Page 100 of Falling for the Grinchy Bad Boy

“Good,” Lynn said with satisfaction. “Then you won’t mind stepping aside while Cooper and I work things out. It would be the decent thing to do, don’t you think? Getting in the way of true love and second chances? Well, that would just be selfish.”

“I’m not stepping aside from anything,” I said, my voice stronger than I felt. “If Cooper wants to be with you, that’s his choice. But I’m not going to disappear just because you’ve decided you want him back.”

Lynn’s mask slipped slightly, revealing a flash of genuine anger underneath the practiced sweetness. “You always were stubborn. Even in high school, you never knew when you were outclassed.”

“And you always were a manipulative bitch,” I replied, my patience finally snapping. “Even in high school, when you made other girls feel like garbage just to make yourself feel superior.”

For a moment, we stared at each other across the space between us, two women who’d never liked each other much even as teenagers, now facing off over a man we both cared about for very different reasons.

“This conversation is over,” I said, gathering my festival materials and preparing to walk away. “I have work to do.”

“Of course you do,” Lynn called after me, her voice carrying easily across the square. “Enjoy playing small-town event coordinator while it lasts. We both know you’ll be running back to the big city soon enough. It’s what you do.”

I didn’t turn around, didn’t give her the satisfaction of seeing how deeply her parting shot had landed. But her words followed me as I walked away, echoing in my mind with uncomfortable accuracy.

Was that what I did? Run away when things got complicated?

I made it exactly three blocks before my hands started shaking. Not from cold, but from the delayed reaction to Lynn’s psychological warfare. I ducked into the coffee shop and locked myself in the bathroom, leaning against the door and trying to catch my breath.

She was wrong. Everything she had said was manipulation and jealousy and desperation.

But God, she looked so perfect. So polished and put-together and like exactly the kind of woman who belonged with a handsome man like Cooper. Standing next to her, I had felt like a mess—literally covered in chili sauce and running around in work clothes, stressed and overwhelmed and definitely not magazine-ready.

What if Cooper saw us together and realized he had been settling? What if Lynn’s return made him remember all the reasons he’d fallen in love with her in the first place?

I knew she destroyed him when she left, and now that she was back, was he going to fall back into her arms?

By the time I made it home, I was barely holding myself together. My aunt took one look at my face and immediately shepherded me into the kitchen, putting the kettle on for tea and settling me at the table like I was still a child who’d scraped her knee.

“What happened?” she asked gently.

“Lynn’s back,” I said, and then the whole story came pouring out—the confrontation in the square and my own insecurities about whether I was just a rebound or something real.

By the end of it, I was crying. Not the pretty, delicate tears that Lynn probably shed when she wanted sympathy. I was an ugly crier.

“She’s everything I’m not,” I said finally. “Perfect and polished and sophisticated. She looks like the kind of woman who should be married to a man like Cooper.”

“And you look like the kind of woman who makes that man smile like he’s never been happier in his life,” she replied. “I’ve seen Cooper with you, honey. I’ve never seen him look at anyone the way he looks at you. Lynn is no threat.”

“But what if she’s right? What if I am just a rebound? What if he’s only with me because I’m convenient and she wasn’t available?”

“Then he’s an idiot, and you’re better off without him. But I don’t think that’s what’s happening here. I think Lynn is scared and desperate and trying to destroy something beautiful because she can’t stand that Cooper found happiness without her. She went off whoring with her boytoy and clearly that didn’t work out. So now she’s back to stir up shit.”

I wanted to believe her. I wanted to believe her so badly it physically hurt.

“What if she convinces him to give her another chance?” I whispered.

“Then it was never meant to be,” Patricia said. “But, Joy, honey, love isn’t something you can steal or manipulate your way back into. If Cooper’s feelings for you are real—and I believe they are—then Lynn’s little performance today isn’t going to change that.”

“I should have been more confident. I should have told her exactly what I thought of her showing up here making demands. I should have smeared chili on her face.”

“You stood your ground. You didn’t let her intimidate you into walking away. That takes strength. And smearing chili on people should be a last resort.”

That night, my phone buzzed with a text from Cooper: How did the prep go today? Everything ready for tomorrow?

I stared at the message for a long time, my thumb hovering over the keyboard. How did I respond to that? Did I tell him about my encounter with Lynn? Did I pretend everything was fine? Did I ask him directly if he was having second thoughts about us?

In the end, I set the phone aside without responding. Maybe Cooper needed some time to sort out his feelings without pressure from me. Maybe Lynn’s return had stirred up old emotions that he needed to process.

I didn’t want to get in the way. Maybe she did make him happy. They were going to get married. She realized she screwed up and now she was back.

The thought made my stomach clench with anxiety, but I couldn’t shake it.

All I could do now was wait and see if the man I was falling in love with would choose the polished perfection of his past or the messy reality of his present.