Page 40 of #Starstruck

Little butterflies flapped around inside me at the thought that Chase wanted to protect me. Not that I needed his protection, but it felt amazing that he wanted to.

“Not to mention it got you here making these cookies you couldn’t stop bragging about on your Twitter feed.”

It was true. I was not humble about my baking skills. “I didn’t come here as your assistant tonight. I came over as your ...” I momentarily panicked. What was the right word here? Just because Chase felt protective didn’t mean he wanted a relationship. He might see me as a little sister or something, and I was not about to make a huge fool of myself. “As your friend. And I don’t want you to pay me to spend time with you. Do you know what that would make you?”

“Extremely lucky?” he answered with a wink that made my knees melt faster than the butter in the saucepan.

“I’m being serious.”

“So am I.” He leaned forward, and I realized his intent. To steal some of my batter. I smacked his hand and moved the bowl away, which made him chuckle.

“If you want to spend time with me, then let’s just spend time together.”

“Are you quitting?”

“You could always fire me, and I could collect unemployment.” He didn’t smile at my joke. “If we’re ... doing whatever this is, then I don’t want your money between us.”

The silence lasted so long that I almost started babbling just to make it less quiet. “Does that mean you want to see if there’s something here?” he asked.

What was that supposed to mean? “If we’re being honest, you’re not really my type.”

“Remember what I said about you being a bad liar?”

“It’s not a lie!” I stirred the wet ingredients into the dry ones, thankful for the distraction. “I tend to go for more nerdy, shy guys.” That feeling was back, the thick one that made it hard to breathe or concentrate, that made my pulse go haywire and my stomach do flips. So of course I had to make it stupid. “I mean, obviously, you’re everyone with a pulse’s type. I’m sure you’re on the hall pass of every woman in America.”

“Hall pass?”

“Yeah, you know—the celebrities you’re allowed to cheat with and not get in trouble with your significant other. You did an episode about it onFrenemies.”

“I know.” His devilish smile made me want to smack him out of exasperation.

“Then why did you make me explain it?”

“Because of how cute you are when you get embarrassed.” He stretched, and my eyes couldn’t help but follow the lines of his arms. I enjoyed the way his muscles tightened. “I think we just established that we would like to hang out more. Without me paying you for it.”

Did “hang out more” mean dating in guy speak? If we were dating, it was time to ’fess up.

“There’s something I have to tell you first. And it may change your mind.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Why was this never easy? It didn’t seem to matter how many times I’d said it, how many times I’d practiced it so I could sound cool and sophisticated and above it all. Instead, I came across like a cavewoman, lacking basic language. “You. Me. No do it.”

It didn’t help matters when he reached across the counter and took my hand in his. “I can’t imagine anything you could say that would change my mind.”

“I’m celibate.” I blurted the words out without my usual buildup to explain my decision.

Three beats later he said, “What?”

“Celibate. I have chosen not to have sex until I get married.”

Chase looked pensive, and I tried to slip out of his grasp, but he wouldn’t let go. Instead of being annoyed as I normally would have been, I was glad. The gesture showed that I hadn’t completely scared him off, that he wouldn’t be inventing a cat’s surgery in order to flee, and it comforted me.

“Is it okay if I ask why?”

He wasn’t the first. “There are a lot of reasons. At first it was religious. What my grandparents taught me. Then when I was old enough to realize how young my mom was when she had me, I decided I wanted to be the opposite of her. And then my best friend had a pregnancy scare when we were sixteen. I didn’t want to be a mother at sixteen.”

“I totally get that. I didn’t want to be a mother at sixteen, either.”

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