Chapter 23
Chloe looked at the contents of the shopping cart in front of her and shook her head. “We’re going to need way more butter than that.”
Tyler looked into the cart, his blue gaze assessing. “We already have three pounds,” he said with a laugh, but she held up a hand, unmoved.
“A girl can never have too much fun or too much butter,” she said, plucking two more packages from the refrigerated case and putting them into the cart before grabbing one more, just to be on the safe side.
“Anyway, what do you think makes my chocolate chip cookies so good? Spoiler alert: it starts with a B and rhymes with shutter.”
Tyler walked beside her while she pushed the cart, his smile sexy enough to make her knees wobble. Thank God they weren’t in the frozen foods aisle, or they’d have to pay for everything he melted. “Fair enough. They are going to make me the most popular firefighter in the house tomorrow.”
“Well, good, because I fully intend to have you and Esme do all the heavy lifting involved in making them.”
In the five days that had passed since the Dempsey family dinner, Esme had kept to herself more often than not.
Although she’d been a lot less ill at ease than a few weeks ago, she was still far from an open book.
On the plus side, she’d adjusted fairly well to her home-school schedule, working with Miss Beverly for a few hours each morning, then doing assignments and logging in for discussion groups with the online academy instructors and other students.
Carleen had taken her to the library, where she’d picked up a teen fantasy novel about twin sisters with mystical powers that she’d deemed “okay”, but read in a day and a half, then asked to go back for the rest of the series.
Chloe popped in to do her daily check-ins face-to-face every afternoon, spending a few hours making bracelets with her or curled up on the sectional, watching The Great British Bake Off.
But Esme still didn’t talk about the trial, or anything else remotely close to what she’d seen Leo Navarro do.
Tom, Carleen, Lou, and the CFS therapist all agreed that her guarded behavior was beyond normal, and Chloe knew—God, she really, really knew—they were right.
So, when Esme had agreed to a Sunday-night hangout with her and Tyler, she’d wanted to go all-in with Esme’s favorites.
And speaking of favorites. Chloe snuck a look at Tyler, her heartbeat picking up the pace.
While her days this week had been spent either at Sweetie Pies or helping Ryan and Addison take care of last-minute wedding prep, and her afternoons had been all Esme’s, her nights had belonged entirely to Tyler.
Part of her wanted to blame his easy-does-it smile or his ridiculous shoulders.
And chest. And abs, and really, was it too much to ask that a plain white T-shirt actually look plain on this man?
But as much as Chloe couldn’t deny the physical attraction between them or the fact that the sex they’d been sharing was absolutely fucking incendiary, she also couldn’t deny that her feelings for him had surpassed her pants.
Tyler was smart and funny and kind, there with mini-cinnamon rolls when she woke up in the morning and listening to her unload her fears about Esme and the trial.
They stayed up late into the night, eating cheesy buttered noodles and watching movies based on Jane Austen’s novels (she’d admit it—he’d hooked her) and talking while spooned together in her bed, and every single minute felt perfect. He felt perfect.
Which meant Chloe was considerably screwed, but even that felt too good for her to care.
“Hey, I’ve been thinking about something, and I wanted to run it by you,” Tyler said, bringing her back down to aisle five.
“Yes, I think Emma is better than Sense and Sensibility, and no, you’re not going to change my mind, although you’re more than welcome to try,” Chloe said, bumping his hip with hers.
He bumped her back, his smile turning wicked and heating a path all the way through her. “A) I’m extremely persuasive, and B) even though you’re so wrong, that’s not what I had in mind.”
“No?”
“Nope. I was actually thinking we should tell Ryan about this.”
Chloe clapped to a halt, her sneakers squeaking on the linoleum. “Sorry, you…what?”
Tyler looked at her with so much certainty, her breath caught. “He’s my best friend and your brother. The longer we don’t tell him, the more it feels like we’re sneaking around, and I don’t want to sneak around.”
“Oh.” The word collapsed out of her on a sigh. “Well, what do you want?”
“Right now, in this moment?” he asked, and she nodded, her chest suddenly feeling far too tight for her rib cage.
“We can start with that, sure.”
Tyler leaned in to brush a kiss over her mouth. “I just want you.”
