Chapter 15 #2
“Sure. It’s my job. Do what you love, and all that.” She busied herself with the cinnamon rolls, and Tyler waited her out until the package was empty.
“But?”
Her sigh made a slow escape. “But I also do it as stress relief. Which you have, no doubt, picked up on.”
“Not a complaint.” Tyler lifted both hands, one of which held another cookie. “But, yeah, the sheer volume of baked goods you’ve been sharing lately is a bit of an indicator.”
“Well, you can blame Ryan for inspiring my love of cooking and baking,” she said, and she might as well have grabbed Tyler’s curiosity with both hands and given it a good shake.
“Really? I didn’t know that.”
Chloe picked up a hangover kit, her blue eyes crinkling with her smile. “Oh, yeah. When I first came to live with my family, I brought a lot of baggage. Not the literal kind.”
“I remember.” He didn’t press—just because she’d brought it up didn’t mean she wanted to tuck in for a tell-all, and God knew he understood the need to keep his feelings about his past locked down tight.
But Chloe opened up like a goddamn flower.
“I learned pretty quickly to stuff everything down in foster care. Being a kid in the system was hard enough. Being a kid in the system who had an overload of emotions that made me look messy to prospective families and vulnerable to the other kids? Hard pass.”
Tyler’s heart gave an involuntary squeeze. “I’m sorry. That must have been pretty shitty.”
“It wasn’t ideal,” she agreed. “But it was better to be labeled ‘the quiet one’ instead of ‘the fragile one’, even if it did get me overlooked and bounced around between group homes and temporary foster families. It took over a year after the Dempseys adopted me before I started to trust them enough to see my feelings. Especially the ugly ones.”
Well, that was a tune he could sing along to. Not that he gave his feelings more airtime than was strictly necessary. “You felt like you were protecting yourself from getting hurt.”
“Exactly.” Chloe took the hangover kit he’d just stuffed from the small pile on the floor between them, sealing it shut.
“But one night, about ten months after the adoption, Ryan was at the house. I was the only sibling living there by then, but he used to come over all the time after he was done at the academy.”
“Oh, yeah,” Tyler said. He and Ryan had shared an apartment back then. “He used to bring back leftovers all the time.”
Her expression softened, wide open and beautiful as she smiled.
“I hadn’t eaten much at dinner—I still didn’t want to be a burden to Lou and Carleen, even though I’d been with them for a while, at that point.
But Ryan made these cheesy buttered noodles that were to fucking die for, all melty and gooey and loaded with carbs, and I was a goner.
I’m not proud of this, but I’m pretty sure I actually licked my plate. ”
Tyler laughed. “As one should when cheese and butter are involved.”
“That became my go-to comfort food. He’d come over and make it, and we’d eat and talk.
I know it’s a little woo woo, but the food made me feel.
..nourished, I guess. Safe. So, I learned how to cook, then bake.
I discovered I loved pastry almost as much as those cheesy buttered noodles, and I guess the rest is history. ”
He thought for a minute, a pang of understanding unfolding in his belly. “That’s why you self-soothe with baking.”
“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 having all of 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.