Chapter Nine
CHAPTER NINE
LIESEL
I can’t focus all throughout dinner.
Our owner is talking, giving some speech about taking the Firebirds farther than we’ve ever gone before, but Coop is incorrigible.
“What does that even mean?” Coop asks, almost in my ear. “Space?”
“Shush,” I say out of the corner of my mouth.
“Who were those guys you were talking to?”
I would ignore him, but he’s relentless.
Also … this is kind of boring.
I pick at a piece of breadstick and put it in my mouth, chewing slowly because Coop’s eyes are on me, and I can tell the wait is driving him nuts. “Just stats and marketing guys from the affiliates. And your buddy, Braden.”
“Braden,” he scoffs.
“You introduced us.”
He drains his water. “Biggest mistake of the week,” he grumbles, the glass at his lips.
Why does me talking to his friend make him grumble? And why does his grumble make my stomach flutter?
“How so?”
“Because he’s dangerous.” I arch my eyebrow at him. “He is!” Coop says in a loud whisper. “He volunteers at a pet hospital on the weekend.”
I cough to cover my laugh. “And how does that make him dangerous?”
“Rabies, probably. Kennel Cough. Parvo. I bet he has it all.”
I have to duck my head, I’m laughing so hard. Coop pounds on my back, as if saving me from choking on a breadstick. But his hand lingers on my shoulder blade after the pounding, rubbing circles on my upper back.
“I think I’m okay now,” I mutter.
He rubs one final circle—softer and infuriatingly tender—and then he pats my back again. “There. All good. She’s safe, everybody,” he says. I kick him under the table, and that only makes him smile.
When the servers come to clear our plates and give us our soup, I take the opportunity to look at Coop.
His eyes are all over me. I can practically see the heart shape of my face as his eyes trace it.
That. Is. Hot.
No. I mean it is hot. In here. It’s hot in here.
You’re not allowed to date a player .
I’m not dating him, I argue with my mind . I’m flirting with him. Big difference.
And I’m not even flirting with him! I’m fighting with him. It doesn’t matter that I’m having fun doing it.
Our owner finishes his big speech, and no one claps louder than Coop.
“Great speech,” he says loudly to the table. “Rousing stuff. Didn’t you all think it was rousing?” Kathy nods from the other end of the round table, and a few others do, too. “Liesel, how did you like the speech?”
I hold back a glare and a smile. “It was great.”
“What was your favorite part?”
I hope my gaze tells him that I’m going to kill him slowly, painfully, and totally untraceably.
“I thought his idea for a unified vision throughout the affiliates was brilliant. ‘For the love of the game … and the fans.’ It’s a nice touch.”
“That was great. Rousing, even.”
“Rousing,” I agree through gritted teeth.
He grins.
I don’t know how we make it through dinner. Coop manages to include others in our conversation just enough that I doubt anyone else can sense his focus on me. But I feel it. I feel his attention like a physical weight. Because out of everyone at the table, he’s chosen to talk to Todd, a guy from the analytics department sitting on the other side of me. That means, every time he speaks to Todd, Coop leans so close, his face is practically next to mine. He drapes his arm casually around the back of my chair, almost around me, claiming my space.
It’s subtle. All in the name of being friendly with Todd. But it also forces me to participate, whether I want to or not. And I am firmly “Team Not,” as I have to remind myself again and again. Especially when his thumb “accidentally” grazes my shoulder or neck.
“What an interesting point, Todd. I agree that we need better entertainment on the Jumbotron during delays. Don’t you agree, Liesel?”
“I agree, Todd and Cooper,” I say, kicking Coop again.
For his part, Todd seems overjoyed to be talking to one of the best players in baseball. He’s a data engineer, so scoreboard production is outside his wheelhouse, yet he talks with the enthusiasm of a little kid who’s discovered Minecraft.
I gotta be honest: it’s boring the life out of me.
But Coop listens. He asks questions. He responds to Todd in a way that makes me think he’s actually engaged in the conversation. I can’t imagine how he does it, considering the efforts he’s making to breathe in a way that stirs the tiny hairs on my neck. It takes all of my focus not to melt along with the gelato served during dessert.
