Last Good Man (A Crown Creek Standalone)

by Theresa Leigh

  "What do you want me to say, Willa? You were with him for three years."

  "In high school."

  "If you think you should feel bad about Livvy's crush, then how the hell am I supposed to feel, huh?" I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel as I stared out at the crazily spinning bugs. A thought occurred to me. "It's kind of weird though."

  "What is?"

  Willa's voice was tight with warning but I plowed on anyway. "How Liam hasn't said anything to me." I glanced back at her and tried to smile. "He hasn't warned me about you at all. Nothing."

  She lifted her chin. "Probably figures you should know by now."

  And just like that, the tight clenching around my chest, the feeling of not getting a full breath was gone. Because she was right - except, "Haven't we established I don't know a damn thing?" I reached over and closed her slim fingers in mine. "Honestly, he could have at least given me the Cliffs Notes."

  She turned her hand upward to catch mine. A small grin caught the corner of her mouth, tugging it upward. "But that would be cheating, don't you think?"

  I swallowed, then pushed away the knee-jerk reaction to the word, and instead leaned in and caught that perfect curve with my lips. "And I'm not a cheater," I whispered, letting my mouth brush across her ear. I loved how she always shivered when I did that.

  She squeezed my hand and looked at me. "Okay?"

  I nodded. "Ready." Then looked down. "But you have to let go of my hand in order for me to get out of the truck." I squeezed her fingers gently.

  We walked into the Crown. It was such a small thing, something I'd done either by myself or with... anyone else... a million other times. There was nothing strange about the act of walking into the Crown.

  But walking into it with my arm slung around Willa - pulling her close, kissing her head and inhaling the scent of her curls - was something entirely new.

  Willa felt it too. I could feel it in the way she slowed, dragging her feet. “We should have stayed at the cabin," she whispered.

  I looked in the direction she was staring.

  Ryan was bent low, but for the first time in forever, all his attention was not focused on Naomi. He was darting glances at us as he spoke. Naomi had clearly trailed off mid-sentence and was blatantly staring. When I caught her eye, Claire raised her arms over her head like a football ref calling a touchdown then burst out laughing and leaned over to whisper to Sadie, who suddenly darted her head up from her drink like she hadn't realized we'd arrived. Ruby was looking down at her hands, her fierce blush apparent from way over here. Ethan was pretending to be absorbed in his phone, but he hadn't scrolled a damn bit since we got here. Avery and Livvy were both just grinning like maniacs, but Cody's eyes were narrowed, and if it was possible for a grown man who worked at his uncle's body shop for a living to pout, then pouting was exactly what he was doing.

  "Look who it is!" Taylor bellowed from the bar. "Something you two want to tell me?"

  I stepped in front of Willa and spun around, putting my body between her and the table - hell the entire fucking bar - full of our friends and neighbors who wanted to know just what the hell had changed. I was acutely aware that everything I had once believed about Willa - and that Willa had believed about me - was also what they believed. "If you remember, " I murmured, leaning in and pressing my lips to her flushed forehead. "I was completely in favor of spending the rest of our lives in that cabin."

  "I know. I was the one who forced us to get back to our lives."

  "And our lives are right here, right?"

  She nodded. I lifted her palm and kissed it. "So let's go live them.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Willa

  Cooper probably had no idea. I could imagine him thinking that he had me fooled, that I bought his brave act.

  But I knew. I knew what it cost him to walk into the Crown and announce that everything had changed. That he and I - we'd changed. I knew what squaring his shoulders and putting his arm around me in front of everyone meant. It meant that Cooper was letting go of the past.

  We brought the cabin with us.

  I glanced up at him one more time before we took our seats - next to each other. His clear blue eyes, the strong, square set of his jaw, the blunted tip of his straight nose - they were all just as beautiful as they always were, but it felt like I was seeing something else in there. Something I couldn't name.

  But something I really, really liked.

