#JiminyCricket

Colbie woke up to what felt like a guy in her head jackhammering at her brain. Given how much daylight was stabbing at her eyelids, it was late in the morning. Bracing herself, she managed to squint open one eye and groaned.

A pale, weak sun crept through the window. But it wasn’t her window. And she wasn’t in her bed.

She was in Spence’s. With Cinder.

“Meow.” The sleepy-looking cat was perched on the next pillow over.

Spence’s bedside clock said twelve p.m. “What the ever-loving . . .?” she started but quickly stopped because even a whisper was too loud for her hurting head. She’d never slept past eight o’clock in her entire life and it was noon. She took in that fact and then froze before slowly lifting the edge of the covers to look down at herself.

She wore the thigh-high lace stockings and . . . absolutely nothing else. “What the ever-loving . . .?”

“Already said that.” This from Spence, who stood in the doorway, propping up the doorjamb with a broad shoulder.

Not naked.

“You,” she said and then winced, her hands going to her head to hold it onto her shoulders. The sheet started to slip and she snatched at it, yanking it back up to her chin.

This got a small smile out of Spence. “I’ve seen it all before,” he said in his morning voice, which had a deliciously sexy growly morning edge to it. Not that she was noticing.

“Not when I’m mad at you!” she said. “I don’t recall giving anyone an all-access pass to my parts, especially you.”

Spence set a couple of aspirin and a glass of water on the nightstand, and she gratefully took them even as she pointed at him. “Stay back.” She didn’t trust herself with him looking far too sexy for her own mental health.

“Bossy,” he said. “I like it.”

“You’re a sick man.”

“True story,” he said without an ounce of shame.

“How did Cinder get here?”

“I didn’t want to leave her alone all night, so I went and got her.”

Okay, so that was sweet. “And why am I naked?”

“You said your clothes were still wet and that you liked to be naked in my bed anyway, and then you executed a pretty great strip show, in which you only fell over twice.”

“I what?”

“Yeah, you asked for music,” he said, “and while I was trying to talk you out of it, you went on without me.” He smiled. “Or the music.”

“Son of a motherless heifer.”

He burst out laughing, sat on the bed with her, and pulled her into him. “I especially liked the dance moves you executed on my coffee table,” he said. “You worked around all the drone parts, which was pretty impressive, actually.”

She covered her face and groaned.

“I think your bra is still hanging off the TV.”

“Stop. Don’t tell me any more.”

At what was undoubtedly a look of horror on her face, his smile faded, replaced by a whisper of surprise. “You don’t remember,” he said flatly.

“Reason number 523,002 not to drink ever again,” she muttered.

“What do you remember?”

She pushed away from him to think, letting images flit and play in her head. She remembered being excited about being invited to girls’ night out. She remembered the cool club. The drinks. Jiminy Cricket! And then the fire alarm and sprinklers. Staggering outside—

She gasped. “We were arrested!”

“Only hauled in for questioning,” Spence said. “Archer pulled some strings.”

“You guys came and got us.” She narrowed her eyes, remembering the rest. He’d asked Elle and the others to be her friend, like she was some loser. Also, he’d let her think they were each other’s muse when in fact he wasn’t able to work when she was around. She was so mad at him.

Mad and embarrassed.

And for the first time since arriving in San Francisco, she wanted to go home. She dropped her head to her bent knees.

She felt him shift. Then something dropped over her head. His T-shirt, soft and warm from his body. It fell around her, bringing his scent with it.

It smelled delicious.

“You’re having trouble with work?” she asked, her voice muffled against her knees, her eyes squeezed shut as he stroked a hand down her back.

“Someone’s got a big mouth,” he said evenly.

“If you didn’t have the time to spend with me, why would you do it?”

His hand kept up its slow up-and-down on her back, the heat of him warming her. Which she both loved and resented, because it was hard to hold on to a good mad with his hand on her.