“So how long have you two known each other,” Todd asks me through his horn-rimmed glasses.
I sit up straighter, ignoring the feeling of Coop’s finger brushing my neck. “Uh, just this week.”
“Really?” Todd asks. “I assumed you guys must be old friends. You’re so comfortable with each other.”
“Comfortable?” Coop laughs. “You were in the same meeting we were, Todd. She hates me. And because I’m me, I can’t stop teasing her about it.”
“Hate is a little strong,” I say. “Barely tolerate is more accurate.”
Todd laughs. “Then maybe I shouldn’t invite you guys to the escape room if you and Liesel can’t stand each other.”
Coop perks up. “Escape room?” He meets my eye, and I give him a death glare I hope Todd can’t see. “We’d love to!”
“Awesome!” Todd says. “It’s a team builder for the data scientists and engineers. Sorry we didn’t include the analytics managers, Liesel,” he says with a splotchy flush.
“That’s fine,” I say. “I don’t know if I should?—”
“She’s joking,” Coop says, and I grind my heel into his fancy Italian shoe. I see him wince from the corner of my eye, but instead of backing away, he only leans closer. He moves his arm from the back of my chair to my shoulders and shakes me like we’re old buddies. “Liesel is a logic puzzle genius. A lady in the streets, and a geek in the spreadsheets, if you know what I mean.”
I.
Hate.
Him.
Todd laughs harder at this than it deserves, but then, it’s not often you get to invite one of your heroes to hang out and he says yes. Todd gets a pass.
Coop doesn’t.
“Okay, sounds fun!” I say. “But can we make sure no one posts about it on social media?” I ask.
Todd looks at me like I’m crazy. “We’re doing a team builder with Cooper Kellogg. Of course we’ll post this on social media!”
“So will I!” Coop says, laughing along with Todd.
I smile and don’t move my lips when I say, “I’m going to kill you,” in Coop’s ear.
He mutters softly, “I can’t wait.”
An hour later, we’ve changed into casual clothes and the “party bus” Todd booked has dropped us off at the escape room, along with his team.
Coop looks irritatingly handsome in dark gray joggers, his gray baseball cap, and a baby blue Firebirds zip up hoodie that I’ve never seen before but want with my whole soul.
I love oversized sweatshirts. I grew up taking my brothers’ clothes all the time, and I’d spray them with enough perfume that they’d get too grossed out and would never take them back. It was awesome.
Something tells me stealing something of Coop’s would be even better.
“Are you ready?” he asks as we stand outside the room, waiting for the game master to let us in. I’ve never done an escape room before. But he’s right that I’m great at logic and puzzles, and I’m confident that will extend to an escape room.
Even if it’s a “Help Buddy the Elf Save Christmas” escape room.
I shake my head knowingly.
“What?” he asks with a Cheshire grin.
“Buddy the freaking Elf,” I say.
“Scrooge the freaking McDuck,” he says.
A laugh bubbles from my throat. “I think you mean Ebenezer Scrooge.”
“I think you’re staying in the Owner’s Suite.”
“Shut up.”
“Make me.”
Todd and his team are distracted, making wagers on who’s going to find the most clues, and that gives me an idea.
“Okay, how about we make a bet,” I say. Coop cocks his head to the side. “If I solve more puzzles than you, you have to wear one of your Christmas face tattoos to tomorrow’s meetings. And you can’t say a word about it.”
“Wow. You’re talking real stakes here. Okay, okay. Fine, but if I win, you have to wear one of my jerseys tomorrow, and you have to tell everyone that it’s because you lost a bet to me because I’m smarter than you.”
“What? No way.”
“Way,” Coop says. “Unless you’re chicken.”
The game master announces that the doors will open in ten seconds, and the energy in the waiting room shifts.
We both spin around, waiting at the door. The timer flashes and starts counting down from ten. “I’m not chicken,” I say, adrenaline coursing through my veins and speeding up my breathing. “I’m going to break you like a stale gingerbread house.”
