Chapter 22 #2
Tyler had been so blinded by the happiness of seeing Chloe after a day and a half of his being on-shift, then her working a double at Sweetie Pies, that he didn’t realize his strategic error until he pulled up in front of Lou and Carleen Dempsey’s house and saw the cars jamming the driveway and lining half the block.
He prided himself on being preternaturally calm.
Always able to control his feelings, even to cancel some of them out if the occasion called for it.
But starting with that kiss four months ago, Chloe had changed all of that.
Now, as he stood here on the walkway, practically a twin of that emoji with hearts for eyes at the thought of just being in Chloe’s orbit and seeing her smile?
Tyler was the polar opposite of calm. He was absolutely, one hundred percent rocked off his axis.
Even worse? He didn’t want to fight how he felt about her. He wanted to feel every second of it. To not let it go. To not let her go.
Even if it wrecked him.
“The party is inside, you know,” came a warm, familiar voice, and he smiled as he turned to greet his mother.
“You’re out here,” he pointed out, leaning in to kiss her cheek, then take the casserole dish she’d carried over from next door. “Lasagna?”
She held up her hands. “I know Lou’s probably got it covered. You know how much he loves to cook. But with this crew, I figured extra food won’t go to waste. Especially since Esme is staying for a little while.”
After some fast-turn paperwork and a bit of a scramble, Esme had moved out of the group home three days ago and in with Lou and Carleen.
Tyler hadn’t hesitated to help, although that had really only consisted of loading two Hefty bags full of clothes into his Mustang to take across town and rearranging some furniture in the Dempseys’ guest bedroom so Esme would have a desk by the window, where—Carleen insisted—the light was better.
He and Chloe had hung around the house for the rest of the day, and although Esme had spent a decent amount of that time in her room, she did cautiously make her way out for pizza before he and Chloe had left for Chloe’s place, where Tyler had spent his second night in a row wrapped up in her arms. Getting up at the ass-crack of dawn for a full shift at the fire house a handful of hours later had been brutal, but he had absolutely zero regrets.
He’d caught up on sleep this afternoon while Chloe had spent a little more time with Esme, and according to Chloe’s texts, she seemed to be adjusting, albeit slowly.
She’d even started new classes yesterday.
The thought delivered him back to the walkway, where the sun was just beginning to tip low toward the horizon. “Thanks for agreeing to home-school Esme for a little while,” Tyler said, but his mother waved him off.
“Chloe did all the work, finding the online academy with specialized programs for students who need an alternative environment. Anyway, Esme’s a fast learner. It’ll take her a little while, but she’ll be okay.”
A protective pang went off in Tyler’s chest at the thought of everything the kid had been through in the past few weeks, but he nodded. Chloe had Esme’s back, and he had Chloe’s. They’d all be okay. He’d make fucking sure of it. “Of course she will. She’s learning from the best.”
Stepping back to usher his mom up the flower-lined path to the house, they covered the ground to the front door in only a dozen or so steps. His heart pinballed against his ribs when Chloe answered the bell, her cheeks flushing his favorite shade of pink as she gave up a wide, gorgeous smile.
“Hey! Hi, I’m so glad you’re here,” she said, hugging them one right after the other, and yeah. Yeeeeah, keeping his thoughts PG was going to be next to impossible, considering the last time he’d seen her blush like that, it was because he’d just made her come with his tongue. “I need your help.”
He needed to focus, before everyone in this room saw directly through him and his filthy-dirty thoughts. “Okay, shoot.”
“I need your wrist”—Chloe looked at Tyler first, then his mother—“your expertise, and that lasagna.”
“That sounds like a very weird heist that will probably go wrong,” Tyler said, a laugh escaping as he followed Chloe and his mother down the hallway, the happy chatter that always accompanied the pre-game to Dempsey family dinners getting louder with every step.
“I’ll let Esme explain it. Well, everything except the lasagna, anyway. I just want that because it’s my favorite.”
She wiggled her fingers, grinning when Tyler handed the pan over, then laughing when he didn’t let go right away. “Okay, but I want a finder’s fee,” he warned. “You’re not the only one addicted to cheese and carbs.”
“Consider a trade for some red velvet cookies? They’re on the counter in the butler’s pantry.”
She didn’t need to tell him twice. “I’ve got a sudden urge to take a detour. If you’ll excuse me, ladies.”
Giving Chloe a surreptitious wink, he aimed himself toward the kitchen.
Lou and Carleen had done a huge renovation to knock down most of the walls on the first floor of the house way back when Tyler and Ryan were still in high school.
Save the bathroom and a small study, the whole main level was one large, open space, custom-built for family gatherings.
The dining room, with its farmhouse table big enough to seat twelve—fourteen, if they all squeezed in, which they usually did—was on Tyler’s right, a smaller table for extra guests or an overflow of casserole dishes and serving bowls close by.
The living room stood opposite, with a huge navy-blue sectional couch and three lighter blue chairs arranged around a stacked-stone fireplace, the space cozy and inviting despite its spacious size.
But the heart of the Dempsey house had always been the kitchen, with its massive center island that housed a food prep sink and a breakfast bar, light gray clapboard cabinets, and ginormous stainless steel fridge that Tyler had helped Ryan raid no less than two thousand times over the past fifteen years.