“Okay,” Chloe said, her voice as breathless as she’d ever heard it. But she’d never been so sure of anything in her life.
“Okay, you’re good with Ryan knowing?”
“Okay, I want you, too,” she said. “And, yes. I’m also okay with Ryan knowing.”
He smiled, starting to walk down the aisle as if he hadn’t just stolen her entire heart. “Good. Now, about Sense and Sensibility…”
They finished the rest of their grocery shopping in between his best efforts and her laughter, carrying the bags to his Mustang, then heading to her apartment.
Tyler ordered a pizza—with extra pepperoni, because it was Esme’s favorite—while Chloe put the eggs in the fridge and lined up the butter and dry ingredients on her kitchen counter.
Ten minutes later, Lou had pressed the buzzer to the security door in the lobby, and two minutes after that, a cheery knock sounded off on her door.
“Hey, Lou!” Chloe said, giving herself up to one of his bear hugs.
“Hi, kiddo,” he said, making her laugh.
“You’re going to call me that until I’m a hundred, aren’t you?”
“Don’t be silly.” He pulled a mock frown, looking at Esme as if to say, get a load of this lady. “I’m going to call you that until you’re at least a hundred and five.”
Chloe shook her head but didn’t argue. “Of course you are.” Turning toward Esme, she waved in greeting. “Are you ready to make some cookies? We can probably squeeze in an episode of Bake Off, too. Last week was Cake Week.”
Esme nodded, her dark hair falling over her eyes and making them impossible to read. “Yeah, sure. I guess.”
“Okay. Pizza’s on its way, too.”
Lou smiled, looking from Esme to Chloe. “Well, I’ll get out of your hair. You three have fun, and don’t forget to save a few cookies for me.”
Chloe promised Lou she’d bring Esme home by ten and bearing cookies, giving him one more hug before he said his goodbyes and headed out.
“Hey, Esme,” Tyler said from the kitchen. “Cool shirt.”
Her eyes widened slightly before narrowing. “You like Jimmy’s Pants?”
He leaned back against the counter, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. “Chloe played a couple of their songs for me the other day. Little World is pretty good.”
“Velvet Dreams is better,” she said, then added, “but I like Little World, too.”
“Why don’t you pull up a playlist?” Chloe asked, heading to the sink to wash her hands and feeling her shoulders loosen to match her mood. “We can listen while we get the cookie dough prepped.”
After a beat of surprise, Esme said, “Okay.” She scrolled through her phone for a minute and tapped the button for a playlist, adjusting the volume to keep the music low, then setting her phone on the breakfast bar.
“So, um, I guess I should have told you guys this earlier, but I’ve never made cookies before. ”
“Me either,” Tyler said, making Chloe want to kiss him directly on the mouth. “Total cookie rookie.”
Esme’s laugh was soft, but there. “Really?”
“Yep. I’ve done swift water rescues in forty-degree weather and hung fifteen stories above the city in a harness to save a stranded window washer, but never baked a cookie in my life.”
“Whoa,” Esme said, edging closer to the counter, where Chloe had just taken down two big bowls and plugged in her trusty stand mixer. “I thought you only did fire stuff.”
He shook his head, letting Esme wash her hands before following suit.
“That’s a lot of what we do, and it’s what I did first, before I moved to Rescue Squad with Ryan.
But now, I get to do all kinds of things.
Rope rescue, HazMat calls. Sometimes we even get to back up Remington SWAT if something major happens. ”
“Wow. That’s badass.” Esme bit her lip, her stare darting to Chloe’s. “Sorry.”
“That’s okay. It is pretty badass,” she agreed. “But maybe let’s not get in the habit of swearing too much so I can stay on Tom’s good side.”
Esme nodded. Chloe showed her and Tyler the basic steps of making cookie dough—how to cream the butter and sugar together until it was pale and fluffy, scraping down the sides of the mixer bowl with a rubber spatula to make sure it came together evenly, and how to scoop flour into the measuring cups and level it off with a knife rather than dunking the cup right in the container.
True to her word, she guided them through the majority of the work, even when Tyler added the flour to the mixer too fast and ended up with a mushroom cloud all over his shirt.
Being in the kitchen with both of them made Chloe feel happy and light, and by the time they’d gotten the cookies into the oven and plowed through an entire pizza, she didn’t even care that the place looked like a warzone.