“Then I guess it’s on like a bon bon.”
The countdown beeps.
3, 2, 1 ? —
The doors fly open, and we run into the room.
Snowy white faux wood planks cover the walls of the room, and decorative white beams connect the walls to the ceiling. It’s designed to look like the elves’ workshop in the North Pole. Christmas music plays quietly over the speakers, and all around the room are Christmas decorations—garlands, huge red bows, twinkle lights, and a massive Christmas tree, with dozens of presents at its base. A table too short for an adult sits in the center of the room, with twelve small chairs around it. There’s an Etch A Sketch in the middle of the table.
“I guarantee that Etch A Sketch has instructions on it,” I say.
“That doesn’t count as solving a puzzle, you know,” Coop says.
“I know,” I say, even though I don’t. I don’t have any idea what I’m supposed to do, mostly because Coop wouldn’t stop messing with me when the game master told us the rules.
Todd sees me pointing to the Etch A Sketch, and he picks it up.
“It’s the first puzzle!” he says. Coop bumps my hip with his. Todd reads the message, his coworkers poised for action.
“Of the food groups, Buddy loves four:
Candy, candy corn, syrup, and more.
Find all twelve of the one that’s missing,
Then underneath the mistletoe, you’ll be kissing.”
“The one that’s missing?” one of Todd’s friends asks. “The one what?”
“The food groups,” I say. “What are Buddy’s four food groups from the movie? Candy, candy corn, syrup …”
“Candy canes!” Coop shouts.
“And we need to find twelve!” Todd yells.
Immediately, we set to work, finding candy canes hanging from the Christmas tree, scattered among the presents, hanging from Christmas lights, and underneath the table. Each of them has a letter on it, and we spread them out on the table.
“They must spell something,” I say, dropping to one of the chairs at the little table. I move them around, trying different combinations of letters to make a word.
Coop reaches over me, adjusting letters, and Todd and his team stand behind me, trying to unscramble the words out loud.
“Child.”
“Holly, nope, that would be holy.”
“Uh, here, hero, lair, day.”
“Holiday!” I blurt, arranging the letters in the first word.
“Cheer,” Coop says, figuring out the next word before I can.
“Holiday cheer,” Todd says. “What’s the best way to spread Christmas cheer?” he asks.
“Singing loud for all to cheer!” one of his friends says.
We all look at Todd’s friend. “It’s hear , not cheer ,” Todd says. “You can’t rhyme a word with itself.” Todd looks disgusted, and his friend looks red-faced with shame.
“It’s okay,” Coop says, clapping the guy’s back and earning a smile.
“What are we supposed to sing?” I ask.
“Or where?” Coop says.
We look at each other and both yell. “Mistletoe!”
We all dart for the mistletoe hanging from one of the beams. “What song do they sing in the movie?” Todd asks.
Coop starts singing the first line from “ Baby, It’s Cold Outside, ” and soon we’re all singing under the mistletoe.
But nothing happens.
“What is it?” I ask. “Why isn’t anything happening?”
“Read the last line,” the only other woman on the team says.
“‘Then underneath the mistletoe, you’ll be kissing,’” Todd says. “We need to kiss!?”
He tries to grab the girl, but she stiff-arms him in the face.
“NOPE,” she says.
“Come on, Candace! It’s for a clue!” Todd says.
“Not happening,” Candace says.
“Liesel?” Todd says, trying to grab me next, but Coop blocks him and puts his arm behind my back, like he’s about to sweep me into a dip.
“I got this,” he says, as my pulse triples.
“No,” I say.
“So you are chicken,” Coop says with an impish quirk of his lips.
“I’ll do it!” Candace says to Coop, looking a little too starry-eyed for my liking.
“Fine!” I say. “But this is for the game .” I point to everyone. “And I may not be your direct boss, but if anyone records this, you’re fired.”
A few people laugh as Coop takes off his hat and tries to dip me. I smack his arm. “This isn’t Gone with the Wind . No dips.”
