Grump of Cole, page 5
The recollection did nothing to quell my nervousness. To think, the guy was living across the street from me, and he didn't even know it.
Cripes, I didn't want him to know it, not even now, when he was being surprisingly civil.
All too well, I recalled his recent visit to my aunt's house when he'd returned the Kitten Cove sign. My sister had been incredibly rude – and with good reason, considering that Cole was the guy I'd been griping about for months.
It didn't help that during his visit, I'd been hunkered down like a total coward – hiding out of sight, but apparently not out of earshot, judging from his reaction when my disgruntled mutterings had gotten too loud.
Sure, my sister and cousin had done a decent job of covering it up, but Cole Henster wasn't stupid. If he learned where I was living, he would almost surely put two-and-two together and come up with the truth.
What truth, you ask?
The one that exposed me as the muttering psycho in the corner – and a barely employed one at that.
It was all too embarrassing for words.
During our impromptu lunch, we spent the first few minutes saying very little, and I figured the trend would continue until we were done.
After all, we weren't exactly friends.
And yet, he had rescued me. What was that about?
I had no idea, but the question made me realize something. "I guess I never thanked you, did I?"
With the hint of a smile, he replied, "Who says I need it?"
"Whether you need it or not," I said, "I still need to say thanks." And yet, I hadn't. Not officially.
The words of gratitude stuck in my throat like a chicken bone caught sideways. But was it any wonder? Over the course of our acquaintance, Cole Henster had done me a lot more harm than good.
Across from me, he said, "I'll make you a deal."
"What kind of deal?"
"Instead of a thanks, tell me something."
What was this? A trap? Cautiously, I asked, "What?"
He glanced toward the candy store. "Earlier, why didn't you just say you had a boyfriend?"
"Honestly? I guess it never occurred to me." I gave it some thought. "The whole thing caught me really off guard. I mean, that's never happened to me before." Thank goodness.
Cole leaned back in his chair. "So, do you?"
"Do I what?"
"Have a boyfriend."
What trickery was this? "Why would you want to know?"
He shrugged. "Call it curiosity."
"But why would you be curious?"
Hey, it was a perfectly reasonable question. Under normal circumstances, I might've assumed that the guy was interested. But this was Cole Henster. He hated me.
Cole asked, "Why wouldn't I be curious?"
"Well, for starters, because you practically fired me."
"No. You quit. Big difference."
"Only by a technicality," I said. "And you definitely fired Lloyd Grampkin." I bristled at the memory. "And all he did was put on a Santa suit."
Cole's gaze darkened. "That's what you think? That I fired the guy for dressing up?"
"What else would I think? Admit it. You hated our costumes."
"No. I hated what they stood for."
"What?" I scoffed. "Christmas?"
He gave me a look. "Don't you mean Christmas in July?"
I didn't appreciate the mockery. "Hey, it was a company tradition."
"Which I canceled."
"Exactly!"
With cold precision, he asked, "Did it ever occur to you that I had a good reason for doing what I did?"
My chin lifted. "No."
He glanced toward my soup. "You're not eating."
I pointed to his sandwich. "Neither are you."
"Maybe I'm not hungry."
"Yeah, well maybe I'm not hungry either." Except now that I thought about it, I was absolutely starving. But did I admit it? Heck no. He didn't deserve the satisfaction – of what, I had no idea.
"I'll make you a deal," he said.
"Another one?"
He nodded. "If you eat your soup, I'll eat my sandwich."
"Why?"
"Because you're hungry."
"But I just told you that I'm not."
He chuckled. "Yeah, but you were lying."
I glowered across the table. "Did you just call me a liar?"
"About not being hungry?" He grinned. "Hell yeah."
The grin made my heart do a funny little flop, which only annoyed me further. "And how exactly do you know this?"
"You said so."
I blinked. "What?"
"Yeah. In the candy store – you told your co-worker you were starving."
Had I? I'd been so flustered, I could hardly recall.
When I made no reply, Cole said, "So, either you were lying then, or you're lying now. Regardless, the deal stands." He gave my soup another glance. "If you eat, I'll eat, too."
The guy was too tricky by half.
As I watched, he lifted his sandwich with both hands and took a giant bite, as if to say, "Hey, I'm living up to my end of the deal."
Hah! Two could play at this game. I grabbed my spoon and dug deep into my bowl. And then, with a smug smile, I lifted the spoon to my lips and dumped the steaming liquid straight into my mouth.
Son-of-a-pup! The bisque was way too hot, and I almost spit it right back out again. My eyes watered as I desperately adjusted the scalding liquid in my mouth, working like crazy to cool it before I swallowed.
Finally, with an unseemly gulp, it was gone, burning my throat all the way down.
Cole eyed me with obvious concern. "You alright?"
I gave an empty swallow. "Of course. I mean, I like it hot." At the sound of my own words, I wanted to wince. The way I'd said that – it had sounded all sexual, as if I were talking about a monster-sized nooner and not my lunch.
As the thought lingered, I felt my tongue dart out between my lips. When his gaze dipped to my mouth, I felt a warmth in my stomach that had nothing to do with the stuff I'd just swallowed.
