20. The Fall #2
Cole couldn’t decide if that statement applied to one of them or both. “Six?” he asked Jenna.
“Six,” she agreed. “Text me the address.”
For the first time all day, real anticipation flickered through his chest. He wasn’t sure if it was the smartest decision he’d ever made.
He was painfully sure it was the one he wanted.
* * *
The bar did not look like the kind of place that served champagne.
It sat wedged between a bait shop and a laundromat, its faded sign boasting cold beer, live music on Wednesdays, and air conditioning “most days.” The parking lot was more shell than pavement, and the building itself looked like it had grown there by accident.
She didn’t even know why she’d said yes to this.
Or maybe she did, maybe it was the same reason her stomach dipped when he smiled like that.
But this was the last thing she needed; another variable to manage, another thing to hold together, or another person she could lose. Her life was already a balance beam she walked with her toes curled over the edge. And still . . . she’d said yes and driven here anyway.
But when Jenna pulled in just before six, Cole was already there, leaning against the brick wall near the door.
He wore worn-in jeans and a simple grey T-shirt that did absolutely nothing to hide the lines of his shoulders. A ball cap shaded his eyes, but she could still see the familiar shape of his mouth when he smiled at the sight of her.
For a wild, disorienting second, her brain supplied the image of him in those grey sweatpants low on his hips and that damp T-shirt clinging to his chest, standing on her porch in the middle of the night like a man who’d come undone.
Warmth unspooled low in her stomach, impossible to ignore. She knew exactly why she had come.
“You found it,” he said, pushing off the wall.
“The marketing was . . . compelling,” she said. “You had me at ‘most days’ air conditioning.”
His mouth kicked up. “They’re honest,” he said. “That’s what counts.”
Inside, the place smelled like fried food, old wood, and the distinct tang of spilled beer.
Christmas lights hung along the ceiling year-round.
A jukebox in the corner cycled through old country and rock songs.
A handful of regulars sat at the bar, the kind of people who’d been coming for so long they probably had their own hooks for their keys.
It felt familiar in a way she hadn’t expected, like places she used to go before life got complicated.
Cole guided her to a small table near the back. “This okay?” he asked.
“It’s perfect,” she said, and meant it.
He ordered the champagne at the bar with the ease of someone who had done it before. When the bartender popped the cork, it made more of a dull thud than a celebratory pop, but Jenna still flinched and laughed.
“You weren’t kidding,” she said when the bottle hit the table, already sweating. “This is aggressively inexpensive.”
“Told you,” he said, pouring both of them a plastic flute. “I have very specific tastes.”
“In bubbly or in celebration venues?” she asked.
“Apparently both,” he said. “To The Blue Cypress.”
She lifted her cup. “To The Blue Cypress.”
The champagne was . . . not good, but it was cold and fizzy and went straight to the edges of all the places inside her that had felt tight for months.
They talked. At first, it was easy stuff: the inspector’s quirks, the way Tarpon’s calendar revolved around Sponge Docks festivals and tourist season, the story of the bar’s Wednesday night karaoke, and the time Travis had tried to sing something and nearly gotten them all banned.
“Please tell me there’s a video,” she said, eyes bright.
“There is,” he said. “It will be used as blackmail when the time is right.”
They refilled their glasses. The low hum of conversation and jukebox noise wrapped around them, turning their small table into its own little pocket.
She was aware of him in a way that felt almost unfair. The way he cradled his drink, the way his forearms rested on the table, the way he leaned in just slightly when she spoke, as if everything she said was worth hearing.
“So,” he said after a while, swirling the remaining bubbles in his cup. “Tomorrow, inspector. After that?”
“After that, we launch,” she said. “Soft open, then the real one. Emmie’s already planning the playlist.”
He smiled, “She’s got taste.”
“She’s got opinions,” Jenna corrected. “Big ones.”
He huffed a muffled laugh. “You’ll do great.”
The words landed like a weight and a gift at the same time. “You sound sure.”
“I am,” he said simply.
There was no joke attached. No caveat. Just that quiet conviction of his that made it hard to breathe.
They finished the bottle, and Cole ordered a second. “This feels dangerous,” she said as he poured.
“Good thing I’m off the clock,” he said. “Consider this hazard pay.”
“You’re not off the hook yet. We still have to pass tomorrow,” she said.
“We’ll pass,” he replied.
The room yielded. Her shoulders loosened. She felt the champagne in her fingertips, in the warmth at the back of her neck, in the way everything he did seemed magnified.
The jukebox hummed out something slow and scratchy. Harvest Moon, if she remembered right. “Dance with me,” he said.
She blinked. “Here?”
“Here.” Standing and holding a hand out. “Please come save me from myself. If I have to sit back down after this, I’ll never recover.”
“Can’t have that,” she murmured, slipping her fingers into his.
He drew her into the open space between their table and the wall, one hand settling at her waist, the other still wrapped around hers. They swayed more than danced, their steps small, almost lazy.
It shouldn’t have felt this intimate in a room with other people, bad lighting, and a sticky floor. But it did.
She focused on the thin cotton of his T-shirt and where it clung to him, the fleecy scrape of denim against her bare knee from where their legs brushed. His thumb drew a slow, absent arc at her hip, completely unaware of what it did to her.
“Jenna,” he said quietly.
“Hmm?”
“I’m very glad you said yes to this,” he said. “To being here.”
She swallowed. “Me too.”
They didn’t talk about Friday. They didn’t talk about porches or almost-confessions or the way he’d stepped back like he was afraid he’d break her if he didn’t.
But the memory crackled between them all the same, sparking every time she caught his gaze and saw something raw there.
By the time the second bottle was nearly empty, her head felt pleasantly light, and her chest felt heavy, and she knew she should call it a night before all the pieces inside her slipped out of the neat compartments she’d tried to keep them in.
“Come see where I live,” he said suddenly.
She looked up. “What?”
He ran his tongue along his bottom lip, clearly reconsidering the words even as he said them. “I mean, it’s right next door. Tiny bungalow, ugly couch, terrible art. You can mock my taste, get it out of your system before you go opening a very stylish bakery.”
She knew exactly what he was asking, what he wasn’t saying. The look in his eyes made it unmistakable.
And the dangerous part was that she knew exactly what she was agreeing to, what saying yes meant.
“Okay,” she said.
His eyes darkened. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she murmured. “I’d like to see where you live.”
He paid the tab before she could reach for her wallet. They stepped back out into the thick night air, the bar door swinging shut behind them with a final-sounding thud.
She followed him on the short walk to his building, every sensible part of her screaming that this was a bad idea, and every tired, lonely, wanting part of her already imagining what his mouth would feel like on hers when no one could interrupt.