“Because I couldn’t help myself,” he finally said. “I thought I was all work and no play, but with you, it’s different. Probably because I knew going in that there was our expiration date.”

She lifted her head and met his gaze. “Our Christmas Eve expiration date.”

His eyes were full of the same conflicting emotions she knew were all over her face. “Yes.”

“I get it,” she admitted. After all, she’d thought the same thing. The very same thing. That this was for only a few weeks, the end.

Because who could’ve guessed that she could lose her heart that fast?

Since all she was wearing was his T-shirt, she did her best to gracefully slide out of his bed with his top sheet also wrapped around her.

Instead she did the opposite of graceful and took a header, hitting the floor.

Spence was at her side in an instant, crouched low. “You okay?”

“Everything but my pride,” she said and sat up. She tried to get to her feet, but his foot was on the sheet, which meant she could either start a tug-of-war or lose it.

Luckily, his shirt was long enough to hit her midthigh as she stood and headed toward the bathroom, tugging it down over her bare butt for good measure.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“To get decent enough to get out of your hair.”

“Colbie—”

Ignoring him, she turned on the light and tried to squelch her involuntary scream at the sight of herself.

Thanks to not removing her mascara, she looked like a raccoon. A haggard one. And then there was her hair, which had rioted at some point during the night and now resembled the kind of hair clot one removed from one’s vacuum cleaner after not having done so for six months or more.

She nearly screamed again when she realized Spence stood in the doorway.

“So . . . it gets a little worse,” he said.

She looked at him, which was a huge mistake because he was shirtless thanks to her, and his jeans were sitting dangerously low on his hips, lovingly cupping some of his very best parts. “How much worse can it possibly get?” she asked, refusing to acknowledge that having him this close was making her mouth water. “You bribed your friends into pretending to be my friends. Then we got almost arrested. And after that, I apparently went all Fifty Shades on your ass.”

A small smile crossed his mouth. He’d liked it when she accidentally swore, the ratfink. “Not my ass,” he said. “But you did say I could spank yours.”

Her gaze met his in the mirror. “Over your dead body,” she said and made him laugh.

“Tell me the worse part,” she said.

“When we showed to pick you guys up, you announced to everyone within earshot that you were going to use this whole experience as writing fodder for the next Storm Fever book.”

She stared at him in disbelief because while she remembered thinking that, she absolutely hadn’t planned on saying it out loud. “I did not.”

He just held her gaze.

“Captain Crunch!”

That had him smiling for real. “The gang will keep your secret,” he assured her. “That’s what friends do.”

“But see, that’s my point—they’re not my friends. And speaking of that, I can’t believe you asked them to pretend to be my friends—”

“Colbie —”

“No, you know what? I don’t want to talk about it.” She stalked past him and went looking for her clothes, which were scattered throughout his place. The flapper dress near his front door. A heel here. Another heel there. And sure enough, her bra was hanging from his big-screen TV.

Her panties were near the front door.

Good God. “I’m never drinking again,” she moaned, and this time when she went into his bathroom, she closed the door—on his nose—and locked it.

Spence mindlessly searched his fridge while Colbie was in the bathroom. He peered past containers of food without seeing anything except the look of surprised hurt on Colbie’s face.

The look he’d put there.

He hated himself for that. There’d been women in the past two years since Clarissa who’d tried to distract him, but no one had been able to pull it off.

Colbie had been different from the start. She understood what it was like to come up against a deadline or to hit a brick wall doing it. He knew without a doubt that she was in his corner, rooting for him, sympathizing with him, perfectly willing to wait patiently on the sidelines.

It was him. He was the problem. He couldn’t put her on the sidelines.

Every time he’d lost focus over the past few weeks, he’d assured himself that once Colbie left, life would go back to normal. He’d be back at the top of his game.

He’d been lying to himself.

Nothing had ever been like this with her, and it was going to hurt like hell when she left, because—in spite of himself—he was deeply emotionally attached.