For a long moment, he said nothing, and neither did I. Was he thinking the same thing that I was?
No. Definitely not.
He couldn’t be. And yet, his eyes were a lot warmer than I'd ever seen them.
The effect was annoyingly hypnotic, and I leaned forward, drawn into his gaze.
But then, just in time, I caught myself. With a mental slap, I straightened in my chair and tried again. "What I mean is…" Desperately I searched for something intelligent to say. "Boy that soup sure was delicious."
Great. Now I sounded like a freaking soup commercial.
And Cole looked ready to laugh.
I demanded, "What's so funny?"
He chuckled. "You."
As I stared in righteous indignation, his chuckle grew into a laugh. And, as if this weren't bad enough, I felt my own lips twitch like they wanted to laugh, too.
Why, I had no idea. I should've been angry. And maybe I would have been, if only his laughter wasn't so warm and wonderful, like peppermint hot chocolate on Christmas morning.
Soon, I couldn't help it. I was laughing, too. By the time our laughter faded, the warmth in my stomach had spread throughout my entire body.
Oh, yeah. This guy was definitely dangerous.
Chapter 10
Cole
I had to give her credit. For someone who'd just swallowed something too hot, she was being a surprisingly good sport about it.
I shouldn’t have laughed. But she'd looked so cute that I'd been unable to stop myself. Or maybe I hadn't wanted to.
This year had been filled with a lot of things, but laughter hadn't been one of them.
Already we'd been sitting at the deli for nearly twenty minutes. It didn't feel like twenty, but the clock on the wall said otherwise.
Now we were back to eating again, not saying anything important, just enjoying each other's company. Or at least, I was enjoying hers.
Some might say I was enjoying it too much, because I found myself steering the conversation away from potential minefields, like her old job or my old attitude.
Yeah, I'd been a hard-ass. But I'd had my reasons – reasons I might explain if things ever got friendly.
I wouldn’t call them friendly now, but I wouldn't call them unfriendly either.
While we ate, I learned that she liked cats, enjoyed snowy weather, and had a real thing for Christmas. This last bit I'd known already from the short time she'd been my employee.
About this, I made no made comment. The last thing I wanted now was to get her thinking about her final day at the office.
Instead, I explained that I had no pets because I wasn't home enough to do them justice and told her that any weather was fine by me because every season had its high points.
But even as I said it, it wasn't lost on me that it had been a long time since I'd actively enjoyed any kind of weather.
For years now, I'd been focused on other things. Too focused? Maybe.
Either way, the point remained. During all of those hours at the office, it hadn't much mattered whether the day was snowy or sunny. It had been all the same to me.
But now I took a subtle look around. Outside the deli, snow was drifting downward over the narrow downtown street, softening my view of the old-fashioned candy store that dominated the scene.
It looked like something out of a classic Christmas movie, the kind I'd loved as a kid, back when I'd had time for ice-hockey, for making snowmen, and for other wintery things that I'd given up along the way.
I'd never felt the lack of them.
Until now.
Across from me, Lexie looked down at her bowl. With a little laugh, she said, "It's empty."
Yeah. It was.
But I wasn't laughing. An empty bowl meant lunch was over.
Or was it?
I said, "If you want more, just say the word."
She looked up. "No, but thanks. I just meant…" She fiddled with her spoon. "The time went by really fast." A faint blush appeared on her cheeks. "What I mean is, the soup went by really fast. It really was terrific."
Terrific was right. But I wasn't thinking of the soup. "Good to know."
Lexie turned to look out the window. "Well, I guess it's safe to return, huh?"
Safe for her.
But not for me.
I wasn't ready to let her go. "You do realize, you never answered my question."
She turned back. "What question?"
"About you having a boyfriend." I almost smiled. "So, do you?"
"Oh." Her blush deepened. "Well…no actually."
Now I did smile. "No, huh?"
She laughed. "Well, none except for you."
Something in my chest stirred. "Oh, yeah?"
"I just mean, you know, you're my fake boyfriend."
It was then that I realized something. I didn't want to be Lexie's fake anything. On impulse, I said, "So, do you have any plans for later?"
She looked surprised by the question. "You mean later tonight?" Her lips curved upward. "No, actually."
"So…" I said the first thing that popped into my head. "You wanna go sledding?"
Chapter 11
Lexie
Back at my aunt's place, I was peering out through the front window blinds when I heard my sister ask, "What are you doing?"
I whirled to look. "Nothing."
Harper looked from me to the front window. "You're watching his house again."
Outside, it was cold and dark except for all of those Christmas lights – not just at Cole's place, but outside my aunt's house, too, thanks to the excellent work of the decorating company.
But forget the outside. Here inside, the room felt brighter than a thousand twinkling lights as a sudden warmth crept up my neck and spread to my face.
I was so busted.
Still, I forced a laugh. "Oh, please. I was watching the kittens."
At the moment, they were curled up in their favorite basket near the fireplace. But I had been watching them.
