Sandy
She’d told herself this assignment was just a job.
That Nick was just a quote and a headline.
He was a fluff piece that was going to make her boss happy and allow her to keep her job but watching him with those kids this afternoon changed everything.
She was developing quite a soft spot for Nick and seeing him today only drove home the fact for her that he was becoming so much more than a story for her.
Now, as the crowd thinned and the Christmas music faded into the background, she found herself standing beside him under the mistletoe someone had tacked up above the bar. After meeting Brooke, she was pretty sure that she was the one who had decorated the entire bar for the party.
Nick seemed to notice it at the same time as she did. “Don’t,” he warned, though his smirk said otherwise.
“It’s tradition,” she teased. “Even the grumpy elves have to follow the rules of tradition.”
“Who says I’m grumpy?” he asked, “And who the fuck are you calling an elf?”
“You,” she whispered, leaning in closer to his big body.
Nick stepped closer—close enough that she could feel the heat of him. “You sure you want to do this, Sandy?”
Her breath hitched. “Pretty sure.” She was definitely sure, but telling him that might scare him away. Since their dinner earlier that week, all she could think about was kissing the biker, and doing so under the mistletoe felt so wrong; it had to be right.
He leaned in slowly, giving her every chance to back away—but she didn’t. Their lips brushed, soft at first, then deeper, warmer. The kind of kiss that made her toes curl and her heart stumble. When they finally pulled apart, she was smiling. “Merry Christmas, Santa.”
He chuckled, brushing a thumb over her cheek. “You’re dangerous, you know that?”
“Maybe,” she said. “But you didn’t seem to mind.” He was dangerous to her because if she wasn’t careful, he’d be able to take her heart, and what he did with it next could possibly destroy her or make her the happiest woman on the planet.
Across the bar, Mace whistled, earning a glare from Nick. Brooke just beamed. “Guess our Santa finally found his Christmas spirit,” she called out.
Sandy laughed, feeling heat rush to her cheeks. Nick just shook his head, muttering something about finding new friends. But as he reached for her hand and laced their fingers together, she knew one thing for sure—
For the first time in a long time, neither of them was pretending anymore.
The snow had started falling again, thick and slow, blanketing the world in silence.
From her living room window, Sandy watched it swirl beneath the streetlight, her reflection faint in the glass.
She still had flushed cheeks, bright eyes, the faintest hint of a smile she couldn’t quite hide because she had spent the entire evening replaying that kiss in her mind.
It wasn’t just the kiss, though. It was the way he’d looked at her afterward—like he didn’t quite believe what had just happened, like he was afraid to want it to happen again.
She had turned in her story earlier that afternoon, after leaving the party.
Nick had asked her to stick around the Road Reapers for a while, but she couldn’t.
Her boss was waiting for her final copy, and all she had to do was add Nick’s quote and the photos she had taken that day.
Sandy hated telling him that she couldn’t stay, but work called, and a deadline was a deadline.
A part of her wondered if she’d still see Nick after she turned her story in.
He promised to call her, but was that just a promise that some guys made and didn’t keep?
She liked to believe that Nick was different, but she had no real reason to think that way about him—other than the way that he was with the kids at the club.
He was so good with them, and when he let his guard down, he looked as though he was actually having a good time being Santa.
A soft knock at the door broke her thoughts. She didn’t need to check who it was. Somehow, she already knew. When she opened the door, Nick stood there still in his leather jacket he had on at the club, and a dusting of snow in his dark hair. His eyes caught hers, searching, almost uncertain.
“Hey,” he said quietly. She could hear how unsure he was from just that one word, and all Sandy wanted to do was wrap her arms around him and tell him that everything was going to be all right.
“Hey, yourself,” she replied. “You want to come in?”
He hesitated a beat before nodding. “Yeah. If it’s okay.”
She stepped aside, closing the door behind him.
“You left the party so quickly, I felt as though I didn’t get to say goodbye to you,” he said.
She had snuck out of the bar when she knew that he was occupied with his friends.
She hated long, drawn-out farewells. Plus, she didn’t want him to feel as though he had to make any promises about seeing each other again.
“Yeah, sorry, but I had to turn in my story,” she said. “Plus, I left before I could say thank you,” she said.
“Thank me for what?” he asked.
“Well, for inviting me to hang out, and for not running from the party, even when you didn’t want to be Santa. You were incredible with those kids, Nick,” she said.
He gave a short laugh and sank onto her couch. “Yeah, well, I think one of them put a candy cane in my boot. I’m still sticky.”
