“I think I will.” Not as a peace offering, but as a symbol of solidarity for their don’t-ask-don’t-tell agreement.
“So, is your cooking spree over yet?”
Sloane angled her laptop and opened the door to the refrigerator, which was lined from top to bottom with neatly stacked glass storage containers. “The homeless shelter actually told me I’d given them too much. And my fridge is still full.”
Grace stopped chopping herbs and looked at Sloane warily. “That bad, huh?”
Caught. Sloane should have downplayed her anxiety about Cooper. Even through the stretch of cyberspace, her friend could still see right through her. She closed the refrigerator door. “I wish you were here to help me eat it.”
“Yeah, me, too.”
Strangely, Sloane’s apartment felt emptier without Grace even though Sloane had lived alone for years. The idea of having a roommate had never even crossed her mind. She wasn’t sure she could subject someone to her special brand of chaos. Her hands worked deftly to rearrange the Honeycrisp apples in the fruit bowl, the glossiest reds to the ones that were predominantly yellow.
And in the same way her apartment felt emptier now that its walls had known Grace, so did her time since she’d known Cooper. There was an ingredient missing from the life she’d been desperate to get back that made it decidedly bland—and he was about six feet tall and handsome.
“You could donate some to your crazy rich neighbor.” Grace’s words broke through her thoughts.
“Oh, I’m way ahead of you. I ran into her on the elevator and told her I was testing frittata recipes. And, wouldn’t you know, she ordered some fruit-and-cheese trays from a specialty store and made a fancy brunch out of it for her Bunco friends.”
“She would.”
Sloane’s phone buzzed on the counter. When she saw who it was, she dropped the phone and it clattered into the composite sink.
Fortunately, there was no water in it this time.
“I gotta go, Grace.” She crossed to the computer.
“Is that Cooper? Enjoy.”
Sloane soaked in Grace’s teasing, big-sisterly grin long enough before she closed the lid of her laptop and answered her phone.
“Hello?” She heard the connection click and tried again. “Hello.”
“Hi, Sloane.” The smile in his voice tugged her into her chair as his golden-brown eyes flashed through her mind again. “It’s good to hear your voice.”
A grin stretched across her face. “How’s New York?”
“It was busy, but I’m back now, a little earlier than planned.” Cooper breathed a little nervous laugh. “Hey, um, listen, Sloane. This might be totally inappropriate for me to ask, and I’d completely understand if you don’t want to go.” The last part of his sentence stretched into a hesitant sound.
Sloane leaned her elbows on the table in anticipation. “Uh-huh?”
“My grief support group is meeting tonight, and I wanted to know if you’d go with me.”
“Yes.”
Did she really just say that?
“Okay, awesome.”
If Cooper hadn’t responded, she might have imagined that word coming out of her mouth. No questions asked. No overanalyzing it. Just yes.
“Pick you up at five-thirty,” he said.
Sloane stared at her phone for a full minute after the call had disconnected. Did that really happen? Did she just agree to what could equate to getting her soul scrubbed raw with a metal sponge—in front of Cooper? Again?
What were these people even like? For all she knew, they were barbarians who’d tie her up with flames licking at her feet until she spilled her guts.
“I’m pretty sure that’s how they break people in some cultures,” she told Grace an hour later, computer perched on her bed as she dismantled her closet.
Grace made the sputtering sound that let Sloane know she was rolling her eyes. “Sloane Bradley. That’s not going to happen. Do you wanna know how I know? Pick the green one.”
Sloane held the dress up to her body and peered at it, smoothing the soft cotton blend. “How?”
“Because there’s no way on earth Cooper would ever let that happen to you.”
* * *
COOPER THOUGHT NEW YORK would be good for him. Time to insert distance between him and Sloane. But, as much as he tried to distract himself, he’d thought of her every time he saw a blond ponytail. Black yoga pants. Pretty much every time he ate. Every time a server brought him a drink menu and he refused it.
The truth was he couldn’t keep looking in the rearview mirror, waiting to get hit. Not when he was trying to help Sloane believe she could move on.
Besides, Sloane had already proven she could handle everything that came with him. But hopefully she wouldn’t have to.
He hadn’t bothered with the formalities this time. No recipes to develop. No food to taste. No ideas to hash out. No proposals to review. Just an admission he wanted to see Sloane as soon as possible when he got off the plane. Just a guy picking up a girl to expose the most protected part of his life. No big deal, right?
He was a few minutes early but knew Sloane would be watching for him from her apartment window. Sure enough, a minute later, she appeared through the lobby double doors. Blond braid draped across her shoulder. Green cotton dress. Gray sweater. And that lip-nibbling smile she wore when she was shy.
Basically, it was all over for him.
“Hi.” Cooper walked around the front of the Defender, unable to control the goofy grin. While he hadn’t gauged how much he’d miss Sloane, he also didn’t expect this almost magnetic reaction to seeing her—like he couldn’t get to her fast enough.
“Hi.” She stopped at the curb.
He closed the distance, unwilling to allow any space between them.