“No fun is more like it,” Coop mutters, his face next to mine. He holds there, his eyes open, staring into mine with a puckish gleam.
So I press my lips on his in a peck, but Coop parts his, and that hint of heat sends a zip of electricity through my body. I push away fast.
“There. Done,” I say a little too quickly. But it’s because we’re on a deadline. Also because I don’t want to kiss him, obviously.
Coop’s face is half smirk, half … also smirk, actually.
All smirk.
There’s a click, and then a peg board drops from the ceiling. We run over to the board, where a note is dangling from one of the pegs. We all lunge for it, but Coop grabs it first.
“Five golden rings, a festive sight,
But ten rings are needed this glorious night.
Toss them true, but oh, be wise!
And the next clue will be your greatest prize.
What looks like a peg to you and me
Just may be the needed key.”
“Where are the rings?” Candace asks.
“Seriously, Candace? We clearly need to find them!” Todd shouts. “Come on!”
Coop and I both snort behind our hands.
“Come on, Candace!” Coop says to me under his breath in his best Napoleon Dynamite impression. “Gosh!”
I laugh freely as I run to find rings, getting one from around a tube-shaped present and another from an ornament on the tree. Soon, we’ve found all ten rings, and we’re standing in front of the peg board. Todd tries to put a peg directly on the board, but a buzzer sounds, and a voice like it’s from the movie says, “Don’t make me call security.”
“You have to stay behind the line, Todd ,” Candace says, pointing to a bright red, sparkly line maybe six feet back from the pegboard. “And we should probably let Coop throw, considering he’s the only person here who actually knows how to throw something.”
“Loving that energy, Candace,” Coop says, making me snicker. “But I just had surgery. I know for a fact, though, that Liesel here can catch a baseball from ten feet away. One-handed.”
“I didn’t know I could hate you more,” I say with a razor-sharp grin.
“Do it!” Todd yells.
Coop gives me his widest eyes yet, and I take the rings from him. “I’ll do half, you do half,” I say. “Left-handed.”
“Don’t make me quote The Princess Bride to you,” he says, but he takes five of the rings from me.
And we throw.
We both land our first ones quickly. Right-handed, I’m better than Coop is, but he’s still weirdly good with his left hand.
“Why are you giving me that look?” he asks, tossing a ring. He misses but mine lands. “Nice one,” he says.
“There’s no look ,” I say. “And if there is, it’s a gloating look because I’m better than you.”
He grins and tosses another ring. He’s not threatened by me at all. Not by my baseball knowledge or my intelligence, and not by the fact that I’m beating him in a ring toss game, even if he’s not using his dominant hand.
It shouldn’t be a big deal, but it is. Not much is more attractive than a guy who appreciates a competent woman.
Candace and a few others stand under the pegboard, chucking rings back to us whenever we miss one. After a minute, we’ve landed each of the ten rings, but nothing happens.
We look around, in case we missed something. We count the rings on the pegs. The more we scramble, the more uptight Todd gets.
“What do we do now?” he yells. “What do we do now?”
“Come on, Candace!” Coop whispers to me, and I laugh, but I’m channeling a bit of Todd, myself. What the heck do we do now?
Coop goes over to grab the instructions, and he reads it out loud again. But he’s slow and steady, confidence emanating from him like heat from a fire.
“Five golden rings, a festive sight,
But ten rings are needed this glorious night.
Toss them true, but oh, be wise!
And the next clue will be your greatest prize.
What looks like a peg to you and me
Just may be the needed key.”
“A key!” I say.
I run over to the pegboard, and Coop and Candace are right behind me. We tug on each of the pegs until Candace yanks one out that has a key on the end.
“What does it go to?” Todd yells.
“WE DON’T KNOW YET, TODD ,” Candace snaps. “Calm down! And everyone else, look for a keyhole.”
“This door has a keyhole,” Coop says.
Candace runs over, sticks the key in the door, and it opens.
“Yes!” she yells.
Candace, Todd, and their team all run into the other room, which looks like a stable. Coop is standing at the door, taking up enough space that my arm brushes his as I enter.