Sandy smiled, curling up across from him, legs tucked beneath her as she sat in her favorite chair. “You were smiling the whole time, though.”
“You caught that, huh?” he asked.
“I did,” she whispered. For a moment, neither spoke. The only sound was the faint crackling of the fire and the muffled wind outside. Then Nick leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees.
“I haven’t done that in a long time,” he said finally. “Smiled like that. Not the fake kind I throw out to shut people up. The real kind.”
Sandy tilted her head. “What changed?” she asked.
“You did,” he said simply.
Her heart gave a little lurch. She knew that they were treading on dangerous ground that neither of them might know how to navigate. “Nick,” she breathed.
He shook his head, his eyes distant. “You asked me when we were at the diner why I hate Christmas.”
“I did,” she breathed.
He exhaled, slow and heavy. “I actually have some memories of my mom,” he admitted.
“I’ve never told anyone else that. Hell, maybe I’m remembering fantasies that I made up about my mother, but they seemed so real.
I remember her making a big deal out of Christmas.
I remember there being a tree with lights and ornaments that went up the day after Thanksgiving, all of it.
And from what I remember, my mother loved it.
And she tried her best, even when things got bad, she still tried to make things special.
But then, it all ended when I was four. That’s when she disappeared from my life.
It was almost as though I woke up one day in foster care hell, and there was no going back to the happiness that I had once known. ”
Sandy stayed silent, letting him talk, knowing that he’d need to get everything out that he had come to tell her.
“One Christmas Eve, a man showed up at our tiny apartment drunk. He broke half the ornaments, knocked her into the tree.” His jaw tightened, the muscles in his throat working as he swallowed.
“I didn’t know it then, but I think he was my father.
I tried to pull him off her, but he—” He stopped, forcing a breath through his nose.
“He hit her so hard that she didn’t wake up.
That was the very last memory that I have of her, or him.
” Sandy’s eyes stung as she tried to hold back her tears. “Nick,” she whispered.
He gave a small, humorless laugh. “After that, Christmas stopped being about magic and turned into a reminder. Of everything I couldn’t fix. Everything I had lost.”
She reached out, laying her hand gently on his. “You were just a kid.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said quietly. “I still see that tree when I close my eyes. The lights still blinked while everything else fell apart.”
She crossed the room to sit on the sofa next to him and squeezed his hand. “You’re not there anymore.”
He looked at her, his expression raw, unguarded. “Sometimes it feels like I never left, and sometimes, it feels like I was never there.”
“You did get out of there,” she whispered. “And you built something better for yourself. The club, the people who care about you—they’re family, Nick. Maybe not the kind you were born into, but the kind you chose.”
He stared at her for a long moment, then gave a small nod. “You really believe that?”
“I do,” she whispered.
He let out a breath, some of the tension easing from his shoulders. “You make it sound easy. You know, forgetting my past and moving on with my life.”
“It’s not,” she said softly. “But it’s worth it.”
He leaned back, watching her for a long beat before murmuring, “You’re dangerous, Sandy Cove.”
“You keep saying that,” she said, smiling faintly.
“Because it’s true,” he breathed. “I think that you pose the most danger to my heart.” Hearing him say that to her had her own heart stuttering, because she felt the same way about him.
He shifted closer, his hand finding hers again.
This time, he didn’t let go. They sat like that, the snow falling quietly outside, the glow from the tree painting the room in soft gold and red.
For the first time in a long time, Sandy didn’t feel so lost. She just felt like she was finally home, and that had everything to do with the biker sitting next to her on her couch.
“I should get going,” he whispered. She didn’t want him to leave.
Nick had just given her so much of himself, she wanted him to stay, but she wasn’t about to beg him to do so.
Maybe she was trying to rush things, but she wanted the next step with him.
Sandy knew that he might not feel the same way, but the way that he touched her, and God, the way that he had kissed her at the Christmas party earlier, told her differently.
“You don’t have to go,” she whispered before she could stop the words from leaving her lips. He hesitated, and for a split second, she thought that he was going to reconsider, but he didn’t. Nick stood, and she did the same, walking with him to her front door.
“The storm is getting bad out there, and I don’t want to do anything that either of us might regret in the morning.
I think that it’s best that I leave for the night, Sandy.
” She nodded, too hurt to say much more.
He had flat-out rejected her, so what else could she do besides beg him for another chance?
She had already decided that wasn’t going to happen.
Maybe she had read all the signs wrong, or maybe tonight had been too much for Nick, and now he was looking for a way out.
Either way, she’d let him go, even if watching him leave might break her heart.