Unfortunately, she was deeply emotionally attached to her life in New York, to her family, her career, and she wouldn’t have room in her life for him. He knew this.

Didn’t change the wanting . . .

A part of him got that he was simply throwing up his own roadblocks now. Truth was, he was in way over his head and since he didn’t know how to do this, when she left, he was going to stick to what he did know how to do.

In Spence’s bathroom, Colbie was trying to finger-comb her nest of hair when she was held hostage by a group text.

It was the nicest thing Elle could’ve said and Colbie let herself get a little emotional over that before blowing her nose and giving herself a stern glance in the mirror.

Toughen up!

When she left the bathroom a few minutes later, Spence was pulling bagels out of the oven.

“Seems awfully domestic for you,” she said. “I’m impressed.”

“Don’t be. It’s the only thing I found in this place to cook you for breakfast.”

She felt her heart catch at the gesture. “You don’t have to cook me breakfast, Spence. I’ve already taken up enough of your time.”

“Colbie—”

She turned away and reached for her phone as it rang. “It’s my mom,” she said and answered with “What’s wrong?”

“Honey, didn’t Jackson talk to you? It’s getting late in the season and no one’s decorated. And I imagine there’s shopping to be done, right? It’s tradition. Come home. We miss you.”

Colbie pinched the bridge of her nose. “Mom, you miss me because I do all the work for the holiday, and I’m not even all that into Christmas to begin with. Maybe until I get back, you and the guys could try making some new traditions.”

“Like what?” she asked, sounding worried.

“Like something that includes you guys doing the work.”

“Well, Kent’s baking brownies. That’s a good start, right?”

Oh good God. “Mom, whatever you do, don’t sell those brownies. Or eat any.”

“Why ever not?”

“Trust me, okay? Let me talk to him.”

“Do you think he’s baking The Marijuana?” she whispered.

Yes, that’s exactly what she thought. He and Eddie would make a dangerous team.

“Those boys,” her mom said.

Colbie resisted smacking herself in the forehead with her own phone.

“I just don’t know what to do with them,” her mom said.

“You could try being the mom,” Colbie suggested.

“You do it so much better. Honey, come home already. Oh, here, hold on, here’s Kent.”

“Yo,” Kent said.

“Yo yourself,” Colbie said. “Are you cooking pot brownies?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Colbie gave up resisting and indeed smacked herself in the forehead with her phone. “Okay, listen to me very carefully,” she said. “You’re a complete ass.”

“Hey.”

“The worst part is that it’s not even really your fault,” she said. “It’s Mom’s. And mine. I’ve enabled you. We’ve enabled you. But I can’t do it anymore, okay? You’ve got to start doing things like laundry and shopping and taking care of the house and yourself.”

“Why?” he asked. “You do it better.”

She ground her back teeth. “Yes, well, I made a mistake. I shouldn’t have done those things for you, because now you’re growing up an entitled white boy who thinks he’s God’s gift and can do anything he wants. And it’s not true. You have to earn what you want.”

“And . . . I earn it by doing my own laundry?”

“Yes! You need to do your own laundry—including buying your own damn detergent! You also need to cook for yourself.”

“Like the brownies?”

“No!” She strove for calm. “Put me on speaker so Kurt can hear this too.” She waited until she had both of them. “Listen to me. When I say cook for yourselves, I don’t mean drugs, and I don’t mean takeout either.”

“Aw, man,” Kent said. “How about running away from home to find ourselves like you did? Can we do that?”

“No!” She felt steam coming out her ears. “You don’t get to do that. You both need to get a job that’s more than fifteen hours a week. I don’t care if it’s bagging groceries—you need it in order to find a purpose in your life, and you need it to learn how to be a contributing human being or you’re both going to be jobless, mean to girls, and a drain on society.”

Spence was brows up, eating his bagel as he listened to her going off on her brothers, trying to hide a smile.

