by Nina Bocci
Along with the ticker across the bottom:
HOPE LAKE—MAYORAL RACE—RESULTS . . . ENDICOTT—WINNER WITH 92% OF THE WARDS REPORTING
The room went silent.
“Well, that was awfully anticlimactic,” Cooper deadpanned, and the room exploded. Cooper was immediately pulled into a hug by his parents. His mother was smiling, her eyes filling with tears. Cooper’s dad, the usually stoic attorney, was slapping him on the back and kissing his cheek.
“I’m so proud of you,” his father said before kissing Clare. She kissed Cooper. It was a big Campbell-Endicott lovefest.
One by one, people pushed and shoved their way to Cooper. They got to him so fast that fighting through the crowd to congratulate him proved to be nearly impossible. I would inch up only to be sidestepped. My father pulled Cooper into a hug just as I touched his sleeve. Henry and Nick clapped him on the back as I reached for his hand. It seemed that my congratulating him was going to be an unattainable goal.
Over the course of the next hour, we exchanged stolen glances. There were times when I thought we were going to be able to sneak off and talk, but Whitney was always around.
And even if she hadn’t been, cameras were. The timing just wasn’t right, and there was a very large part of me that needed it to be. He was my guy. And I really wanted my guy all to myself.
But that was impossible, and I knew I was being selfish. He was enveloped in dozens of hugs. Questions were volleyed at him by family, supporters, and reporters. Whenever Whitney was with him, I could hear her answering for him, not with him.
“We are so happy. This is just what we wanted. I couldn’t be prouder of the campaign we ran.”
I wanted to show her who the we was. Damn cameras.
Would it be so bad? The election is over . . . they can’t take back his win if they find out I’m the one he really wants to be with, right?
At one point I heard my name, but it wasn’t from whom I hoped. Governor Campbell was taking my hand and trying to get a journalist’s attention. “You know,” she said to a bored-looking cameraman who hadn’t been able to get to the golden couple fast enough, “Emma was—” But it fell on deaf ears.
Whitney had just kissed Cooper lightly on the lips, igniting another round of photos and questions.
Slowly I slid my hand out of Clare’s. There was that rushing through my ears that made me light-headed; but it wasn’t the good kind.
Even though I knew that the kiss didn’t mean anything—that they were like actors putting on a show—there was still a seed of doubt that was growing bigger and bigger the longer their lips stayed connected. Clare reached out to me, but I took a step back. Then another. Cooper glanced up just as I was nearly at the threshold of the room. His eyes went wide with worry.
Cooper pulled his mouth from Whitney’s, but just as he stepped toward me, another reporter came at him, this one from the national news. Two more followed—the same ones that had been at the very first photo shoot with Rogers. They must have been in town waiting either way.
The line of reporters was a half-dozen deep. With Whitney still at Cooper’s side, I took it as my cue to leave. There would be time for us to talk. There had to be. But for now I didn’t need to see any more of it. What was playing on repeat in my head was enough.
With one more not-so-polite shove, I made it out of the sitting room and into the blissfully empty hallway. I could have hidden out there or in Clare’s office until the party dwindled down, but I knew that wouldn’t be until well after midnight.
And I was mentally exhausted.
“Emma!” I heard a voice call out just as I made it to the coat check room.
Cooper. My heart leapt a little bit; then I turned around and saw Whitney was on his heels.
So much for our getting time to talk.
“Congratulations,” I said a little stiffly. Then, mindful of the handful of reporters at his back, “I’m so proud of you.”
I was proud of myself for getting that out without my shaky voice giving away what I was feeling. Cooper looked confused, hurt, and annoyed. “Why are you leaving already? I don’t understand—” he began, but then, as I flicked my chin toward the crew, he shifted. Political Cooper was back, and they were getting a front-row seat for it.
“Thank you for everything,” he said to me formally. “I couldn’t have done this without you.”