  "So." Claire was the first to speak. Of course. She leaned way over, resting her elbows on the table. "Let me see if I've got this straight. The engagement was fake, but this?" She gestured to Cooper's arm around me and the way I pressed up against him. "This is the real thing?"

  I nodded just as Cooper said, "We did it a little backward." He glanced over at me. "Took the long way around, maybe?"

  "On foot," I added with a grin.

  "Ooh too soon," Ryan laughed. "Oh wait, is it? I guess it's not if you're the one making the joke."

  I lifted my left arm in its sling. "Once this comes off, you can all feel free to make whatever bad jokes you feel compelled to make. But until then, yes, I reserve the right to call myself an idiot, but not allow any of you to do the same."

  "Well there goes my plans for the rest of the night," Claire cracked as she pushed back from the table. "Wait, can I still call you an idiot for dating Cooper?"

  "Why not? I do," Cooper shot back.

  Claire turned down her lips in a not-bad frown. "She must be good for you, Coop. You're getting quicker on the uptake."

  "She keeps me on my toes." Cooper smiled at me and I knew what was coming next. "And I keep her off of hers."

  I rolled my eyes. "Gross," Sadie declared. "Wait, that was a sex joke, right?"

  "What? I was talking about giving her rides.” Cooper feigned innocence. "What the hell were you talking about?"

  Sadie burst out laughing. Claire laughed louder and suddenly that was it. The ice had broken, and then it thawed and suddenly it was a normal Thursday night out with the same friends I'd had my whole life. Except it was better because Cooper spent most of the night maneuvering to touch me one way or another. Mostly he rested his hand on my shoulder, pulling me close again whenever I leaned too far forward to make a point or shout down Ryan when he was being an ass. As much as I loved that, it was the smaller touches that really drove home that this was real. The way he idly tucked my curls behind my ear when he was facing me. The way he kept his eyes on me whenever I spoke, flitting between my eyes and my lips and then smiling when I caught him.

  That was the night I finally felt like I could breathe again. For so many reasons. The pain in my ribs was lessening every day, for sure. But something else was there too. An easing of a tightness in my chest that I’d been living with for so long I’d been unaware it was there.

  It never occurred to me how much it bothered me to be hated for something I didn’t do. “I can’t believe you’re staying!” Avery crowed as we neared closing time. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you out this late.”

  I grinned and raised my beer, savoring the sweet freedom from being careful. “I know! For some reason, I’m not feeling as tired as I usually do!”

  “I mean, I can help with that,” Cooper murmured in my ear.

  I blushed, both from his words and from the sheer freedom of finally getting to be myself. I’d spent so much energy building up walls around myself thick enough to protect me from Cooper’s scorn that I’d always been the first one to leave our get-togethers. The strain of keeping an eye on Liam, protecting him the way I’d always tried to, while also straining under the weight of what everyone thought I’d done to him had turned me into a relentless, fun-killing nag.

  At the end of the night, as Taylor shouted and waved his broom at us to herd us all out the door, I went up on my tiptoes and kissed Cooper’s cheek. “What was that for?” he wondered.

  “For making me so damn happy.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  C
ooper

  Her Mom had off on Monday and said she’d stay with Jake. So I picked up Willa and drove her to her doctor’s so she could get a new cast, one that wouldn’t require being in a sling anymore. Then I drove her to the creek where we tried to re-create our wading date up in the mountains. A whole day with Willa like at the cabin, but the night couldn’t end with her and I in bed together.

  The first thing I was going to do when I moved into my new place was have Willa sleep over. Having to say goodbye to her and then come home to my parents’ house was bullshit, and I was over it.

  Eight more days and then I was moving out.

  I couldn’t wait.

  I gritted my teeth and slid my key quietly into the lock, feeling like a bad teenager sneaking home after curfew. Then paused.

  The moon was so full that I could see the car perfectly, even with the headlights off. It rolled slowly and quietly, the engine clearly off to hide the noise of my father pulling into the driveway.

