Page 114 of Irresistibly Us
He shrugs. “A couple bags of jelly beans. Three-point-four-ounce cans of Dr Pepper since that’s the biggest size liquid you can take though security. A note for you to read on the plane, but since I know patience isn’t your strong suit and you’ll most definitely read the note the second you get through security, I added a second one you can actually read on the plane. A water bottle full of crushed ice you can pour the Dr Pepper into. It won’t be as icy as you like, but it’ll do in a pinch.”
“Do they even make three-ounce cans of Dr Pepper?” I ask, my brain reeling just a little at how well this man knows me. How lucky I am that my best friend gets to be my person too. It’s a whole freaking dream, even if I’m about to leave it, at least temporarily.
Tyler shakes his head, looking a little sheepish, and the whole thing is so fucking cute. “I contacted the company and told them my Dr Pepper obsessed girlfriend is traveling and she’ll only drink from a can or the fountain so buying a plastic bottle once you get through security is a nonstarter. They very kindly agreed to make me a limited-edition can for all your traveling needs. It even has your name and face on it, kind of like you can get in the Olympic Village.”
Laughing, I hug Tyler tight. “You called a massive, publicly traded company and asked them to make me tiny soda cans for my trip to California? You, who hates using your fame so much you’ll barely accept endorsement deals unless you love the product so much you could preach for it like an evangelist?”
He rolls his eyes. “You know I hate all that hero worship, give celebrities free stuff shit. It’s so stupid.”
“So why do it this time?”
Tyler tucks a curl behind my ear and strokes his knucklesdown my jaw. “Because I wasn’t doing it for me. I was doing it for you. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you, especially when it comes to your soda receptacle of choice. And actually, the tiny Dr Peppers aren’t just for your California trip. Apparently, the shortest amount of time they can run the filling conveyer belt is for an hour, and the filling speed is about a hundred and twenty thousand cans per hour, so…”
I throw back my head and cackle. “Are you telling me you bought a hundred and twenty thousand teeny cans of Dr Pepper?”
Tyler grins at me. “They’re stacked in the garage. And in my parents’ garage. And also in the basement. A hundred thousand cans of soda takes up a lot of space. Even when the cans are teeny.”
Throwing my arms around him, I squeeze tightly. “I’m obsessed with this and I can’t wait to drink all my Dr Pepper out of the tiniest cans ever made for the foreseeable future.”
He furrows his brow in thought. “I need to do new freezer calculations for the tiny cans. The thirty-seven minutes required for a twelve-ounce can won’t do it.” He shakes his head as if the idea of not having the right freezer time to soda can ratio is the worst thing that could befall a person. “I’ll experiment while you’re away.”
I stare at him, wondering how it’s possible I got this lucky. How I can feel so much for another human being. “I love you so much I think my head’s going to explode. And if I don’t go through security in the next thirty seconds, I’ll miss my flight.”
Bending down, Tyler picks up my myriad bags and hooks them onto my shoulders, keeping his hands there and bending to give me the slowest, sweetest kiss that has my heart doing a long, slow roll in my chest. Easing back, he frames my face with his hands. “There she is,” he murmurs, smile on his face. “My brilliant, badass girl. Go knock them absolutely dead. I’ll be waiting right here for you when you get back.”
“I love you,” I say again, not entirely sure my feet will let me walk away from him. “I love you so, so much.”
“Baby you have no idea,” he says, kissing me one more time and guiding me towards security, somehow knowing I need the extra push, and he has to be the one to give it to me. “I will never stop loving you as long as I have breath in my lungs, and I’ll probably love you after that too because this love is big and wild and meant to last longer than forever.”
I hug Tyler one last time, and he does the same, squeezing tightly. While we’re wrapped together with the airport streaming around us, I feel him bring his hand to his face over my head, swipe under his eyes, and give the smallest sniffle, and my heart cracks in half for this sweetest man with the softest heart and biggest feelings I get to call mine.
Then we break apart and I force myself to walk away, heading towards security. And when I look back over my shoulder, Tyler is still standing there, watching me as I go.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
SOPHIE
Tyler
Hey birthday girl, I miss the shit out of you. And I love you. So fucking much. I wish you were here right now so I could kiss every inch of you and show you exactly how much so fucking much is.
“And this is one of our simulation labs.” My head snaps up from my phone, Luke’s voice dragging me back to the conversation as he leads me into a big room designed to look like an elementary school STEM lab. There are about thirty workstations, each with a computer and a 3D printer I know is the best beginner model for elementary-aged kids. One wall contains floor-to-ceiling shelves holding 3D printing filament in every color of the rainbow, robotics kits I recognize as the ones currently being used in Vex IQ robotics competitions, tools and screws and gears and what looks like multi-colored, and disassembled parts of a 3D printed droid. One wall is covered in 3D tiles that give the whole space a futuristic vibe, and the other two walls contain massive LED screens.
It’s basically heaven for tech-brained kids. And also for twenty-seven-year-old tech-brained women such as myself. My fingers itch to touch everything. To figure out how everything works. Which, I realize, is exactly the point.
I turn to Luke, giving him a smile. “You knew exactly what you were doing when you brought me up here.”
He gives me a knowing smile. “Guilty. You’re a geek just like me. Like all of us. I figured this might entice you to come on board. I could tell the rest of our operation didn’t exactly convince you to uproot your entire life and move it out west.”
Laughing a little because he is entirely correct, I sit at one of the workstations, running a hand over the 3D printer. “You could tell, huh?”
He takes the stool next to me. “I mean, no one actually gets excited over spreadsheets and annual reports, but you seemed particularly unimpressed. I figured I had to bring out the big guns, and for someone who heads a foundation dedicated to STEM education, this is the big guns.” He waves a hand around the lab.
Smiling, I pick up a tiny purple and green 3D printed dragon, turning it over and over in my hands. “Sorry about that. My head isn’t exactly in the game today. And I guess that isn’t something I should be admitting to my potential employer.”
He shrugs, leaning back on his stool. A good-looking guy in his early forties, Luke Davis has wavy brown hair going the tiniest bit gray at the temples, and he’s dressed in jeans, an old UCLA hoodie, and Nike high tops that have definitely seen better days. He has dark-framed glasses on his face, and his vibes are far less famousbillionaire tech founderand way morenerd who accidentally stumbled his way into enormous success. The second we met, I was immediately comfortable with him, and it took me until this second to realize why.
It feels like I’m looking at a younger version of my dad, and that drops my walls just enough to let some truth seep in.
