Chasing Christmas Eve

The entire table froze at the sight of Spence. Finally, Archer pulled the cigar from his mouth and jabbed it at Finn, sitting across from him. “Hey, remember the time you came out of the dumbwaiter with that same look on your face?” He jerked a thumb at the wall behind him, where the dumbwaiter door was currently closed. “Only you were in just your skivvies.”

Pru grimaced. “That was my bad. I shoved him in the dumbwaiter after we—”

Finn grinned when she broke off. “Oh, do finish that sentence,” he told her. “But make sure and tell them how I rocked your world—”

“I just needed a minute to think,” Pru said, blushing. “I never thought you’d end up down here. And besides, this is about Spence, hello! He’s standing there in just his jeans. Where are the rest of his clothes?”

All heads swiveled back to Spence.

“Tell me you just got some,” Joe said.

Elle went brows up in question.

Spence ignored them both. “It’s freezing down here. Someone give me a jacket.”

“Maybe you’re freezing because your button fly’s undone,” Pru said casually and laid out her cards. “Flush.”

“I’ve got a royal flush,” Elle said.

Everyone groaned while Spence buttoned up his Levi’s.

Pru sighed at her loss. “Damn. Well, back to Spence. Does he have another hickey?”

Spence slapped a hand to his neck.

“Bite marks, because sometimes it’s important to mark your territory,” Archer said.

Elle smiled and blew him a kiss as she gathered up her winnings. She scooped it all into her bag before pushing back from the table and moving across the floor to the far end of the room. Next to the washers and dryers was a closet. She pulled it open and rifled around in there before coming back toward Spence, holding out something pink.

“From the lost and found,” she said. “It’s only a medium, but that’s the best I’ve got.”

“It says Princess on it.” The cold concrete floor was seeping up through his bare feet and he was shivering, but he stared at the sweatshirt dubiously.

“Put it on,” Joe said. “Your nipples could cut glass.”

Spence shot him a look that threatened death and Joe mercifully shut up. Not, Spence knew, because he actually feared death, but because Spence had stuff on the guy. He’d kept Joe’s secrets but he wasn’t feeling all that charitable at the moment.

Elle waggled the pink sweatshirt.

Swearing, Spence pulled the damn thing on. It was too short in the arms and bared a strip of his stomach, and he felt like an idiot, albeit a slightly warmer idiot. He needed to get back upstairs, because no matter what Colbie had to say, he’d been a real dick for walking out on her like that.

But Elle stopped him. “What happened?” she asked quietly, for his ears only. “Do I have to kill her?”

“Not discussing it.”

But Elle was like a dog with a bone. She just crossed her arms and stared at him.

He blew out a sigh. “She said she may have misled me about who she is and what she does.”

Elle stared at him. “Dammit, Spence.”

“Yeah, you were right—not something you’re going to hear every day, so don’t get used to it.”

She refused to let him joke this away. “So you . . . bailed.”

“Yeah.”

“After you slept with her,” she said.

“Actually, there was very little sleeping involved.”

Elle shook her head. “Why can’t men think with two body parts at the same time? Is it in your blood? Is it just in the genes? What?”

“Actually, it’s a combo,” Archer said from the table with his superhuman hearing. “Don’t blame us—we’re born this way.”

Spence rolled his eyes and started to head out but Joe stood up.

“Hey, man,” he said. “Take my spot. I’m going to bed.”

“Because he’s losing,” Caleb said.

Joe pointed at him. “Just for that, I’m staying.”

Spence shook his head. He couldn’t stay. Although . . . by now Colbie was surely long gone from his apartment and the thought of going back up there to an empty place made him feel . . . colder. “I don’t have any money on me.”

Elle sat back down at the table, in Archer’s lap, leaving her seat open for Spence. “I think I can spot you,” she said, pouring them all another round of what looked like Jameson.

“We’re not supposed to play together,” Spence reminded her, reaching over and taking Joe’s shot, which went down nice and smooth. “We ruin it for the others.”

Elle poured him another shot. “And?”

And . . . Spence thought about what was waiting for him upstairs. An empty apartment and way too many mocking memories, both of which would make him sad. Not to mention the consequences of his actions and Colbie’s emotions over being deserted before she could tell him whatever it was she needed to tell him.

But he wasn’t ready, and self-preservation kept him right where he was. Knowing that it was a complete dick move and utterly unable to save himself, he accepted the fact that he was a selfish asshole, tossed back shot number two, and blew out a breath. “Deal me in.”

It was four in the morning by the time Spence got back upstairs, a little drunk and three hundred bucks richer. Either Elle had been off her game or she’d felt sorry for him. In either case, the money in his pocket weighed him down and made his pants sag.

He didn’t really want to go home and face the apology he owed Colbie, or his empty bed. Nor did he want to think about her not being whom she’d represented herself as—because when he wasn’t drunk anymore, that one was really going to hurt.

A lot.

But right now, the Jameson had presented him with a nice cushy buffer. He walked into his place and then stopped short because it smelled amazing, like someone had just cooked up a mountain of bacon. He turned on the light in his living room and stared in shocked surprise as Colbie unfurled herself from his couch and stood, looking a bit unsure of herself. “Hey.”

He held on to the doorjamb. “You . . . cooked?”

“Just bacon. Found it in your freezer. I saved you some but then I got pissed and ate it.” She shook her head. “I really should’ve left after you did, but I wanted to talk to you and thought you’d be right back.”

“Colbie—”

“No.” She put a finger in his face, nearly taking out an eye. “You didn’t come right back and that’s when I realized. I was the mature one.” She let out a hollow laugh. “God, if only you knew how funny that was. I’m pissed off, Spence, and I’m going to spell it out for you because you’re just dense enough to not get it unless I do.”

He opened his mouth and then closed it again but chances were, she was right.

“You’ve been telling me it’s a good thing we only have three weeks together because you’re not capable of more, blah blah. I didn’t want to believe it but you proved it to me by leaving my bed after sex each night before I woke up.” She was hands on hips now, her hair practically crackling from the spark of her temper.

And she wasn’t done.

“I thought that what I had to tell you might change things,” she said. “Might show you that if I of all people could open up to you, then maybe you could open up right back, but then you ran away for a couple of hours.” She looked at his pink sweatshirt. “I’m not even going to ask where you’ve been for hours getting drunk while I was waiting on a grown-up conversation. I’m just going to tell you my truth whether you want to hear it or not.”

He put his hands in his pockets rather than reach for her, which was exactly what he wanted to do seeing her all soft and sleepy—even as his stomach clenched over what was coming next.

“First,” she said, “I’ll apologize for not telling you sooner. But I thought we were both on the same page with our limited time restraint. And then when I realized I was aching for more and had to tell you the truth about me, I mistakenly thought it might change things, but now I see that you were honest with me—you really aren’t capable of more.” She took a deep breath. “Have you heard of the Storm Fever series?”