Page 51 of Falling for the Grinchy Bad Boy

This time she did turn to face me fully, crossing her arms over her chest. “Cooper, I appreciate your concern for safety, but we’ve got eighteen inches of clearance on all sides and a clear sightline to the first-aid station. That is what you told me we needed and that is what I did.”

Heat crept up my neck. She was right, of course. I could see now that all the safety issues I’d been worried about had already been addressed. She’d already taken my advice and addressed all my concerns.

“I’m all for keeping people safe,” she continued, her voice getting a little sharper. “But maybe you could focus on what I’m actually missing or doing wrong, instead of assuming I need to be told everything twice.”

The words stung because they were fair. I was being an ass, looking for problems that didn’t exist, trying to find reasons to criticize her work when the truth was I just wanted an excuse to talk to her.

It was definitely middle school. If she was wearing pigtails I would yank one.

“Fine,” I said, more curtly than I had intended. “Looks like you’ve got everything under control.”

I turned to walk away, annoyed with myself for making things awkward and letting my personal feelings interfere with what should have been a straightforward safety inspection.

Something slammed against the back of my jacket.

I spun around to find Joy standing about ten feet away, looking completely innocent except for the telltale traces of snow on her gloves. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what she had just done

“Did you just—” I started.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said, but there was definitely a gleam in her eyes that hadn’t been there during our tense conversation about stage safety.

I turned to continue walking away, and immediately got hit with another snowball, this one catching me right between the shoulder blades.

That was it. I bent down and scooped up a handful of snow, packing it quickly into a decent projectile. Joy’s eyes went wide as she realized what was coming, and she started backing away.

“Now, Cooper, just hold on a sec⁠—”

My snowball caught her right in the chest, exploding in a puff of white powder across her dark green sweater. She stood there for a moment, mouth open in surprise, then broke into the first genuine smile I had seen from her all day.

“Oh, it’s on,” she said, bending down to gather ammunition.

What followed was the kind of snowball fight that probably looked ridiculous to any adults watching, two grown people pelting each other with snow like a couple of kids at recess. But I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt this light. This free from the weight of all the complicated feelings and careful distances we’d been maintaining.

Joy had a surprisingly good arm, landing hits with an accuracy I wasn’t counting on. But I had the advantage of size and reach. It wasn’t long before she was laughing too hard to aim properly.

“Okay, okay!” she called out, holding up her hands in surrender after I managed to get her with three consecutive hits. “Truce!”

“Truce,” I agreed, brushing snow off my jacket and trying not to notice how beautiful she looked with her cheeks flushed from cold and laughter, her hat askew, snowflakes caught in her dark hair.

I noticed we had attracted an audience. Somewhere during our impromptu battle, a group of kids who had been playing nearby had joined in, along with a few of the vendors and volunteers. The entire square was now engaged in a full-scale snowball war, with people diving behind booths for cover and children shrieking with delight as they pelted unsuspecting adults.

“Look what you started,” Joy said, gesturing at the chaos around us.

“Me? You’re the one who threw the first snowball. I was only acting in self-defense.”

“Details,” she said, waving a hand dismissively. But she was still smiling, and for the first time since our conversation at the diner, the tension between us felt manageable. Normal, even.

We stood there watching the battle rage around us, both of us breathing hard from the exertion and the laughter. I found myself studying her profile.

“Can I buy you lunch?” she asked suddenly, turning to meet my eyes. “At the diner? I promise not to throw any more snow at you.”

The question caught me off guard. We’d just established some kind of ceasefire in our personal cold war, but lunch felt dangerously close to the kind of personal interaction I told myself I needed to avoid.

On the other hand, I was hungry. And it was just lunch. Two colleagues discussing work over sandwiches and coffee. Perfectly professional.

“Yeah,” I heard myself saying. “Yeah, okay. Let me just check in with the guys, make sure they don’t need anything else.”

“I’ll meet you there in twenty minutes?”

I nodded and watched her walk away across the snow-covered square, dodging the occasional stray snowball and laughing when one of the kids managed to nail her in the leg.

This was probably a mistake. I was setting myself up for more of the emotional confusion that had been plaguing me since she had come back to town.

But as I made my way over to check on the booth setup one more time, I realized I was looking forward to lunch more than I had looked forward to anything in a long time.