Were they doing this?
Commit, Coop. He swung an arm behind Sloane and drew her close to his side.
He guessed they were.
She slid her hand across his back.
“It was weird not seeing you,” he said into her hair, which smelled a little like a strawberry milk shake. He stepped forward to open the passenger door.
“Yeah. You, too.”
There, on the seat, he’d left a slim brown box with orange script. Jacques Torres. She picked it up, scanned it from every angle and handed it to him.
“These are for you, actually.”
“For me?” She sat to untie the orange ribbon, and tried to pry open the lid. She adjusted her grip three times, careful and methodical the way she always was.
Finally, after he’d gotten in and started the vehicle, the lid wiggled free, revealing twelve assorted chocolate confections complete with elaborate designs. They’d had Sloane’s name all over them.
“Chocolates!”
“I stopped by his shop while I was in New York. It was like Willy Wonka opening a shop in Paris. Best hot cocoa ever, too.”
Sloane studied the chocolates. Some had been poured into perfect fruit shapes. Others were squared or circular with patterns so precise they looked printed. “They’re almost too pretty to eat.”
He idled at a stoplight, looking at Sloane for a moment before he laughed. “Well, in that case, hand ’em over.”
“No way. You’ll be lucky if I share.”
They somehow avoided eating the chocolates as they caught up with each other. Sloane told Cooper about the conference and cookbook proposal she’d started putting together, a new knife set she’d been sent to demo and a little girl in Davon’s cooking class who’d been placed with a permanent family for adoption. “Enough about me. What did you do?”
“Oh, you know. Shook a lot of hands. Saw some sights. Got a lot of work done in my hotel room.” He cleared his throat. “I didn’t get an in with Johnson and
Fox, though. That’s awesome, Sloane.”
“Thanks.” She shifted in her seat.
“We’re getting pretty close to the church.” The houses were starting to get bigger, the buildings more ornate.
Sloane nodded and took a deep breath.
“Southern Methodist University is in this neighborhood.” Cooper said as Sloane leaned over to get her purse. “It’s a beautiful campus.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet if it’s around here.”
Cooper pointed at the biggest house yet with ornate Georgian columns. “I wonder who lives in this house. Probably someone famous.”
“I bet three of my apartment could fit on that lawn.” Sloane let out a nervous laugh.
Cooper made a left turn, and the church appeared in the middle of the neighborhood—gleaming in the evening sun, majestic. “This is us.”
Sloane took a tin of breath mints from her purse, the chalky white tablets clattering against the metal in her shaky hands. As he parked, he saw her trembling hands pop a few in her mouth then extend the tin across the console.
His gaze met Sloane’s. Was she going along with this to placate him? “Sloane, you don’t have to do this.”
“No, I want to.” She trapped the mints between her teeth and swallowed hard, putting the tin away. “I want to. I promise.”
As they walked up the steps to the carved wooden doors of the church, Cooper pressed his hand lightly against the small of her back. Just enough to let her know he was there.
Cooper peeked through the window of the sanctuary as they passed it, swaths of color slicing through the darkness courtesy of its stained glass window.
The hallways were dim and empty except for one room that was lit and filled with chatter. Sloane paused when they reached the room.
Cooper slipped his hand into hers, intertwining their fingers, and gave a gentle squeeze. Before his own first meeting, he had envisioned it would be something out of a courtroom drama with the whole spotlight interrogation thing going on. But this was a warm and cheerful classroom with colorful bulletin boards lining the walls, several round tables in the middle and a longer one at the front that held a coffeemaker, a few homemade pies and plastic plates and cutlery.
“Well, if it isn’t our long-lost friend, Cooper,” an older woman with almost magenta hair said.
Sloane’s grip tightened on his hand. He rifled through his mental files for the older woman’s name—Maggie. A few people walked over to them, hugging Cooper in a line like he was a prodigal son making his grand return. He should have made the effort to be there more often. It was good for his soul.
He tried to engage with the people who were greeting him, but he was focused on Sloane as she released his hand and sidestepped the crowd. She produced her hand sanitizer from her purse and rubbed a drop into her palms.
Great. She was uncomfortable. He needed to get to her. To let her know she didn’t have to feel alone or scared here.
“And who d’you have with you?” The old cowboy wearing the teal checked button-down noticed Sloane. She looked up like she’d been caught with a purse full of butterscotch at a candy store.
“This is Sloane.” Cooper raised his hand halfway in her direction. He wedged himself through the little crowd as the people around him turned to see her.
And as he knew they would, the chorus of warmth his friends gave Sloane visibly eased the tension in her face and shoulders.
No questions asked. Just welcome.
The magenta-haired Maggie guided them to her table. Two men pulled chairs behind Cooper and Sloane even though it was a squeeze for them both to sit there. Someone put plates of warm blueberry pie, sparkling with Turbinado sugar atop a more brown than golden crust, in front of them.
They were a lively bunch, this group. Most of them were smiling and happily chatting between bites of gooey desserts.
