Chapter 12
COOPER
Iwoke up Sunday morning feeling oddly decent. Which was weird, because I hadn’t felt decent about much of anything in almost a year. But there was something about yesterday that dislodged the pit that I’d been carrying around in my gut for more than three hundred days.
Decorating the tree had been strange. Not that I did the decorating, but I watched how happy the people had been. How happy Joy had been. I knew she didn’t want to work with me any more than I wanted to work with her on Christmas nonsense.
She didn’t let my bullshit bring her down, though. And then when that star was perched perfectly on top of the tree, Joy’s whole face had lit up. Seeing the finished product had left me in an unexpectedly good mood.
And that was even weirder. I had almost forgotten what it was like to be in a good mood. I wouldn’t say I was happy, but I was less pissed and irritated than normal. I didn’t want to go on a rampage and rip off Rudolph’s nose or ride a reindeer over grandma.
I stretched and made coffee. My limbs felt lighter as I moved around the kitchen. The good mood lasted exactly until I read the paper.
People laughed at me, but I still liked to read the actual newspaper. I hated staring at screens. I wanted to drink my coffee, eat one of my frozen breakfast burritos, and read the paper. If that made me an old fart, so be it.
I sat down at the table, coffee in hand, and my burrito nuked and cooling. I flipped open the paper and froze.
There I was, splashed across the entire front page. The photographer had caught me right at the moment I was positioning the star on the tree. I had to admit it was a decent shot—dramatic angle, good lighting, the whole nine yards.
What made me want to crawl into a hole and die was the headline blazing across the top in big shouting letters: “HERO SAVES CHRISTMAS (TREE).”
Hero.
“Fuck me.”
Below the main photo was a smaller one of Joy clapping, her face absolutely radiant with excitement and relief. The caption read: “Event Coordinator Joy Murphy celebrates as firefighter Cooper Frost places the traditional star atop town square Christmas tree.”
The article was thankfully brief—something about community spirit and the importance of tradition, with quotes from Mayor Winslow about how proud she was of everyone who had volunteered to make the tree lighting possible.
Joy was quoted too, calling the whole thing “absolutely magical” and thanking everyone who helped, “especially Cooper Frost, who saved the day with his quick thinking and generous spirit.”
Generous spirit. Right. More like terminal inability to watch a pretty woman look heartbroken without doing something stupid to fix it. Not just any pretty woman, though. Joy had always been special.
Now my good deed was biting me in the butt. And just like that, my good mood was gone. I already knew I would never hear the end of this. I put my burrito in the fridge, appetite gone, and went to get ready for work.
If I was lucky, none of the guys had seen the paper. Those neanderthals didn’t read.
I walked into the station at eight sharp to find the entire day crew gathered around the kitchen table. Every single one of them had a copy of the newspaper spread out in front of them.
They looked up when I entered. The grins on their faces told me everything I needed to know about how the rest of my morning was going to go.
“Well, well, well,” Matt said and leaned back in his chair with the biggest shit-eating grin I’d ever seen. “Look what the elves dragged in. It’s our very own Christmas hero.”
Tony smiled too, not even trying to hide his amusement. “How’s it feel to be famous, Christmas Cooper?”
“Shut up,” I muttered, heading straight for the coffee pot. “It’s just a stupid newspaper article.”
“Stupid newspaper article?” Chief Bryden looked up from his plate of eggs and bacon, eyebrows raised. “Son, you made the front page. Above the fold. That’s more coverage than we got when we rescued those hikers from Eagle Point last summer.”
“That’s because rescuing hikers is our job,” I pointed out. “Putting stars on Christmas trees is not.”
“Maybe it should be,” Elijah, the newest guy on the crew, said. “You looked pretty natural up there. Very heroic. Very... what’s the word... dashing?”
The rest of the crew erupted in laughter. I seriously considered walking right back out the door. Instead, I poured myself coffee and tried to ignore the way they were all chuckling like I had provided them with the best entertainment they’d had in months.
“Here, hero,” Tony said, patting the empty chair next to him. “Sit down. We saved you some breakfast. Can’t have our local celebrity wasting away.”
“Make sure he gets extra bacon,” Matt added with mock seriousness. “Heroes need their protein.”
I sat down because the alternative was standing there while they continued to mock me. At least sitting down meant I could eat something while enduring the inevitable ribbing. I should have eaten that damn burrito at home when I had the chance.
Chief Bryden slid a plate in front of me loaded with more food than I usually ate in a day. “All joking aside, you’ve earned yourself a good breakfast. You did a nice thing for the town yesterday.”
“I was just lending a hand,” I said, forking up some eggs. “Must have been a slow news day.”
