Chasing Christmas Eve

by Jill Shalvis

  “She didn’t want to bet on something that might hurt her BFF,” Pru said. “That’s why we’re here tonight. To make sure you’re okay for Spence, that you’re not holding him back. And if so . . . well, I don’t know what. Maybe off with your head!” she said dramatically.

  When no one else laughed, Pru closed her eyes, smacking her own forehead. “Right. Don’t tell Colbie that Spence asked us to be her friends or that Elle wanted us to audition her for him . . .”

  Colbie blinked and then stared at the others, hating that the alcohol was scrambling her thought process, making her slow as a turtle. “Wait . . . so this wasn’t girls’ night—it was an . . . audition?”

  Pru winced. “Listen, we —”

  “No.” Colbie stood and grabbed her purse. And a little bit of the edge of the bar so she didn’t tip over. “What the flip?”

  A warm hand helped steady her. “Whoa, darlin’, careful.”

  It was Tina from the coffee shop, tall as a mountain and dressed in head-to-toe flapper girl, looking fab while she was at it. She took in the now tense group and her smile faded. “Hey. What’s wrong?”

  “Colbie,” Willa said, regret heavy in her voice. “We just wanted to make sure—”

  “—That I’m Spence-worthy, I get it,” she said. And oddly enough, she did. But it didn’t take away from her embarrassment and hurt that she’d been fooled. “You let me think you wanted me here.” She shook her head, feeling stupid . . . and drunk—a bad combo. “And I gushed about it,” she said. “I went on and on, and you let me.” Feeling her throat go tight, she knew she needed out of there, now. “I’ve got to go.”

  That’s when the fire alarm came on. And then the overhead sprinklers.

  And then the lights went out.

  Chaos reigned. People screamed and called out, and there was more than a little bit of shoving. Colbie was pushed into a wall and she shrank back against it, not wanting to get trampled. Then suddenly there was a beam of flashlight and a hand grabbed hers and tugged, hard.

  She tried to dig in her heels.

  “Come on,” someone said, and she recognized this voice.

  Elle.

  Someone else came up at her back.

  “Just me,” Willa said cheerfully.

  “And me,” Kylie said, not cheerfully, sounding like she’d just run a marathon.

  “Pru,” Elle called out sharply. “Haley. Tina.”

  “All right here,” Tina chimed in.

  They were all soaked to the bone and shivering as Elle led them through the back, past a kitchen, and out a side door into the night.

  “Damn,” Kylie said and crouched down, wrapping her arms around her bent legs, dropping her head to her knees. “Damn, damn, damn . . .”

  “She’s claustrophobic,” Willa murmured to Colbie.

  Colbie dropped to her knees in front of Kylie. “Chocolate,” she said and snapped her fingers before holding out her palm to Willa.

  Willa dropped a piece of chocolate—also wet—into her hand and she passed it to Kylie.

  Kylie chomped it down and nodded. “Thanks,” she said and her breathing slowed. “How in the world did you know that would help?”

  “Chocolate fixes everything,” Colbie said.

  Everyone laughed but Elle, who gave Colbie a long speculative look. Colbie tried to give it back but she was more than a little tipsy, so she ended up cross-eyed, which had her losing her balance and falling to her ass on the sidewalk.

  Kylie laughed and hugged her. “Perfect remedy for a panic attack. A friend acting drunk to cheer me up.”

  “Who’s acting?” Colbie said. She managed to get to her feet and wobbled. Dammit. She gripped the wall. “You guys are the only actors here.”

  Willa winced. “Colbie—”

  “No.” She pointed at them collectively. Or at least she hoped she did. Hard to tell since her vision was wonky. “I’m leaving now.”

  “Sorry, ma’am, but you’re not.”

  This from one of the two police officers who’d shown up out of nowhere. “No one’s leaving until we find out who set off the emergency fire system. It might’ve been a joke, but the building’s got a lot of damage, which makes this a felony.”

  “We didn’t do anything wrong,” Tina said, putting herself between the girls and the cops. “We’re patrons here and were lucky to get out without injury. We’re going to walk away.”

  “Not yet,” one of the cops said, a hand on his baton, eyes on Tina.

  “Oh hell no,” Elle said and stood arm-to-arm with Tina.

  “Let it go, Elle,” Tina told her. “Just drop it.”

  Elle jabbed a finger in the cop’s chest. “Are you racial-profiling my friend?”

  The cop yanked his cuffs out. “Okay, face the wall. All of you.”

  “Bite me,” Elle said.

  Which was how they all ended up in the back of a squad car.

  Later they sat in lockup long enough for Tina, Willa, and Haley to make friends with everyone else in the cell. Pru and Kylie were more muted but still friendly. Elle didn’t make friends.

  Shock.

  Colbie told herself to relax and take in the entire experience for research but she couldn’t. Because tonight hadn’t been their idea. They’d invited her only because Spence had asked.