My arm tingles like I walked through a spiderweb. I give a small shiver.
“Cold?” he asks.
“Of course not,” I say. “Midwesterners don’t get cold.”
“Good to know. Because if you were, I’d have to give you my hoodie.”
“I’m freezing,” I say.
He grins, unzips his hoodie, and puts it around my shoulders. I slide my arms in, and he turns me around to face him. Then he takes the two sides of the zipper and zips it all the way up to my chin.
And even though his hand doesn’t touch a single part of my body until he reaches my chin, flames follow the movement all the way up.
He holds my gaze. “Better?”
“Much.”
Then he gives me a shove, and I fall butt first into a reindeer trough.
“ Cooper Kellogg! ”
He winks at me, snags the next puzzle card from the seat of the giant sleigh in the middle of the room, and starts reading.
“Santa’s sleigh won’t drive itself,
For this one, he needs all his elves!
In pairs they’ll work in perfect accord
Or the Clausometer won’t move forward.
Help him fix his broken sleigh,
And get the Big Man on his way!”
We all run over to the sleigh, and one of Todd’s friends pops the hood. There, we see six pairs of gear cranks, enough for twelve people. There are only nine of us. Candace calls out loudly. “We have one extra person!”
A voice sounds over a speaker. “Someone can sit out.”
“You can talk to the game master?” I ask.
“Duh,” Todd snaps.
Coop grabs Todd’s shoulder and pulls him aside. “Todd, you need to take a break,” Coop says in a soft but firm voice. I don’t know if he’s squeezing, but the petty part of me hopes he is. “It’s just a game, but even if it weren’t, real men don’t snap at women. Time to pull yourself together, pal.”
He’s saying this quietly enough that it’s not a spectacle. He’s not putting Todd on the spot. But he’s not letting him get away with his bad behavior, either.
Todd takes off his glasses and rubs his face. “Yeah, okay. Thanks, Coop.”
Coop returns to find that everyone else has paired up, and they’re spinning their gears as fast as they can.
I’m not paired up with anyone. I’ll never admit this to Coop, but Candace asked if I wanted to team up with her—solidarity, sister!—but I told her I’d wait.
Not because I’m interested in Coop, or anything, but because I wanted to hear what he was saying to Todd.
That’s all.
Coop gives me a smile and grabs the handle of his gear crank. “Do we just spin it?”
“I don’t think so,” I say, holding the puzzle card. “The Clausometer isn’t moving.” I read through the rhyming instructions again. “‘ In pairs they’ll work in perfect accord. ’” I look at our group. “Guys, I think we have to move at the exact same pace. Maybe mirror images? It says ‘perfect accord.’”
“You heard the lady!” Candace says, and soon, we’re all looking at our partners and syncing up. When we’re all in step with our respective partner, the Clausometer starts ticking up. Whenever someone misses a beat, though, the meter drops quickly. Coop and I are both coordinated, but the data scientists are somewhat … lacking in the physical skills department.
“Why is this so hard?” one of the guys says.
Todd looks like he’s going to flip a table, but Coop shoots him a warning glance that mellows him right out. Then Coop starts singing the first line of “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!”
He’s turning his gear along with the beat of the song. So I chime in, and then Candace nods, like she gets what Coop is doing. Soon, we’re all belting out the chorus and moving in perfect unison. Coop and I stare in each other’s eyes, grinning like fools as we crank a silly gear in an escape room.
I don’t remember the last time I had this much fun.
And something tells me Coop knows it.
We sing and spin until the Clausometer moves up, up, up. And then it hits the top!
“Yes!” Candace yells.
“You know, the lyric is ‘we’ve’ not ‘there’s,’” Todd says. “‘Since we’ve no place?—’”
“Enough, Todd!” the whole team yells, and Coop and I laugh as Candace reads the clue on the Clausometer.
As we rush over to the next clue, I can’t help but watch Coop. And when he reaches up and turns his gray Firebirds baseball cap backwards on his head, my breath catches.
Shoot.
Shoot, shoot, shoot.
I have a crush on a baseball player.