thank you for proving my point,” she said dryly.
He played at innocence, blinking at her across the sun-filled front seat of the car. “That I know how to administer proper medical care to catastrophic injuries?”
“That you’re a cyborg.”
A laugh ripped out of him, completely without permission, as he coasted to a stop at a red light. “I’m perfectly human, I assure you.”
“Nope. I’m not buying it,” Chloe said, growing more animated as she turned toward him. “You are always calm. Perfectly composed. Dare I say, cooler than a cucumber. Always.”
“Not always,” Tyler argued—after all, he had to manage his adrenaline on calls just like everyone else.
Chloe, however, wasn’t giving him an inch. “Yes, always. Al. Ways.” She tapped his arm just below the sleeve of his T-shirt with each syllable for emphasis, the contact sending an unexpected sizzle through him once, then again. More.
His heart pounded, even as his brain willed it to slow the fuck down. “Chloe,” he started, but she leaned in closer, wrecking his rational thoughts. More. More.
“No, seriously, Tyler. When have you ever, in the history of ever, lost your cool? Freaked out? Had any sort of feelings you couldn’t control?”
“When we kissed.”
There was a brief instant that passed, the heat signature of Chloe’s fingers still soft on his skin, her eyes impossibly blue and wide, before the words detonated, ruining their fragile truce.
“Right.” She pulled her hand back as if singed, shifting as far from him as she could without climbing out the window, and damn it. Damn it! This was exactly why unchecked emotions were dangerous.
“Chloe, I—”
“No, I understand. Anyway, this thing with Esme is really complicated. I shouldn’t have barfed it all over you like that. It won’t happen again.”
For a fleeting second, he almost argued. He wanted to listen to her. He wanted to help her help Esme. Hell, he wanted to give in to every emotion he’d stuffed down since he’d kissed her the first time—to kiss her again, and this time not stop.
But then, the driver in the car behind them tapped her horn, a quick, sharp beep that dumped Tyler back to reality.
He couldn’t get close to Chloe. Not to listen, not to help her, and definitely not to kiss her. Now more than ever, he needed to keep his distance.
So, he pulled back into traffic and said nothing.
Time, as it turned out, did not make Tyler feel like less of a dickhead.
He’d known yesterday’s conversation with Chloe wouldn’t lead to anything good—hell, he’d known he shouldn’t have even waited for her, let alone opened up a can of worms about her feelings, of all fucking things.
But he hadn’t counted on it reminding him how easily she made him laugh.
Or how much he missed being around her. Or how clearly he remembered the heat of her mouth beneath his and how happily he would’ve drowned in her, and that right there—that was the problem with feelings.
They started out harmless, and then, before you knew it, they’d grown so out of control that it was too late.
Better a cyborg than the alternative. Even if Chloe did hate him for it.
A pint glass of beer appeared in front of him, bringing him back to his bar stool at the Crooked Angel in a blink. “Hey,” Ryan said, the grin he normally wore as easily as his bunker gear firmly in place. “You looked like you needed a refill.”
Tyler looked down at the beer he’d been nursing for most of happy hour, now finally empty. “Thanks, man.”