Free Cole in My Stocking by Jessi Gage

beast.
    “Yeah.” I’d done that after he and Max had left on Friday. Finding eighteen texts, four voicemails, and numerous social media well-wishes from my friends back in Philly had lifted my spirits. It was like having a lifeline to the home I’d chosen for myself while I was stuck in the home I’d left behind. Since then, I’d been on the phone every day with my closest friend, Heather, and texting back and forth with my other friends. Maybe I’d been reaching out to them so often to help keep my mind off a certain hot cop.
    I was surprised he remembered I’d dropped my cell phone.
    “Good,” he said. “Don’t be afraid to use it, you get any trouble around here.”
    Ah. He was worried about security. Dad used to worry too. If he was going to be away for a hunting trip or a weekend ride with his biking brothers, he’d quiz me on the emergency protocol a hundred times before leaving.
    “You haven’t had anyone come by wanting to get up in the shop, have you?”
    I shook my head.
    He nodded with satisfaction. “’That changes now that word has spread about your father’s funeral, you dial nine-one-one. Better yet, if I’m off duty, you call me.”
    “I don’t have your number.”
    “Give me your phone.”
    I pulled it from my pocket and gave it to him.
    He entered some info with large, agile thumbs. “You got my cell and my desk. I’m off duty, you call me. I’m on duty, you call nine-one-one, and then you call me. I don’t care if you know the person or not, anyone tries to talk you into letting them upstairs, you make a call.”
    That seemed kind of extreme. “Why would anyone want up in the shop?”
    His eyebrows went up above the rimless Oakleys like I was missing something obvious. “Gripper’s got like fifty guns in the safe up there he was either working on or done working on. Most of his customers are fine, upstanding citizens. Some aren’t. Gripper didn’t discriminate. Money’s money. But I don’t want you dealing with everyone your dad dealt with. Guys wondering when they can pick up their guns, guys demanding the ammo your dad ordered for them, guys claiming your dad owed them a refund. You don’t need that right now, yeah? Didn’t Waverly tell you all this? I thought he was handling the business stuff for you.”
    Max had put me in touch with a lawyer who closed down businesses for a living. I was going to meet with him after the holidays. “He said I wouldn’t have to do anything with the business, not that I shouldn’t do anything with the business.” Max had made it seem like something I didn’t need to worry about. Cole was making it sound like something I should worry about.
    “Then I’m telling you. You shouldn’t do anything with the business. ’Kay?” He patted my knee and threw the truck into reverse.
    My skin burned from his palm—in a way that felt way too good, considering I was on my way to my father’s funeral and had decided I’d be ignoring any more-than-friendly feelings directed at Cole. Instead of dwelling on my tingling knee, I tried to be annoyed with Mr. Overbearing for telling me what to do.
    Nope. Couldn’t manage it. Not when I’d been dreading dealing with Dad’s customers.
    Not a week went by growing up where some new customer hadn’t knocked on the storm door, assuming they’d find Dad in the trailer despite the sign with the arrow pointing toward the stairs to the shop. I would poke my head out the main door and say, “Shop’s around the front. Over the garage.” I’d point then shut the trailer door, not giving them a chance to respond. If they kept knocking at the locked storm door, I would call Dad’s line up in the shop. “Yo, you’ve got a genius down here who can’t read a sign.”
    Dad would say, “Thanks, kiddo. Be right down,” and I would swear he’d have a smile in his voice.
    My eyes started to burn.
    “So what have you been up to the last few days?” Cole asked.
    I swallowed the lump that had formed in my