Chapter 12
Zoey
Our regular Girls Brunch at Frost Café is in full swing, and I'm sitting here thinking I'm about to be murdered by my two best friends.
"I swear, if you don't start talking, I'm going to climb across this table and shake it out of you."
Quinn slumps back in her chair across from me, arms crossed over a Needle & Ink tank top, hazel eyes glinting like she's already plotting where to bury the body once she's done with me.
Avery, beside her, is currently pulling apart a cinnamon scone with her fingers.
"Aves, that's mine."
"You're not eating it." She pops a flaky bite into her mouth with zero remorse.
The café is gorgeous this morning. Late autumn light slants through the tall front windows, catching the steam rising off our oversized mugs of Harold's signature roast. The fire in the stone hearth crackles softly behind us, and Millicent is gliding between tables with a teapot, pausing to refill a regular's cup.
Harold is behind the counter, scowling at the espresso machine.
It's the perfect cozy brunch setting.
And yet, here I am, about to be interrogated until I confess every dirty thing I've done in the last forty-eight hours.
"So Zoey." Quinn's voice goes silky-sweet. "Let's recap. You've told us about the bakery clean up…"
"Yep." I sip my coffee.
"And you've told us about the park… how Morgan came home calling him Buddy."
"That's right…" I exhale, wrapping both hands around my mug.
Quinn and Avery exchange a look I don't entirely catch.
Then Quinn arches one perfect eyebrow.
"Okay. Beautiful. So now…" She leans forward, elbows on the table. "Tell us about what happened in the locker room."
My eyes goes so wide coffee damn near squirts out the edges.
"Quinn!"
"What? It's the next natural question."
"How do you even—" I look at Avery. "How does she know about the locker room?"
Avery holds up both hands. "Don't look at me. I was on the ice with Morgan."
"Oh, please. Delaney has eyes everywhere in that building, Zoey."
Quinn shrugs like this is just basic information any sensible woman would already have.
I drop my forehead to the table and groan in a way I absolutely did not when I had Colt's mouth on mine.
"I want to die."
"Sweetheart, no." Avery reaches across and pats my hair. "We just want to know what happened."
I lift my head an inch. "Why? So you can make fun of me?"
"Yes," Quinn says immediately.
"No," Avery says, glaring at Quinn. "Because we love you. And because if something happened, you should be able to talk about it. With us. Your people."
I sit up slowly.
They're both watching me. Quinn with that sharp-edged patience she pretends she doesn't have, and Avery with those big green eyes that have always, always been a safer place to fall apart than I deserve.
I take a breath, wishing Colt was here to talk me through it like he did yesterday when I was having a full blown panic attack about how badly I'm going to fuck this stupid community event up.
Three ruined recipes, and no notebook to be found to rescue a recipe I've been working on for years.
I drag my eyes back up to find them both still waiting, two pairs of brows climbing higher with every second I stall confessing what happened the other night.
"I…" I clear my throat. "I may have… possibly had my hand down Colt Lane's pants."
The sound that comes out of Quinn is not a human sound.
Harold turns from the espresso machine and squints at our table. "Everything alright over there, ladies?"
"FINE, HAROLD!" Quinn calls back. "WE'RE FINE!"
He grumbles something about hooligans and goes back to his machine.
Quinn snaps back to me, eyes blazing. "Zoey Morrison. In the locker room?!"
"With your hand on his—" Avery chimes in.
"YES."
"And then what?"
I press my palms over my face.
"And then I… cried."
Quinn is, for the first time in our entire friendship, speechless.
Avery is the one who finally speaks, very gently. "Oh Zo… You cried?"
"Like, full sobs. Snot-and-everything sobs."
Quinn looks like she's about to laugh, and the look I shoot her could ice over Harold's espresso machine.
She swallows it, holds up both hands. "Okay. Okay. I'm sorry. Talk to us. What happened?"
I take a long breath and… I tell them.
Not the dirty parts. Not the way Colt said every morning, watching you, or the way his hands felt under my sweater.
I tell them the real part.
"It just felt wrong."
Avery frowns. "Wrong how?"
"Not wrong-wrong. Not him." I shake my head. "He was… God, you guys, he was perfect. And he stopped the second I made a sound."
"So what was wrong?" Quinn asks softly.
"I don't know. It was just like my body forgot what I was supposed to do next."
I shake my head and stare out the window at Main Street.
"I've told you guys how Daniel and I…" I swallow, shaking my head. "After Morgan was born, sex became a chore. Lights off, under the covers, fifteen minutes start to finish. And it wasn't even bad, it was just… nothing. It was a thing on a list. Like loading the dishwasher."
Avery's hand finds mine across the table.