  I just stood there, key halfway into the lock, as still and as numb as a statue. Was I waiting for him? What was my plan? To leap out of the darkness and confront him, demand to know who it was this time... Was it still Sandy? Were they getting serious enough that he was thinking of leaving my mom and putting an end to this charade? Or was he done with her already, his attention span no better than a toddler's, and had moved on to the next woman? Or maybe he was just out tonight, trolling the bars for strangers a few towns over? Once, my cousin Derek had sworn to me that he'd spotted my dad one night at his friend's bar in Reckless Falls. He couldn't be sure, though, because he didn't go into bars since he'd stopped drinking. He wanted to give his uncle the benefit of the doubt. He wanted to second-guess himself, but I knew what he’d seen. I only wished he’d gone in and confronted him.

  Was that what I was standing here, waiting for? A confrontation? I'd had a million of those already, all of them frustratingly futile, with me red-faced and shouting and my dad calmly denying reality right to my face.

  Or was I looking for an explanation? Because I was never going to get one that would satisfy me. The only thing I wanted to hear was my dad say he was sorry. Not just to me, but to my mother too. I wanted him to grovel, get down on his knees and apologize, tell her she was amazing and deserved so much better. Then leave.

  But I wasn't going to get that either.

  The only thing I would get was mosquito bites standing here under the porch light. I was moving out. I should let it go.

  I couldn't fucking let it go.

  "Hey!" I was moving, leaping over the side of the porch and landing with a rattling thud half against the hood of his car.

  He jerked up from the glow of his phone screen. Texting like a goddamned teenager. Was that even his phone or was it a burner? "Where you been?” I hollered, slapping my hand against the hood again because I really badly needed to hit something.

  In the glow of his screen, I'd seen it. The sheer panic at getting caught. But the second he saw it was me - his son, whose respect he was never interested in having - his features smoothed, rearranging themselves back into the bland, ‘we can work together until you notice I stabbed you in the back’ smile that had fooled so many people around this town into doing business with the devil. "Cooper, you're going to wake your mother," he admonished me, feigning a yawn.

  I wasn't sure what exactly happened next. It came more in a series of images and sensations. The still-warm metal of his car sliding under my fingers as I dropped. The whiff of exhaust still lingering in the warm air, the steady tick of his cooling engine. The weight of my pocket-knife in my hand.

  The hiss of air as it rushed from his passenger side tire.

  It wasn't enough. I knew that with one phone call, he'd have one of his cronies fixing him back up again, asking for nothing more than a handshake and the good feeling that came with being on Fred Grant's good side. But when I popped back up again and watched with satisfaction as his Cadillac slowly listed to one side, I got to see his face and how the bland smile was gone.

  I'd shocked him. A punctured tire told him more than my raging words ever could, but I still needed to say them. "Stop," I growled. "Stop doing this. Stop cheating on Mom, you fucking asshole." I kicked the tire, feeling the deflated rubber giving against my toes and wishing like hell I could make him give in the same way. "Have some goddamned shame about it, you piece of shit."

  If he said anything, I couldn't hear it over the pounding in my ears. I kicked the tire one more time, letting it hiss out another rush of air, then whirled and sprinted into the house and up to my room. I was packing my shit. Tonight. I was getting out of here. Maybe I could beg Ryan to let me crash with him and Ethan. Cody would let me sleep on his couch in a heartbeat. But what I really wanted to do was to run to Willa, show up at her door and kiss her until my father's bland smile was erased from my memories.

  Unbidden, a memory swirled back up, an older one. The night with my cousins, outside of the movie theater. "Have some goddamned shame," I'd shouted then. Just like I’d shouted tonight.

  No. I leaned forward, gripping my sheets under my fingers, then with a growl, I yanked them off the bed in one heave, shoving them into my duffel bag. I wasn't going to start down that path. All I needed to do was go to Willa, tell her I needed her, and she'd be there for me. This was real.

  As I picked up my phone, I heard the sound of my father's car door slamming. Loudly. For a second I winced, thinking of how we'd both probably woken my mother.

