Chapter 9
Cole
The Copper Tap has nailed the Christmas spirit. Classic Christmas carols play on the overhead speaker and there’s even a fully decorated tree in the corner. I’m busy looking at the ornaments when the bell of the door jingles and a cold rush of winter air sweeps across the floor.
It’s Hailey. She spots me right away, and a small smile plays across her lips. She raises her hand, offering me a nervous wave as she approaches.
“Hey,” she says, breath puffing out a little laugh. “You beat me.” She shrugs out of her coat, turning to place it on the stool next to me and that’s when I notice her jeans.
Christ.
“Yeah.” I tip my chin to the stool beside me. “Figured I’d grab seats.”
She slides onto the barstool, close enough that her knee brushes mine before she tucks it back. I feel that stupid little touch straight through denim.
“Place is cute,” she says, looking around, eyes catching on the garland, the twinkle lights. “Very Hallmark.”
I huff. “They do it up every year. Owner’s wife is obsessed with Christmas.”
“That tracks.” She smiles at the bartender when he comes over. “Hi. Can I get… um…” She glances at the chalkboard of holiday specials. “A cranberry mule?”
“Coming right up. And you?”
“Coors is fine.”
She turns back to me, clearly attempting to make small talk. “So, are you more of a beer guy or a whiskey guy?”
“Both,” I say. “Depends on the day.”
“And what’s today?”
I let my eyes drag over her slowly because I can’t seem to fucking help it.
The gloss on her mouth is red, shiny, and looks like it might taste good too.
Her collarbone is exposed, and her sweater dips just enough that I don’t have to stare to see a sliver of her cleavage.
I can practically see the nervous energy buzzing off her like static.
“Today’s a ‘start with beer’ day,” I say finally, lifting my bottle. “We’ll see how it goes.”
She laughs, shoulders loosening. “Okay, good. I was worried this would be… weird.”
“Why?”
“I dunno.” She shrugs, her eyes quickly diverting away from mine.
Because you know I can’t stop thinking about fucking you? My little sister’s best friend?
“It’s certainly not my typical Friday night.”
Her eyes snap back to mine. “No? What would be your typical Friday night?”
I shrug and take a swallow. “Couch. TV. Falling asleep too early.”
“Wow. Wild man.” She grins, nervous and adorable and trying so damn hard to look casual. “Well, sorry to ruin your geriatric plans.”
“You didn’t ruin anything.”
Her drink arrives. She curls her hands around the copper mug like it’s a steaming mug of coffee. Her fingers are small, her deep-red nails clearly shaped and painted by a professional. She takes a sip, closing her eyes for a second.
“Okay, that’s good. Very festive.” She pushes it toward me. “Want to taste?”
My cock twitches like she was talking to it directly. Do I want to taste? No, I want the whole damn thing, baby, till it’s dripping down my chin.
I clear my throat, trying to get my head out of her damn panties where it has no business belonging. “I’m good. Thanks, though.”
She makes a face, her eyes roaming over me suspiciously. “You look… not like you just came from a jobsite.”
“Yeah?” I glance down at myself. Instead of my usual Henley with a flannel, I opted for a nice sweater. I even wore my non-torn jeans and my good boots. “That’s because I wasn’t at a job.”
“Well, you look nice.”
“Thank you.” I take another drink from my beer, dragging my eyes down her body. “You look like you planned to owe me that drink.”
Color rushes up her neck, but she holds my gaze. “Maybe I did.”
That right there—that’s what gets me. The way she says it. Brave on the surface, tiny tremor underneath. I like it. I saw it in her apartment the other night. Now I can see it sitting on this barstool in her red lip gloss.
She taps the rim of her mug. “I really did mean it, you know. You didn’t have to come over and build half of my apartment.”
“I told you to call.”
“I know.” Her mouth softens. “But I also know you didn’t mean ‘call so I can come over two days in a row and basically be your personal contractor.’”
“I did.” I lean an elbow on the bar, turning toward her. “If something’s broken, I can most likely fix it. That simple.”
Her eyes search mine like she’s looking for the string attached. “Well… thanks. Again. For today. And for tonight.”
“Yeah.” I let my gaze sweep her again, slower this time so she feels it. “You clean up alright, Simpson.”
I take another drink so I don’t do anything stupid like reach over and kiss that red mouth of hers just to see if the gloss smears. She’s trying to play it cool. I can tell by the way she crosses and then uncrosses her legs. By the way she keeps nervously talking. It’s cute.