“You two baked, so I’ll clean,” she said, lifting her chin at the living room. “Pro tip: the chair is the best seat in the house.”
“Dibs,” Esme said, making a beeline for the thing, but she stopped short one step away. “Oh, you have a cat.”
Gary usually made himself so scarce around people who weren’t Chloe that she was shocked he’d made himself known, even if it was to send a warning meow out from his lair.
“That is not a cat,” Tyler said with one blond brow raised. “It’s a cranky old man who wants you to get off his lawn, trapped inside a cat’s body.”
Chloe wanted to argue, but it was a fair point. “Yeah, be careful, Esme. Gary’s not very friendly.”
Esme sat very carefully in the chair, where Gary promptly shocked the crap out of Chloe—and Tyler, by the look on his face—by coming out to give Esme a tentative sniff.
“He doesn’t seem so bad to me,” she said, a warm smile breaking over her face as Gary jumped up into her lap and promptly started to purr like a monster truck.
Okay, wow. Chloe laughed and shook her head. “Looks like Gary has exceptional taste.”
A corner of Tyler’s mouth lifted along with his brow. “There you go, eviscerating my ego again, Ferguson.”
She smiled back, sweeter than the cookies they’d just made. “I’m here for you, Gates.”
Esme rolled her eyes, but her smile killed any hope of selling her irritation. “Excuse me. Gary and I want to watch Bake Off, if you don’t mind. It’s Cake Week.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Tyler said, laughing. He helped Chloe make fast work of the dishes while Esme crooned at Gary and got settled in the chair. They watched TV with cookies and warm milk, squeezing in both Cake Week and Bread Week before Chloe caught the time and grabbed the remote.
“I’ve got to get you back to Lou and Carleen’s before we both turn into pumpkins,” she said, pushing herself off the couch. “I’m opening at Sweetie Pies, and you’ve got school tomorrow.”
Esme shrugged but then gave up a slow nod. “Yeah. We’re starting a new math unit, so I guess it’s not a total L.”
She petted Gary a few more times, then got up so he could retreat back under the chair.
She said goodnight to Tyler, fist bumping him lightly and grabbing a big bag of cookies to take with her.
Chloe texted Carleen to tell her they were on the way, leaving Tyler to hold down the fort and be thoroughly cold-shouldered by Gary with a promise to be right back.
She and Esme made their way to her car in silence that wasn’t uncomfortable, but Esme broke it most of the way into the fifteen-minute trip with a whopper.
“So, you and Tyler are a thing, right?”
Chloe coughed out a surprised laugh. “What makes you ask?”
“You don’t need to spill, or anything. I totally get it if you don’t want to tell me personal stuff. It’s just that he looks at you like he really likes you, and you’re just…I don’t know. Like, a team, I guess? It just feels like you belong together.”
Chloe’s heart went for a full gallop at both Esme’s honesty and her observation.
“First of all, you don’t have to shy away from asking me things.
If they’re too personal, I’ll let you know.
Secondly, Tyler and I are together romantically, and we are kind of a team, so yes. I guess that means we’re a thing.”
“That’s cool.” Esme looked out the window. “I didn’t mean to crash tonight, but it was fun. Hanging out with you guys.”
“You didn’t crash,” Chloe said, hoping Esme knew she meant it. “I’m not just here to help you through the trial, Esme. I’m part of your team, too. Tyler and I both are.”
Pulling up in front of Lou and Carleen’s house, she put the car in park and turned to look at Esme, startled to see tears glittering in her eyes.
“Sorry.” Esme blinked rapidly, her lashes fluttering black in the warm streetlight. “Most of my foster parents and group home directors have been okay, but no one's ever wanted me. I’ve never had”—her voice caught, and so did Chloe’s heart—“a team. Not like you and Tyler.”
“Well, you do now.”
“I’m scared,” Esme whispered, and Chloe took a deep breath, holding completely steady.
“You’re incredibly brave, and I won't leave your side, no matter how scary it gets. We’re going to get through this together, okay? That’s what teams do.”
“Do you promise?”
“I do,” Chloe vowed.
And then, she held Esme, as solid as a rock, while the girl broke down and cried.