  But wasn't it better to be awake than stay dreaming?

  Chapter Forty

  Willa

  It was still early, but my ears were pricked anyway, listening for the sound of tires on the driveway that meant my mom had come home early. There was a little bit of ice cream left in the freezer, and if she wasn’t going to eat it, I planned on inhaling all of it myself.

  A lot of people made jokes about how ice cream was a good substitute for sex. Of course, those people didn’t know what they were talking about because they’d never had sex with Cooper.

  But since I was home with an eight-year-old instead of out with my boyfriend, ice cream was all I was going to get.

  My mom had better appreciate the fact that I didn’t just go ahead and eat it all without her.

  I flicked through the TV channels with the volume on mute, too restless to settle on anything for too long.

  When the sound I’d been straining to hear actually happened, I nearly fell out of my chair from surprise. Chuckling at myself, I went to the door.

  But it wasn’t my mother’s beat-up sedan that was bumping up the drive.

  It was a black pick-up truck.

  Immediately my body was at war with my brain. I rushed outside barefoot, barely remembering to catch the door before it slammed behind me. He was here, he was here, shit, why was he here? “Cooper?” I whisper-shouted into the dark. Maybe I don’t need that ice cream after all.

  He was a blurred shadow streaking across my pitted lawn and then he was catching me up in his arms. “Wha -?” I squeaked but didn’t have time to finish the question before his mouth was on mine, kissing me like he’d never kissed me before.

  At the cabin, I’d been shocked to discover the gentle, playful Cooper. But this was still another version of him. Raw. Desperate. His fingers bruised my skin as he clutched me. He steered me back into the house as he kissed every inch of my exposed skin. When my back bumped against the kitchen counter, he growled and lifted me up, balancing me against the edge. I had to wrap my legs around his waist.

  I should have been frightened. But instead, I was inflamed. I pulled him to me, arching against him. “Now, Willa.” His voice was so ragged I barely recognized he was saying words. “I can’t... I need you.” It sent a frightened thrill down my spine to have him so desperate, so needy. “Let me. Let me.”

  I nodded, cupping his face. He reached down, fumbling at his zipper. I heard the condom wrapper ripping and felt the downward rush of anticipation. This was crazy.
Jake would hear us.

  But I was selfish, greedy. The way he needed me was addicting, filling up a space inside of me I hadn’t known was empty. We came together, both of us arching toward each other, hands tangled in hair, mouths gasping, biting, wanting more as we gave more.

  “Let me, let me…“ His pleas had become demands, a chant in perfect rhythm with each devastating thrust. The harder he pushed, the more I opened for him, the more I took him in. “Yes, Yes,“ I chanted in return to each one of his demands. Yes, take me, whatever you need, it’s yours.

  The orgasm took me, quick and sudden just like his arrival. I broke open and then dissolved, burying my face into his neck and biting down hard to keep from crying out. His fingers sank into my thighs, and he growled out a sound unlike I’d ever heard, so animal and pure it was almost frightening. I felt him spasm inside of me, and then the rush of his sudden release. With a groan, he collapsed with his head on my shoulder.

  I kissed his neck, soothing his brow with my hand. With the desperation over, I wanted to know what had driven him to such a frenzy. How I could help him, what he needed me to do.

  But before I could say a word, I heard a thump.

  Then a squeak.

  “Shit! Jake!“ I wrenched myself away from Cooper and yanked my pants back up again. “Hurry!“ I gestured at his zipper.

  “Willa?“ Jake called out from his doorway. “Who’s here?“

  “Don’t say anything,“ I hissed. “It’s just the TV!“ I called out to my brother as I pushed Cooper to the door. I stepped out onto the porch and shut the door behind me. “You have to go,“ I told him.

  “We should do this again.“ His face was still drunk off of what we’ve done.

  I shook my head. “No, no way, we can’t do this here. We were lucky, but what if he’d seen?“