  She felt her face flame just thinking of it.

  “Stop,” Elle said. “You’re thinking so hard your hair is smoking.”

  “You I’m not talking to,” Colbie said.

  “Fine. I’ll talk. Watching you handle yourself tonight, I realized I’ve misjudged you. You’re tough and smart, and you care. That combination is rare and I admire it. I’d apologize for being a bitch, but I can’t promise it won’t happen again, so I’ll just say that I think you’re good for Spence.”

  Colbie shook her head. That was the thing. She wasn’t good for Spence. She kept him from his work, for one. And two, they had a big geographical problem. “You’re wrong there,” she said softly. “I’ll hold him back.”

  Elle had the good grace to wince.

  “You did not say that to her,” Tina said.

  Elle sighed. “Did you miss the part where I apologized?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Colbie said. “Look, I know you’re a good friend to Spence. And I want you to take care of him.”

  “Why?” Elle asked. “Where will you be?”

  “New York.”

  Tina gasped. “You’re . . . leaving him? You can’t leave him.”

  “I’m going home.”

  “But he got dumped last time too—” Tina broke off when Elle elbowed her in the gut.

  The guard outside the door pointed at Elle.

  Elle gave him an innocent look.

  The officer looked at Tina, who in turn smiled and winked at him.

  The officer shook his head but relaxed.

  Elle started to say something to Colbie, but another officer came down the hall and after consulting a list, he called their names.

  They’d been bailed out.

  “That was fast,” Pru said.

  “Not fast enough,” Elle grumbled. “I hit my panic button the minute we had trouble at the club.”

  “Panic button?” Colbie asked.

  “Archer is serious as a heart attack when it comes to Elle’s safety,” Kylie said. “She carries a panic button in case of trouble. She hits it and he shows up, no matter what.”

  “That sounds either really paranoid or really romantic,” Colbie said.

  Haley laughed quietly. “A little bit of both.”

  They walked through the precinct and out into the night. It was cold and raining, but they were still soaked through from the sprinklers, so it didn’t matter.

  “I’m taking an Uber,” Colbie said. “Alone.”

  “Oh, honey, please don’t be like that,” Willa said.

  “We really didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” Pru said. “Please stay with us.”

  “I’ll be fine on my own.”


  In a rare display of emotion, Elle reached for Colbie’s hand. “I can’t let you go off without us.”

  “Your favor is fulfilled,” Colbie said. “You’re off the hook.”

  “You’re wrong. I told Spence I’d take care of you tonight. All night.”

  “Well, I absolve you of any responsibility of me,” Colbie said and yanked free. Then she turned and bumped into a brick wall.

  Which turned out to be Spence’s chest. On either side of him were Finn, Joe, and Archer, all looking grimly amused.

  Elle made a point of checking her watch.

  Archer reached for her and tugged her into him. “We had a little problem at the site. It’s taken care of.”

  “And so are the charges,” Joe said. “You are welcome.”

  “Hmph,” Elle said. “We were actually innocent this time.”

  Joe grinned. “Whatever you say.”

  Colbie backed away from Spence because she didn’t trust her body not to melt into his, even now when she was really mad.

  And also, apparently, still drunk, because she tripped over her own feet. She would’ve gone down to her ass if he hadn’t caught her.

  “Got you,” he said lightly and looked over her head at Elle. “How much did you give her to drink?”

  “Hey,” Colbie said, stabbing him in the chest with her finger. “I’m in charge of myself.”

  “Yeah?” he asked, bending down a little to look into her eyes. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

  She blinked at him. There were so many fingers that she couldn’t count them all. “That’s not fair,” she complained. “You’re using like five hands. I can’t count that fast.”

  Spence gave Elle a look.

  Elle tossed up her hands. “Hey, who knew that she couldn’t hold her liquor? She only had three drinks.”

  “How big were they?”

  Colbie tried to roll her eyes and got dizzy. “Dammit,” she said and dropped her forehead to Spence’s chest.

  He pulled her in and kissed her on top of her head. “Come on, I’ll get you home.”

  “Okay, but only because I can’t feel my feet. And don’t talk to me. I’m very mad at you, you know.”

  “You can tell me all about it on the ride home.”

  “I mean it,” she said, knowing he was just humoring her. “I’m not that pathetic that I need you to force your friends to pretend to be my friends.”

  She felt him look down at her, but whether that was in guilt or surprise, she didn’t know and told herself she didn’t care.

  He opened the truck door for her. He buckled her in before going around the hood to get in himself. He aimed the heater vents at her. And the next thing she knew, she was in it, just the two of them. She felt the engine start. It was dark and the motor rumbled, and that was it. She felt safe and cozy, two things that had been in short supply for the past hour—not to mention her entire life—and she closed her eyes.

  Just for a minute, she promised herself . . . and that was the last thing she remembered.

  Chapter 26

  #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.”