"And I had a toddler in the next room with thin walls. And a husband who didn't really want to be there anymore. So I just… learned to not need anything. And then he left, and I just—"
I shrug.
"I stopped. I moved here and built a whole life where I didn't have to need that kind of thing anymore."
"Oh, Zo."
"And then there's Colt." My voice cracks.
"Right there. Telling me I'm beautiful and doing all these wonderful, amazing things for me.
And so I kissed him, and soon his mouth was on my neck and his hands were…
well, under my sweater and… and his… thing was…
" I gesture vaguely to my lap. "…in my hand. "
I exhale, long and shaky.
"So I don't know. I just felt this pressure. To stop. Like something was going to go wrong. Or Morgan was going to burst in. Or someone would walk in on us and somehow I'd be the one who got hurt."
The table is suddenly very quiet.
"Zoey." Avery's eyes are wet. "Honey."
Quinn squeezes my hand. "Listen to me."
I look at her.
"You are allowed to be wanted, babe. You're allowed to be messy and needy and enjoy every goddamn second of it." Her voice is fierce as always. "And if Colt Lane is the man who's trying to remind you of that… you let him in. You let him all the way in."
I stare at Quinn, then at Avery, not knowing what to say.
Because I already have let him in. The bakery. The hockey partnership. Morgan.
This is just the next step. The scariest one. The one I've been training myself for years not to take.
Thankfully, my phone buzzes on the table and breaks the tension.
I jump like it bit me, flipping it over and reading the message flashing on the screen.
Morgan: MOM. Isla's mom said yes!!! Please please please please please please please can I stay at the sleepover???
A photo loads beneath the message. Morgan and her 'BFF' Isla in matching Snow Leopards tees, cheek to cheek, both throwing peace signs.
I show the phone to Avery and Quinn, and their whole faces light up.
"Oh, you are not saying no to that," Avery says.
Quinn just snatches the phone from my hand.
"Quinn—"
I reach over, trying to yank it back, but she's already typing. "Yes, baby, have so much fun, love you, Mom xxx."
"Quinn, no!"
"Too late. Already sent."
They share a weird fist bump that reminds me of Colt's handshake with Morgan.
"I hate you both," I groan, pressing my hands over my face for the second time in fifteen minutes.
"Say yes, Zo." Quinn slides the phone back. "Say yes. To whatever that beautiful hockey hunk wants. He's gone for you, and we know you are there too."
But then, just as I'm about to admit that they're right, the bell above the door slams open with enough force to rattle Harold's vintage espresso cups on their shelf.
"OH FOR THE LOVE OF—" Harold barks. "IT'S NOT A DRIVE-THROUGH, PEOPLE!"
Colt Lane is in the doorway, scanning the café like a man on a mission.
"Sorry, Harold!"
He's wearing a Snow Leopards hoodie, but his hair a mess. His cheeks are flushed and red, and his eyes lock onto me from across the room like a tractor beam.
"There you are!" He starts striding toward me. "Excuse me ladies, but Zoey, I need you. Now."
Avery makes a sound somewhere between a squeal and a delighted gasp.
"What—" I'm pulled to my feet by his hand around my wrist. "Colt, what's going on, are you okay—"
"I'm great. Amazing, actually. But I need you to come with me right now."
"Colt—"
"Now, Morrison."
He steers me toward the door, his hand sliding from my wrist down to lace through my fingers, and I barely have time to grab my coat off the back of the chair before he's pulling me through the café.
"Bye Zoey!" Avery sings.
"Use protection!" Quinn hollers.
Colt drags me onto Main Street before I can blink, the freezing wind ripping across my cheeks.
"Colt Lane. Are you kidnapping me?"
He glances over his shoulder, that dimple flashing.
"Would you like that, Zo? Because I'm telling you right now, I've got rope at the apartment if you want me to tie you up."
"Colt."
"I'm just saying—"
But his voice quickly fades because we're walking so fast down Main Street that the string lights blur overhead like falling stars.
"Where are we even going?"
"My place."
I stop dead on the sidewalk.
He stops two steps ahead and looks back. The grin fades into something softer, something that shows me he gets exactly what's going through my head right now.
"Just… trust me, sweetheart. You're going to want to see this."
I look at him. At this man with messy hair and that boyish hopeful look in his eyes.
And I think about Quinn and Avery's advice. Just let him.
I take his hand again. "Lead the way, Hockey Boy."
Colt's apartment is on the top floor of an old building on the outskirts of town, and the squeaky elevator ride up is the longest fifteen seconds of my entire life.
The door dings and Colt fumbles his keys as we reach a door at the end of the corridor. He gets the door open and ushers me in, and I fully expect to see a hockey-boy bachelor pad on the other side.
Instead, what I get, shocks the hell out of me.