Had Sloane expected something different? Before his first visit he remembered imagining they’d all be wearing black. But they weren’t, and none of them were today except for one lady. But he didn’t think that counted since a huge picture of Michael Bublé adorned the front of her shirt.
“Sorry I’m late, everybody.” Kevin, the counselor on staff at the church, walked through the room, heavy-soled boots clomping against the thin carpeting. His lumbering stature and proportional personality almost overshadowed the small young woman trailing him. Her arms hugged her rib cage; her eyes were round and terrified.
“This is Amy. She’s going to be joining us today.”
There were no open spots at either of the two tables, so Cooper stood and squeezed Sloane’s shoulder to join him at one of the empty ones. A few others shuffled around, too, so Amy didn’t have to sit by herself. He watched as Sloane sneaked glances at Amy, working to discern information about her, he knew. It was a horrible thing to admit, but he was glad there was another new person here who looked as uncomfortable in her skin as Sloane seemed—as he’d felt before he’d gotten the hang of it.
Sloane made eye contact with the girl and gave a tiny smile. Even when she was uncomfortable, Sloane’s instinct was to help. She’d come a long way from the version of her he’d met that first day.
And sure enough, the terror in the girl’s face softened at Sloane’s gesture.
“Okay, everyone,” Kevin said. “Let’s get started. For those of you who are new, Amy and...” He paused and the attention whipped in Sloane’s direction.
“Roan,” the old cowboy supplied.
“Actually, it’s Sloane,” Cooper corrected.
The counselor grinned. “Sloane. My name is Kevin, and I’m on staff here. We typically open the floor for anyone who wants it before we get started.” He rubbed his hands together. “So, does anyone have anything they want to share with the group?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
SLOANE MENTALLY REARRANGED a pile of crumbs on the table and nibbled at her thumbnail. This was it. They were totally going to make her share her sob story. She could feel their eyes, their silent pressure.
“No one today?” Kevin broke the silence, and Sloane let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. “That’s all right. Because you know I’m always good for a few words.”
A low rumble of laughter rippled through the room. She stole another glance at Amy. Sunken cheeks, shadowy eyes, slumped posture. She knew she should be listening to Kevin, but it seemed surreal that she could pinpoint the spot in Amy’s body that was pierced by the pain, the spot that radiated ache. It was an ache Sloane knew too well.
She turned and met Cooper’s gaze. The look he gave her filled her with peace and the certainty that, no matter what, she wasn’t alone.
“But the place where we’re most broken, the most empty of ourselves,” Kevin continued, “is the place where we can be filled in a way that’s harder for people who haven’t experienced a loss.”
Sloane tried to process Kevin’s words. How could anything be harder for someone who hadn’t lost, who hadn’t had parts of themselves ripped away?
The people could choose to surrender, Kevin said. Or they could choose to let their pain define them. Sloane just couldn’t imagine a world where guilt didn’t come out of nowhere to sucker punch her. Where she deserved life and happiness when she’d taken those very things away from Aaron—and let his parents bury their only son believing a lie.
Her vision blurred as the image of what might have been the Jacobsens’ last family photo filled her mind. She’d chuckled when she saw it framed in their living room, Aaron’s much shorter parents carrying him between them. The love for each other written all over the laughter on their faces. It saw no differences in blood or DNA.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the clatter. Amy had stood so fast her chair was on its side. But the girl didn’t look back as she rushed from the room. Without a thought,
Sloane quickly followed. She turned down a hallway toward the scraping sound of a door and saw it closing. The women’s restroom.
“Amy,” she called through the laminate wooden door. “Are you in here?”
A sniffle echoed against the tiled walls.
Sloane pushed the door open and stepped in. “I’m here if you need to talk. It’s my first time, too. It’s a little overwhelming.”
Hand sanitizer. Her bottle was still at the table with her purse. She settled for washing them in the sink the old-fashioned way, grateful for something to do. As she blotted her hands with a paper towel, the stall door opened. Amy’s face was splotched and tearstained.
She looked Sloane up and down then stepped out of the stall. “I can’t believe I lost it like that,” she said, leaning heavily against the wall.
Sloane sat on the sink, cold water seeping through her dress. “No, I understand completely. You just had to get out of there.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly how I felt.” Amy sniffed. “So, who are you here for? Who did you lose?”
“Aaron. He was my best friend.”
Amy sighed. “I lost my mom. She’s—was—my last family left.”
Sloane’s heart wrenched inside her chest. The girl couldn’t have been much older than her. And to have survived her whole family? She couldn’t imagine. Suddenly it felt like way too long since she’d seen her own parents.
A knock sounded. The bathroom door cracked. “Sloane, are you all right?” Cooper’s deep voice was full of concern.
“We’re all right. I’ll be out in a minute.”
She pushed herself off of the counter to give Amy more room as the girl scrubbed her face under a stream of water.
Amy turned off the faucet and gripped the counter, water dripping from her face into the sink. “So, does it get better?”
“I think so.” Sloane handed Amy a paper towel. “I hope so.” I’m probably not the best person to ask.
With No Reservations Page 17