Whitney took it as her cue to stand beside him, showing them off as a power couple thanking his campaign manager. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she started, directing them toward me with a flick of her wrist. “Emma here was a key component of Cooper’s campaign. I think she deserves a round of applause.”
The reporters started hurling questions at me, but they sounded like white noise, an annoying whir keeping me from talking to him. Whitney jumped at the chance to keep the focus on herself by answering the shouts from the reporters.
“Want a little scoop, guys?” Whitney asked. She was in her element. I bet she was formidable in the courtroom. “Ask Kirby’s wife about the anonymous content that the Journal has been running, unchecked.”
“What?” I gasped, trying to hear whatever else she was saying. Over the shouts from the press, I caught an occasional word: “wife, lies, published, nonsense.”
Cooper must have seen my frustration and confusion, because he offered to fill in the blanks. He bent down and whispered in my ear, “Kirby’s wife was blackmailing Peter, the editor at the Journal. She found out about him having an affair with a woman in Barreton—and she was using it to get him to print whatever she wanted about me.”
“And Whitney found this out?”
He nodded. “I still don’t know how, and frankly, I’m not sure I want to,” he said, rubbing his hand on the back of his neck.
“I’ll have to ask her.” I started moving toward Whitney, but he grabbed my arm, preventing me from leaving his side.
“I’d rather talk to you about another thing,” he whispered, his index finger lightly touching my hand.
I wanted to take it. To hold on to him and pull him into the office.
“We can slip out,” he whispered, ignoring the harrumph that came from Whitney, who was clearly eavesdropping and far more adept at multitasking than I gave her credit for.
“You’ve got to stay, enjoy the party,” I whispered.
“What about everything else?”
“There’ll be time for that eventually, but now isn’t the time. Come over tomorrow, when everything has calmed down. Hopefully you won’t be too busy to squeeze in a conversation with an old friend, Mr. Mayor.”
26
* * *
Within twenty minutes of leaving the party, I was holed up in my apartment in my fuzzy slippers and matching robe, sitting on my couch.
Popping open a bottle of my favorite wine, I settled in with a bowl of popcorn and some cheesy action flick on the local channel. The live ticker across the bottom of the screen kept repeating, showing exactly what I wanted to see:
HOPE LAKE MAYOR—ENDICOTT DECLARED WINNER
Someone had updated Cooper’s campaign Facebook page. And Kirby’s. His was less about his loss and more about how sorry Hope Lake would be for voting for Cooper. Clearly, he wasn’t well versed on what it meant to be a gracious loser.
I didn’t want to look, but I couldn’t stop myself. The photos from Cooper’s party were filled with images of him with Whitney. Some with his parents, some with mine. I enjoyed the one where my mother was giving Whitney a side-eye that could have stopped traffic.
Around midnight, someone started a Facebook livestream showing that the crowd was still going strong. They were dancing, and I could see that Cooper had loosened up and his tie now hung carelessly around his neck. Unable to torture myself by watching the livestream any longer, I decided to focus on the movie I’d settled on. But that didn’t last long.
It could have been the weeks of overworking and sleepless nights that had finally gotten to me, or maybe it was my brain’s way of forc
ing a little self-preservation on me. Either way, before I realized it, I was asleep on my couch, curled up under a Drexel blanket that I hadn’t realized I had.
• • •
SOMETIME AROUND TWO, I woke to a slight tapping on my door. At some point, I’d rolled onto the remote control and sent the volume up about ten notches, but I had been so exhausted it hadn’t even woken me up. The tapping continued before I turned off the news; then it stopped.
Then it started again.
There was no way I was going back to sleep now.
“Coming,” I mumbled, knowing it was probably Mrs. MacGuire looking to yell at me for something. The volume most likely.
I opened the door, an apology ready on my lips. “Mrs.— Oh!”
“That’s a new name. I’m used to ‘Jackass.’ ‘Mrs. Oh’ has a nice ring to it, though.”
“Cooper, sorry. I expected it to be Mrs. MacGuire.”