“So, tell us about this Joy Murphy,” Elijah said. “She’s pretty cute in that picture.”
Elijah was a young probie from Salt Lake City, still on his probationary period. He came to a small firehouse to get experience. He had no idea about the drama that consumed our little town. And he had no idea Joy was someone special around here. At least, she had been.
I nearly choked on my coffee. “She’s the event coordinator. That’s it. End of story.”
“Uh-huh.” Matt leaned forward, obviously enjoying himself.
“It’s community service,” Chief said. “Good PR for the department. Shows we’re involved in the community beyond just emergency calls.”
“Exactly,” I said, grateful for the support. “Pure community service.”
“Sure it was,” Tony said with a grin. “And that’s why you climbed up there yourself instead of letting one of us do it.”
“You guys weren’t there.”
“We were available. You could have called.”
Damn it, he was right. I could have called for backup, gotten someone else to make the climb.
But the thought of Joy looking disappointed, of that beautiful star not making it to the top of the tree?
I had wanted to fix it myself. Which was stupid and probably told everyone at this table more about my state of mind than I was comfortable with.
“Whatever,” I said, focusing on my eggs. “It’s done. Tree’s decorated. Everyone’s happy.”
“Speaking of which,” Matt said. “You guys going to the lighting ceremony tonight?”
Chief nodded. “We’ll have a crew there on standby. You know how these things go—someone always slips on the ice, or we get a short in the electrical system, or Mr. Lake’s dog gets loose again and causes chaos.”
“Remember two years ago when that kid got stuck in the fence?” Matt laughed. “Took three of us to extract him without destroying the whole thing.”
“This year will be different,” I said, surprising myself with how certain I sounded. “Joy’s got everything planned down to the last detail. She’s not going to let anything go wrong.”
The table went quiet. I realized they were all staring at me with various degrees of amusement and speculation.
“What?” I demanded.
“Nothing,” Chief Bryden said innocently. “Just nice to hear you have faith in someone. I take it the planning session went well.”
“She’s competent,” I said defensively. “She listens to my safety guidelines and she’s literally planned every minute of these events. And she has backup plans. I went over everything and it looks like she’s got it handled.”
“I’m sure she does,” Tony agreed. “And I’m sure it has nothing to do with the way you’ve been in a better mood the last couple of days than you’ve been in months.”
I opened my mouth to deny it, then closed it again.
I had been in a better mood. And it did seem to coincide with a certain Christmas-obsessed event coordinator showing up in my life with her ridiculous Santa hat and her peppermint mochas and her ability to make me want to climb forty-foot ladders just to bring back her smile.
But I wasn’t going to actually admit that to these apes.
“I’m looking forward to those turkey legs,” Matt said, rubbing his stomach. “Best part of the whole ceremony.”
“Turkey legs?” Elijah asked.
I was grateful for the distraction.
“Oh man, you have to try the Christmas turkey legs!” Matt’s eyes lit up.
“There’s this vendor who comes every year, sets up right next to the hot chocolate stand.
Smokes these massive turkey legs. I swear, they’re like ostrich legs, they’re so big.
Makes you feel like a Christmas Viking or something. ”
“A Christmas Viking,” I repeated.
“Yeah, you know. Like you’re about to raid a village, but in a festive way.”
The mental image of Matt dressed as a Viking with a Santa hat was ridiculous enough to make me actually laugh. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Hey, don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. There’s something primal about eating meat off a bone while Christmas carols are playing. Very satisfying.”
The conversation drifted to other topics—upcoming shifts, equipment maintenance, Tony’s ongoing struggle to convince his wife that he needed a bigger television. Normal stuff. Comfortable stuff. The kind of easy camaraderie I was used to but had felt on the outskirts of for a while now.
As the morning wore on, my thoughts drifted to tonight. I was looking forward to the lighting ceremony. I wanted to see that big ass tree all lit up. And I was excited to see Joy in her element as everything came together.
Hell, I just wanted to see Joy.
Which was dangerous territory for a guy who was supposed to be sworn off women and Christmas and anything that might lead to getting his heart stomped on again.
But thinking about Joy’s smile when that tree lit up, I couldn’t bring myself to care about the danger of getting emotionally destroyed again.
By the time I left the station, I had made a decision. I was going to go home, clean up, maybe even shave off the scruff I’d been growing since No Shave November. I was going to put on a decent shirt and show up to support Joy’s big night.
Not because I was interested in her, I told myself as I drove home. Not because I was starting to care about Christmas again. Just because I wanted to see everything go smoothly. Because I helped get that star up there, and I wanted to see it light up the night.
That was all. Nothing more.
Even if the face in my bathroom mirror was calling me a liar as I reached for my razor.