Pausing only to say hello to Lou, and Chloe’s brother, Jack, who were both up to their elbows in dinner prep, Tyler made a beeline for the small alcove between the pantry and the laundry room, just far enough from the crowd of Dempseys for him to sneak a few cookies as a warm-up snack before dinner.
And ran smack into Addison.
“Look who it is! My favorite best man,” she said, her blond brows waggling as she pressed up to her tiptoes to hug him.
He took in her T-shirt, which read All You Need is Love…and Cupcakes, and her sparkly baby-blue beaded bracelet with brIDE spelled out in block letters, and laughed. “Not to argue, but I’m pretty sure I’m your only best man.”
“Details. You here for the red velvet cookies?”
“Guilty as charged.”
“Listen, if cookies are wrong, I don’t ever want to be right,” Addison said, passing him a zip-top bag full of red velvet cookies before turning her attention to an identical one loaded with brownies. He scooped two cookies into his palm, taking a bite of the sweet, chocolatey goodness.
Addison pulled a brownie from the bag in front of her on the counter, breaking it in two and popping half into her mouth. “Oh, hey,” she said between chews. “Things have been really crazy between this investigation and the wedding, but I meant to thank you for all your help with the case.”
Tyler finished his bite and shrugged. “Of course, although I’m not sure how helpful a dead-end on the arson was.”
In truth, the whole thing had been bugging the shit out of him since he’d gone to the scene with Chloe, like there was a lead right on the edge of his awareness, only every time he tried to nail it down, it disappeared like smoke in the wind. “Is Capelli getting anywhere with the hacker?”
“The guy is really good, which you know Capelli is taking as a personal challenge. Nothing actionable, yet, though. But that’s not what I was talking about,” Addison said.
“What else is there?” Tyler asked, regretting the question almost immediately.
“Well, let’s recap.” She licked a brownie crumb off her thumb before using the rest of her fingers to start keeping score.
“You took Chloe to the fire scene to give her enough information to clear her head. You went with her to give Esme case updates—twice. You were miraculously with her at ridiculous-thirty the morning after the party, then helped move Esme in here. Shall I continue? Because I keep excellent case notes.”
“Uh,” Tyler grunted. Damn it, of course she’d noticed what was going on. She was a fucking detective. “Well, it’s a tough case. Of course, I wasn’t going to leave Chloe high and dry. Plus, this guy deserves to go to jail for what he did.”
Addison hummed in agreement before sending her gaze across the kitchen and into the dining room.
Esme sat at one end of the table, with Ryan on one side and Carleen on the other, all of them focused on a clear plastic box full of what looked like beads.
Her expression was tough to read, which wasn’t really a shock, considering her defenses were pretty much the Great Wall of China.
But she met Tyler’s eyes and lifted her hand in greeting, and even though it probably didn’t even qualify as a wave, his heart lurched at the gesture.
“Oh, we’ll get him,” Addison said quietly. “I don’t think Chloe will rest until we do. But you’ve really had her back on this one. As a cop working this case, I wanted to thank you.”
Tyler nodded. “Sure.”
He looked up, then, his eyes zeroing in on Chloe.
She’d made her way over to the dining room table with his mom, her smile easy and wide.
Her auburn hair hung over her shoulders in a glossy curtain of waves, her blue eyes dancing with laughter, then rolling upward at something Ryan had just said.
She leaned in to sort through the beads, murmuring to Esme and nodding enthusiastically.
Her happiness sizzled and sparked, as bright as a Roman candle in the middle of the night, and Christ, he’d feel her smile even in the dark.
“So, when are you going to tell Ryan you’re falling for his sister?” Addison asked, sending his pulse into a freefall.
“It’s not like that.”
“Oh, Gatesy.” She patted his arm, the edges of her mouth moving into a knowing smile. “It’s exactly like that.”
Fuck. Fuck. “It might be a little bit like that,” he said.
“I don’t know. It’s also not so easy. I’ve got…
” He broke off to run a palm over the back of his neck, settling on, “stuff in my past that makes it complicated. Not to mention the whole, you know. Ryan trying to castrate me thing, which I’d very much like to avoid, since I’d like to keep my nuts intact. ”
Addison surprised him by throwing her head back to laugh.
“Okay, first of all, Ryan’s a hothead, not a dickhead.
While I wouldn’t mention any of your and Chloe’s extracurriculars”—she paused to smirk—“I don’t think that conversation will go as poorly as you think it will.
As for your past, a bit of free advice from someone who’s been there? ”
Tyler nodded, and she tilted her head, her smile going soft. “Trusting people with your heart is hard when it’s been broken before. But trusting the right person with it? Will be the easiest thing you ever do.”
“That makes a lot of sense, actually,” he admitted. “Thanks.”
“Of course. Oh!” Addison brightened. “And by the way, as a cop, I might be super grateful that you’ve got her back, but as her best friend, I would be remiss if I didn’t say that if you do something stupid, Ryan cutting off your junk will be the least of your worries. ’Kay?”
Having absolutely no doubt that she meant it with her whole heart, Tyler held up his hands. He wasn’t an idiot. “Understood.”
“Excellent. Now go. Esme’s making bracelets for everyone in the bridal party, and believe me, you don’t want to miss it.”