Page 77 of Falling for the Grinchy Bad Boy

Would there be more drinks? More meals? More sex?

Yes, please, to all three.

I returned with two steaming cups of spiced cider. The scent of cinnamon and cloves warmed my face as I carried them through the cold air. Cooper had claimed a table with a good view of the square. He stood as I approached, taking one of the cups from my hands.

“Thank you,” he said. “This is exactly what I needed.”

“Too bad we didn’t have a little rum to add,” I joked.

I could feel the warmth of one of the heaters on my back. The festival continued around us, and our vantage point was a great spot to people watch and take it all in. I took a deep breath and my chest filled with pride.

“This is nice,” I said before taking a sip of the perfectly spiced cider.

“It is,” Cooper agreed, and when I looked up, I found him watching me instead of the festival.

We sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes, sipping our cider and watching the festival wind down around us. Children were getting tired and cranky, parents were starting to pack up, and the vendors were beginning to cover their merchandise for the day.

It felt remarkably like a date, I realized. The two of us sharing a quiet drink, talking easily, enjoying each other’s company without any particular agenda. If someone had told me a month ago that I’d be sitting at a Christmas festival with Cooper Frost, feeling like we were in the middle of the most natural thing in the world, I would have laughed.

Now, it felt like exactly where I was supposed to be.

“So, the next big thing is the Christmas market opening, right? Tuesday night?” Cooper’s question pulled me back from my thoughts.

I nodded, suddenly feeling a flutter of nerves at the reminder. “Tuesday night, and then it runs through the weekend. It’s probably the most complicated event we’re doing. All those vendor booths, the food trucks, the entertainment schedule. I keep having nightmares about everything falling apart.”

“It’s not going to fall apart,” Cooper said with quiet confidence. “You’ve organized everything down to the last detail. You’ve got contingency plans for your contingency plans. And you’ve got a whole town of people ready to help if anything does go wrong.”

“You sound pretty certain about that.”

“I am.” His blue eyes were serious, intent on mine. “Joy, you’ve done an incredible job with all of this. The town hasn’t had a festival this well organized in years, maybe ever. The mayor’s going to be thrilled, and you’re going to get all the credit you deserve.”

The sincerity in his voice made my chest tight with emotion. Cooper wasn’t someone who gave compliments lightly.

“Thank you,” I said softly. “That means a lot, especially coming from you.”

“Why especially from me?”

I considered how to answer that without revealing too much about how much his opinion had come to matter to me. “Because you don’t say things you don’t mean. And because you’ve seen all the behind-the-scenes chaos and stress, not just the finished product.”

“I suppose I have seen the chaos,” he admitted. “But I’ve also seen how you handle it. You don’t fall apart when things go wrong. You just figure out how to fix them.”

“Kind of like someone else I know,” I said pointedly.

He laughed at that, shaking his head. “Touché.”

The portable heater clicked off, apparently reaching the end of its timer cycle. I suddenly became aware of how cold it was getting as the sun disappeared behind the buildings. Around us, the festival was definitely clearing out.

“I should probably start helping with cleanup,” I said reluctantly, not really wanting this moment to end.

“Probably,” Cooper agreed, but he didn’t make any move to get up from the table.

We looked at each other across the small space between us. I felt that familiar charge in the air, the same electric tension that had led us to wild sex in the city hall break room. The urge to lean across the table and kiss him was almost overwhelming, but we were in the middle of a very public space, surrounded by half the town.

“Cooper,” I started, not sure what I was going to say but feeling like I needed to acknowledge what was happening between us.

“I know,” he said quietly, echoing the words he’d said in his bed a few nights ago.

We were definitely moving beyond casual whatever-this-was territory, and we both knew it.

We finally forced ourselves to get up from the table, joining the general migration toward cleanup duty. I felt like I was walking on air even as I was picking up garbage.

Whatever was happening between Cooper and me, it was real. It was mutual. And for the first time since I had come back to town, I felt like I had a reason to stay.