“I can see why I would be a disappointment, then. Sparkling conversation versus, well, me.”
I laughed in spite of myself. “Cooper, what are you doing here?”
In the years to come, I’d replay this conversation over in my mind and wonder why I hadn’t immediately kissed him. Or pulled him in for a hug. Or even just said, “I love you, thank you for coming here and knowing this is exactly what I needed.”
He smiled and looked down at his shoes. His jaw ticked while he tried to come up with an answer. “I stayed for long enough. I answered dozens of questions. I had a few glasses of champagne. It was all wonderful, but . . .”
“But what?” I asked, holding my breath, waiting.
“You weren’t there.”
Looking up, I saw that his eyes were tired but still so happy. “I just wanted to tell you,” he said slowly, “how much I appreciate everything that you’ve done for me. I, well— I couldn’t have done this without you, Emmanuelle.”
“Are you kidding me? You came all this way just to thank me?” I said in amazement, stepping inside so he could follow me. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful, but—”
His lips cut me off. Warm, firm, and just slightly tinged with champagne. His arms encircled me, holding me tight to him. “Stop talking,” he murmured against my lips, nipping at the bottom one with his teeth.
“What—what was that?” I began, but he kissed me again, cutting me off.
“Please stop talking,” he said, laughing and pulling me in for another hug.
Like a barnacle, I clung to him. Grateful that he was here and happy. There was so much to discuss, but for now this was good.
This was very good.
We’d be good.
We sank back into the couch cushions, and he tucked me into his side. “This was the best night, but I couldn’t stop thinking about you not being with me.”
“Where’s Whitney?”
“God, you know how to ruin a moment for a guy, don’t you, Peroni?” he said, kissing the top of my head.
“I’m just wondering.”
“I’m guessing on her way back to Barreton. I called a car service for her and told her to leave. She knows we’ll only ever be friends. She knew that from the beginning.”
Breaking eye contact, I paused, trying to look curious, not gleeful. In an odd way, I had to thank Whitney. Later though—much, much later.
“Cooper, why did you tell her to leave?”
“I can’t believe you even asked that,” he said with a small laugh. “I told her that we had to discuss our future.”
“Our future?” I asked as he slid his hand over mine. They were both sitting atop a tiny elephant on my pajama pants.
“Yes. Mine, yours, Hope Lake’s.”
“Ours?” I asked, squeezing his hand once. Then again to make sure it was there.
“I came here because I couldn’t stand answering one more question without you there with me. I tried socializing, I tried going through the motions, but I was distracted. I needed you there as my anchor. You’ve always been that for me. The anchor that’s kept me in Hope Lake.”
“I’m never at a loss for words,” I admitted, smiling up at him. “But I am now. Who would have thought that this”—I paused, waving a hand between us—“would happen.”
He shrugged. “I knew. I’m very smart and intuitive, you know. It took us a while to get here, but no one ever said the path to happiness was a smooth one.”
“Listen to you being all poetic,” I teased. “We’re a thing? An Emma-and-Cooper thing?”
“I think it would be a Cooper-and-Emma thing because, you know, the alphabet and I’m the mayor, so—” he said, twirling a piece of my hair around his fingers.
“We’ll add it to the list of talking points. I’ll schedule a meeting,” I said, laughing when he tickled my ribs.
“You can be on top for now, but we’ll take turns,” he whispered, his eyes darkening at the suggestion.
“Cooper,” I began, peppering kisses across his cheeks before planting one solidly on his mouth. “I feel like we’re not talking politics anymore.”
He shook his head and pulled me onto his lap.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do, Mr. Mayor.”
“Oh, yeah? What kind of work?”
“Work work and us work,” I said, unbuttoning his shirt and sliding my hands beneath it. “There has to be a new normal for us. None of this at the office.” I leaned forward, placing a kiss over his heart. “And you’ve got to start answering your texts instead of leaving me hanging.”
