Page 78 of Falling for the Grinchy Bad Boy

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COOPER

Iwas still riding high when I spotted Katrina leaning against my truck. She was demolishing a pork chop on a stick with single-minded determination. She was looking at me with that particular tilt of her head that meant she was preparing to stick her nose into my business whether I wanted her to or not.

Twin telepathy was a thing, but I couldn’t actually read her mind. I just knew she wanted to butt into my life.

“What’s up?” I asked as I approached, jingling my keys.

She took another bite of pork chop, chewed thoughtfully, and fixed me with that penetrating stare that had made me confess to breaking Mom’s favorite vase when we were eight years old.

She knew things. I had a feeling her telepathy was better than mine. She might actually be able to read my mind.

“What’s up with you and Joy?” she asked without preamble.

I should have seen this coming. My twin sister had never been one for subtle approaches or gradual conversational buildup. When Katrina wanted information, she went straight for the jugular.

“Nothing,” I said, unlocking the truck and hoping she’d take the hint that this conversation was over before it started. “We’ve just been spending a lot of time together working on the Yuletide Festival. Planning meetings, coordinating stuff, that kind of thing.”

“Uh-huh.” Katrina pushed herself off the truck but made no move to get out of my way. “And all this time you’ve been spending together… it’s starting to feel like old times?”

Something in her tone made me look at her more carefully. This wasn’t just idle curiosity about my social life. This was Katrina in full protective older sister mode, despite the fact that she wasn’t exactly my older sister. Minutes did not mean older.

“I guess,” I said cautiously. “We were friends back in high school. You know that. It’s not surprising that we’d fall back into that dynamic.”

Katrina snorted, a sound that conveyed exactly how much she believed my casual explanation. “Friends. Right. Cooper, you’ve been walking around for the past hour with a grin that could power the Christmas lights, and don’t think I didn’t see the way you two were looking at each other over that cider.”

Heat crept up my neck. Had we really been that obvious? I thought we were being relatively discreet, but apparently my sister’s twin radar was more finely tuned than I’d given it credit for.

“It’s nothing,” I insisted. “Drop it.”

“No, I don’t think I will drop it.” Katrina disposed of her pork chop stick in a nearby trash can and turned back to face me. She was all business now. “Look, Cooper, I want you to find happiness. I want you to find a good woman who appreciates what an incredible guy you are. And if Joy is the right one, then that’s awesome.”

I waited for the “but” that I could hear coming from a mile away.

“But,” she continued, right on cue, “you need to make sure you two are on the same page about what this is and where it’s going.”

“Why does this matter so much to you?” I asked, genuinely curious about her sudden investment in my love life. “You’ve never been this concerned about me dating before.”

Katrina’s expression softened slightly, and I caught a glimpse of the worry she was trying to hide behind her usual directness. “Because I love you, you idiot. Because I watched what Lynn did to you, and I don’t want to see you go through that again.”

The mention of my ex-fiancée hit like a punch to the gut, even though it had been months since I’d felt that sharp edge of betrayal when her name came up. But Katrina was right. What Lynn had done had nearly destroyed me, and the idea of opening myself up to that kind of pain again was terrifying.

“Joy isn’t like Lynn,” I said, though even as the words left my mouth, I wasn’t entirely sure what I was defending against.

“No, she’s not,” Katrina agreed readily. “I’m not worried she’ll cheat on you and lie to you and make you feel like everything you thought you knew about love was bullshit.”

Her blunt assessment of my relationship with Lynn was more accurate than I was comfortable with. It still stung to hear it laid out so starkly.

“Thanks for the reminder,” I said dryly.

“I’m serious, Cooper. Joy is a good person. She’s honest and kind and she’s not going to deliberately hurt you.” Katrina paused, seeming to choose her next words carefully. “But this town was always too small for her, and she’ll probably leave eventually. Are you prepared for that?”

I flinched. I knew it was the reality I was ignoring. I’d been so caught up in the way Joy made me feel and focused on the present moment I had managed to push the reality of her temporary status to the back of my mind.

“She’s only here to get her shit together,” Katrina continued relentlessly. “As far as I know, there’s no guarantee she’ll be staying in Calton Hill forever. This might just be a pit stop for her before she heads back to the city for some fancy advertising job. Calton Hill is not her end game. But it’s yours.”

I knew this. Of course I knew this. Joy had been upfront from the beginning about her reasons for coming back to town, and she’d never suggested that those plans had changed. But somewhere along the way, I had started hoping that maybe, just maybe, she might find a reason to stay.