“Do you hear me?” she asked the speechless twins.

“Yeah, we hear you,” Kent said. “But we gotta go. The pizza was just delivered.”

Colbie disconnected and stared at her phone. “I’ve got to go,” she said, more to herself than anything. There wasn’t anything keeping her here now anyway.

“So you’re leaving early?”

She turned to meet his gaze. “I think it’s best.”

“Colbie —”

“Look, I need to give you your life back. And clearly I need to go fix mine.”

He started to open his mouth, but she knew if he said anything sweet or sexy, she’d cave, so she spoke first. “Look, we both knew this was inevitable, right? I mean, I was going to go back in four days anyway.”

“You’re running away because of what you think happened last night,” he said. “At least be honest about that.”

She crossed her arms, feeling defensive because she’d been as honest as she could be with him.

Okay, so maybe not.

But she didn’t know how to bare her soul to him without getting hurt. And anyway, now they were out of time. “Last night has nothing to do with it,” she said.

“Bullshit. You think I forced my friends to be your friends—”

“You did.”

“—And now you’re going to use that excuse instead of the real problem to run away. Again.”

“Not fair,” she said quietly, his shot taking aim right at her heart and hitting it bull’s-eye. “I understand that you were just trying to help me when you got me invited to girls’ night. I can even accept that maybe I needed that help. But I feel terrible that I’ve been distracting you, Spence. I wish you could’ve told me that.”

His gaze was intense on hers. “I don’t remember ever saying that was a problem for me. In fact, you’ve turned out to be the exception to my every rule.”

She had no idea what that meant. “I practically barged into your life. It was selfish. Just because I was on vacation didn’t mean you were too.” She held up a hand when he started to speak. “You’ve been great about spending time with me. And I’m going to miss you,” she added softly. “But I really do think it’s time for me to go.”

“But you’ve been writing again,” he said. “Why would you cut that short?”

She didn’t want to. Things were going so good that just yesterday she’d sent chapters off to both Jackson and Andrea, her editor.

“Colbie,” he said softly, coming closer, setting his hand over hers where she gripped the counter with white knuckles because she didn’t want to leave him and she didn’t want to leave while everything was going so well with her writing and . . . she didn’t want to leave, period.

“Don’t go,” he said. “Not like this. I don’t want to be the reason. Yes, I need to focus on work, but that’s my problem, not yours. I needed a mini vacay too. I’ll settle back into a routine soon enough.”

She shook her head.

“Would it help if I tell you that I’m not expecting more than what we have?”

She gave him a look of disbelief.

“Okay, you’re right,” he said. “I’d love more with you, and if someone had told me that could happen in three weeks, I’d have told them they had been eating too many of my grandpa’s brownies.”

“No fair,” she whispered.

“I’m not trying to play fair. I’m playing for keeps. Don’t panic,” he said when she just stared at him in genuine shock. “You’ve made it clear that you’re not in this for the long haul. So I’ll take you however I can get you. Long-distance friends with hopefully some seriously good benefits when one of us can travel.”

She could scarcely breathe. “I want you to know how much this time meant to me,” she said, heart pounding, legs weak. “Getting away from my life for these past few weeks has given me clarity on a lot of things. Such as how much of my own life I’ve been ignoring. I was starved for simple things, like friends . . .”

He grimaced. “Colbie—”

“. . . And affection. And,” she went on, giving herself a minute by scooping up Cinder and hugging the cat to her chest, “physical touch as well. You gave me all that and I want to thank you for it. Sincerely.”

He shook his head. “Don’t do this. What we have here is too special for you to mess it up because you’re scared.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

Okay, he had her there. And not wanting these to be the last words between them, she forced herself to meet his gaze. “I found myself here,” she said softly. “And a big part of that was thanks to you. I fell more than a little bit in love with San Francisco and the people in it.” And then because her eyes had gone blurry and her throat too tight to speak, she forced herself to walk out the door.