In fact, I'd been playing with them for nearly an hour before they'd gotten all tuckered out and had retreated to their comfiest basket for one of their many naps.
As for my sister, she looked unconvinced. "You weren't watching them a minute ago."
"How would you know?" I asked. "You weren't even here."
"Yes, I was." She gave me a look that was half-smug, half-amused. "I've been standing here for at least five minutes."
Impossible.
Or was it?
When I replied with only a shrug, Harper said, "You're up to something."
"Me?"
"Yes. You. I can always tell, you know."
This was true. Harper was a lot like our mom. She could always tell when I was up to no good – or when I was hiding something.
In this case, I was hiding the fact that I'd made plans with Cole Henster – a guy I'd sworn to hate forever.
Earlier at the deli, he'd nearly shocked the pants off me when he'd not only asked me out, but had suggested that we go sledding of all things.
As a kid, I'd loved sledding, and not only during the day.
Near the center of our city was a decent-sized hill. The hill was man-made, part of a steep rise that provided the foundation for a long, high bridge over the city's widest river.
The hill itself spanned the whole length of our largest city park – the one that hosted fireworks on the Fourth of July and countless other festivals throughout the summer.
When the weather turned cold, the park was a winter wonderland with an open ice-skating rink, the occasional food truck, and free downhill-sledding for anyone with a sled.
I didn't have a sled, not anymore. But Cole had promised to bring one. He'd even offered to pick me up.
For obvious reasons, I'd declined, telling him that I had some errands to run and that I would simply meet him at the park.
But of course, things weren't nearly as simple as I'd made them sound.
I was scheduled to meet him at seven o'clock, and the park was a twenty-minute drive away. Already, the time was past six-thirty, but I couldn’t leave until he left first.
That's why I'd been watching his house. My plan was to leave five minutes after he did, so he wouldn't see where I was living.
It wasn't cowardly.
It was smart, strategic even.
If tonight we rediscovered that we hated each other, he and I would never go out again – and I'd never need to explain that I was living within spitting distance.
When it came to my sister, the same logic applied. It tonight's date was a dud, I wouldn't need to justify my decision to take up with the enemy.
See? It all made perfect sense.
When my sister turned to look at the kittens, I snuck another peek through the blinds.
She called out, "I saw that!"
I whirled to face her. "So what? There's no law against looking."
She looked from me to the window. "It's not the 'looking' that bothers me."
"So what does?"
"I don't know, but you're hiding something." Her eyes narrowed. "And it involves him." She said "him" like he was a patch of yellow snow.
I couldn't exactly blame her. She was only acting this way because someone – yeah, I meant me – had spent months telling her that Cole was a monster.
But in my own defense, he had been a monster. Maybe he still was. Even now, I couldn't quite believe that I was actually going out with him.
Who knows, maybe this wasn't a date at all. Maybe it was just, I dunno, a sledding appointment or part of some research project on former employees.
Hey, it wasn't totally impossible.
Deliberately, I changed the subject. "Where's Gwen?"
"My guess?" Harper grimaced. "Dealing with mama drama."
I shook my head. "Again?"
"Not again. Always. You know how she is."
Harper was referring, of course, to Gwen's mom, whose life was a bucking bronco of ups and down, usually related to men. "So, what now?" I asked.
Harper rolled her eyes. "Don't ask."
I wanted to ask, but it seemed like a risky prospect, demanding to know what Gwen was doing when I was heading out on a secret mission of my own.
Already, I'd smuggled my warmest winter coat out to my car, along with my mittens and snow boots. That way, when I finally left my aunt's place, I wouldn't arouse further suspicion.
After all, who needed grief when this was probably just a one-time thing?
Not me, that's for sure.
Chapter 12
Lexie
When I pulled into the parking lot, I spotted Cole Henster right away. He was standing near the rear of his black SUV, wearing jeans and the same red ski jacket that he'd been wearing this afternoon. The SUV's hatch was open, and Cole was reaching into the cargo area as if preparing to pull something out.
I was pretty sure I knew what that was something was, but I didn't linger long enough to see for sure. Instead, I turned my car in the opposite direction and selected a parking spot several rows away, making sure to park behind a big utility truck so Cole wouldn't see what I was driving.
It wasn't because my car was old, even though it was. It was because at some time or another, he would almost surely spot my car in the neighborhood, assuming he hadn't already.
If he didn't know who the car belonged to, it could remain incognito – well, as much as possible for a vehicle like mine.
My car was bright yellow with a big black racing stripe down the middle, which was pretty hilarious considering that the vehicle wasn't even fast. It didn't even look fast. But it did look cute, and it had front-wheel drive, which meant that it handled snowy roads surprisingly well.
Considering that snow had been falling all day, this was a very good thing. For sledding, the conditions were ideal. But for driving, not so much.
Happily, I was already here, so I quickly threw on my hat and mittens and left my vehicle. As I walked toward Cole's parking spot, I glanced up at the nearby hill and grinned at the sight of at least two dozen other sledders – kids mostly – either riding down the hill on their sleds or scampering upward, dragging their sleds behind them.