He laughed, a full-blown guffaw with his head thrown back. “That was on purpose. I didn’t want to tell you that I loved you via text message. That’s not very romantic.”
I sucked in a breath. Giddiness coursed through me as I stared down at him.
“You love me?”
He nodded, pulling my shirt over my head. “I do. More than I ever thought I could love anyone.”
Pulling me close, he cupped my butt and winked. “I’ve always wanted to do that.”
Laughing, I wiggled around, earning a groan. “I have a few ideas,” I said, lowering my lips to his for a kiss.
“You and your ideas. Tell me?”
“How about I show you?” I asked, pulling him up from the couch and leading us toward my bedroom. “By the way, congrats, Mr. Mayor.”
With his lips sliding down my neck and shoulder, he whispered, “I really like the sound of that.”
EPILOGUE
* * *
I know you don’t want to, but I need you to stand up there with me,” Cooper said, pulling me in for a kiss.
Shaking my head, I sighed. “Cooper, I can’t. It’s not right.”
There were people in the elevator watching us, but he didn’t care. So much for our not being obvious at work. Or at the store or in town or anywhere, really. He didn’t care who saw us together. Walking down the street, holding hands, kissing—nothing was off the table as far as Cooper was concerned.
Well, almost nothing.
I was still determined to keep him scandal-free.
Instead of letting me pull away, he tucked me into his side and planted a kiss on top of my head. We fit together just right.
It still made me antsy, even two months later, to be so affectionate in public. But Cooper didn’t care. If anything, he seemed to get enjoyment out of it.
The calming part for me was how people reacted to it. I got a lot of “Finally” and “It’s about time” comments. Apparently, everyone from Mrs. Mancini to Dr. Bishop had had an opinion about Cooper and my getting together.
No one had ever thought to share it with me.
After the election, there were questions about Whitney and why she had disappeared so suddenly from Hope Lake. Why Cooper and I had gotten together so soon after their “breakup.” Whitney simply told anyone who asked that she and Cooper had tried to make things work between them but as much as they cared about each other, it just wasn’t meant to be. And she knew he’d always been hung up on me. She’d known that was true years ago. She�
��d stepped aside to let us be together.
Ever the selfless one.
Cooper and I didn’t go public right away. In fact, for weeks, we were very, very private. Any and all time we could spend away from the public and prying eyes, we did. It was only after a few weeks that we found out that people didn’t care. Well, except for our family and friends.
“When exactly did this happen?” my mother had asked when we first told her, hugging Cooper in between pointing an accusatory finger at me for not telling her immediately. My dad had simply smiled.
“When are you getting married?” Cooper’s mother had asked, berating us for not telling her first because if we were getting married soon, her schedule would have to be planned around it.
“Can I be the best man?” Nick and Henry had said together before getting into a war of words over who was more qualified.
Mercifully, the rest of the town—Mrs. Mancini and her crew aside—pretty much left us alone. They were happy for us, sure, but it wasn’t nearly as interesting a topic as the Jackson project. That was what had the town excited. The ground and the lake were frozen, so the company hadn’t broken ground yet, but the construction plans were under way and its Facebook page was updated weekly. The town—and the tourists who came every summer—couldn’t wait for Hope Lake’s newest attraction.
But today was something that I was excited for. We were on the way to swear Cooper in as Hope Lake’s newest and youngest-ever mayor. So we wanted a few minutes just between us. Something without all the cameras or our families with their moony-eyed expectations. My mother already had a list of names going for her possible future grandchildren.
All of it was a bit much, but we were taking it in stride. One of the things I’d promised myself—and Cooper—was that I wasn’t going to overanalyze everything from here on out. We’d just continue on with our lives as they were before. Except with less arguing.
EMMA THOUGHT: Well, for the most part.
When we did argue—which was surprisingly rare, given our history—we found that tumbling into bed was the best remedy for it. That was one of the perks of finally realizing that we could channel our tension into more . . . fun activities. Too bad we hadn’t thought of it sooner.