“So, um… how was your day?”
“Long,” I say. “Cold. Guys don’t want to work when it snows.”
“Neither do software engineers,” she says, laughing. “Everyone scattered at like four today. I almost asked if I could tag along but I didn’t want to be the new girl who doesn’t have any friends.”
“News flash,” I say, tilting the bottle toward her. “Everybody wants friends.”
Her lips twitch. “Even you?”
I give her a look. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
Her shoulders drop a little more, like she’d been braced for me to say this was inconvenient or that I was just being nice because of Maddie. She takes another sip of her mule, eyes on the Christmas tree in the corner.
“Okay, well…” She huffs out a breath that isn’t exactly a laugh. “Full disclosure, then.”
I raise a brow. “Full disclosure?”
She turns on the stool to face me more fully, knee bumping mine again—this time she doesn’t move it.
“The excuse I gave you? About owing you a drink?” She rolls her eyes at herself.
“That was born out of me being alone in my apartment on a Friday night with a glass of wine, getting dramatic. I obviously do owe you, more than a drink, but I figured if I baited you, you couldn’t say no. ”
She thinks she’s telling me something I don’t know but if her friend group were here in Denver with her right now, I sure as shit wouldn’t be. And that’s okay, I get it. I remember being alone in a new city.
“Oh yeah?” I ask, voice lower. “Dramatic how?”
“Like a full-on mini crises.” She bites her lip, cheeks heating.
“I started thinking maybe I should use one of those apps where you go on friend dates. Or maybe I made a mistake moving here. Which is stupid, I know it is. It’s been what, a week or so?
” She shakes her head at herself. “But I didn’t think it would feel so… lonely so quickly. And the quiet.”
I understand all of it and I’m half tempted to tell her that it doesn’t get better, you only learn to hide certain parts of yourself from people so they never have full access and can never hurt you again.
“It’s not that I can’t be alone,” she rushes on, fingers twisting the straw.
“I actually like being alone. I just… I’ve never lived somewhere where I didn’t know anyone.
College, I had Maddie. After that, I had her and a strong friend group we’d built over the years.
Holidays, I had my family and yours. Now it’s like…
I go to work, everyone already has their people, and then I go home and it’s just boxes and that stupid sad plant from my old kitchen. ”
I watch her as she talks. She’s not asking for advice. She just needed to say it to someone who wasn’t a stranger. So I let her.
“Anyway, it just got overwhelming when I realized I’m sitting in a city full of people and I don’t know a single one.”
“You know me,” I say quietly.
Her eyes flick up, searching. Then she gives me that soft, crooked smile. “Kind of.”
“Kind of,” I agree.
“And that’s why I reached out,” she says, smiling again. “Because I thought of you. And I was like, ‘well, hopefully it’s okay, hopefully it’s not weird.’ I almost deleted it and pretended my phone auto-texted you or something.”
“It’s okay,” I tell her, and I mean it. “I would have said no if I didn’t want to be here.”
Her shoulders sag in relief like she was holding on to that answer.
“Plus,” I add, smirking, “you led with buying me a drink. Hard to be offended when there’s free alcohol involved.”
She laughs, then shakes her head. “Maddie would’ve yelled at me to get out of the apartment. She’d be like, ‘you’re in Denver, enjoy it, go get a drink with my brother,’ and then she’d probably send you a threatening text to be nice to me.”
“She would,” I confirm. “Probably with a bunch of Christmas emojis.”
“She really would.” Hailey smiles down at her mug. “I miss her.”
“I get it,” I say, resting my forearm on the bar so I’m closer. “When I moved out here at nineteen, I didn’t know a soul. Just a guy who said he had work. You go from having your family right there to… nothing. And like you said, the quiet hits different then.”
Her eyes go wide. “God. I can’t imagine doing that at nineteen.”
“I wouldn’t recommend it at that age.” I shrug, thinking back to who I was back then. “I needed to at the time. Needed to figure it out.”
“And now look at you.” She bumps my shoulder. “You figured it out.”
“I dunno about that,” I grunt. “But I got the job, met some people on the sites who became friends, found a crappy rental in Thornton, and worked my ass off.”
“Okay.” She turns to face me. “Besides work, what else did you learn about yourself moving out here?”
I let her question marinate for a second. “I learned to snowboard. I learned I like summers here better than Chicago ones. I learned that home can be anywhere you make it.”
“You like it here,” she says, like she’s confirming it for herself.