by Kaylee Ryan
“Answer the man,” someone calls out.
I feel my phone ringing in my pocket, but it’s going to have to wait. “Yes,” I whisper.
“Yes?” he asks, almost sounding surprised.
I nod. “Yes.”
He slides the ring on my finger, then stands and kisses me. Not just a peck. No, he bends me over and kisses me long and hard. In front of everyone. When he stands me back up, he whispers in my ear, “I love you, Reese.”
I smile up at him. “I love you too.”
“Oh, it’s Cooper.” I hear Ann say. The room quiets a bit, but it’s still loud with everyone telling us congratulations. And there’s a noisemaker. I’m not sure where that came from, but Cliff, one of the guys my dad works with, places it to his lips, and the sound echoes throughout the room.
“Reese!” Ann calls out. She raises her phone in the air and motions for me to come to her. Hunter kisses my temple and releases me. “It’s Cooper.” Ann gives me a sad smile.
I take the phone from her and take the steps two at a time to get upstairs where it’s quiet, and I can hear him. “You did it,” I say once I reach the top step.
“You’re getting married?” he asks.
I look down at the ring on my left hand. “Yeah. Hunter just proposed.”
“Son of a bitch,” he mutters.
“Coop? Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” he clips. “I guess congratulations are in order.” His tone sounds anything but congratulatory.
“Gee, thanks,” I say sarcastically.
“What am I supposed to say, Reese? Huh?”
“Nothing, Cooper. You’re not supposed to say anything.”
“Look, I need to go. Tell Mom I’ll call her later. I have interviews and press and all kinds of other shit I need to get to. I just wanted— It doesn’t matter. Just tell Mom I’ll call her,” he says, and the line goes dead.
Tears burn my eyes, and I try to fight against them. Why can’t he just be happy for me? Support me? I’ve always been there for him. No matter what the choice, I’ve supported him with my whole heart. I don’t understand. He’s mad that I’m engaged? He doesn’t want me, but he doesn’t want anyone else to have me either. That’s not how life works. I’ve moved on to a man who is good to me. Is it too much to ask that he be happy for me?
Sitting on the couch, I bury my face in my hands. The ring on my left hand feels foreign. This is supposed to be a fun night. A night of celebrations, his and mine. Why is he acting like I just kicked his puppy?
“Reese?” I look up to find Ann standing next to me. “Everything okay?”
“Yes,” I choke out and hold her phone out to her.
She takes a seat next to me. “You want to try that again?”
“He’s mad. Cooper. He’s mad at me.”
“Why?”
“Because I agreed to marry Hunter. He doesn’t want me, yet he doesn’t want anyone else to have me either.” I slap my hand over my mouth, regretting my word vomit as soon as it spews from my mouth. “I’m sorry. Please forget I said that.”
“Come here.” She pulls me into a hug. “I don’t know what’s going on, and it’s not my place. What I do know is that you’ve always been special to my son.”
“He’s my best friend,” I say through tears.
“I know, sweet girl. He’s just having a hard time adjusting to missing all the important things in your life, and you his. You two have always been attached at the hip.”
“I don’t think that’s it. He was upset. I just… I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to lose him in my life, but I feel him slipping further and further away.” I can’t tell her that it started the night I offered myself to him and he refused me. I keep that to myself. It’s been a downhill spiral with us ever since. We’ve both been distant, but I never would have imagined he would act this way at my news. He’s always said he wanted me to find someone who was good to me. Hunter is that man.
“Come on. Your fiancé is waiting, and your dad wants to make a toast.” She hands me the box of tissues to dry my face. Once I’m all cleaned up, we make our way downstairs. Hunter is at my side immediately.
“You all right?” he asks softly.
“Yeah, just a lot of emotions, us and Coop winning. It just kind of all came at me at once.”
“We don’t have to rush,” he tells me. “Take all the time you need. I just needed to know that you’ll always be mine.”
“No.” I shake my head. “There’s no point in waiting. We’re in this together, right? Are you having second thoughts?” I ask Hunter when I should be asking myself. I don’t know why I have the sudden urge to get married. It wasn’t even on my radar until he asked me. Now, I guess it’s just the next step. It’s the next part of moving on with my life. I want to feel settled. It’s been too long since I’ve felt that.
“Never.”
“Good. Then I say a small ceremony, maybe here in my hometown?”
“Whatever you want.”
“What about your parents?”
“They love you as much as I do. As long as it’s what we want, they’ll support us.”
I pull my phone out of my back pocket and scroll through the calendar. “How’s the end of March?”
“Reese, that’s next month.”
“Too soon?”
“No. Not for me, but are you sure? You have a huge wedding or small, it doesn’t matter to me as long as you’re the one standing next to me.”
“Let me make some calls. There are a few venues here in town. I’ll see which one can get us in and we’ll go from there. How’s that?”
“Perfect. Just tell me when and where, and I’ll be there.”
“Come over here, you two. We have some celebrating to do,” my dad calls out.
We make our way to the circle of people I’ve grown up with and raise our glasses. Dad makes a sappy toast about his baby girl growing up and getting married, and that he couldn’t think of a better man to ask for my hand. I once thought he would be saying those words with Cooper standing next to me. Just goes to show you how life changes when you don’t expect it to. What you wish for isn’t always the way things turn out.
Chapter 27
Cooper
I’ve been sitting outside of the banquet hall for about an hour. The rehearsal is supposed to start any minute, but for the life of me, I can’t make myself get out of my Jeep. I grip the wheel tighter and glance over at the seat at her wedding invitation. My best friend, the love of my life, is getting married, but she’s not marrying me.
I’m too late.
I wasted so much time on the fear of what-if. I was too damn blind and fucking stubborn to open my eyes and see what I had right in front of me. It didn’t matter who tried to make me see it. I pushed all possibilities that she could be mine way down deep. So deep that it wasn’t until she was no longer a part of my daily life after the draft and I moved, that those feelings started to rise up. Missing her made me realize that yes, she’s my best friend, but she’s also my fucking heart. I didn’t know that I needed her to breathe until I could no longer see her smile in the flesh every single day.
Now, though, now I know what this tightness in my chest is every time I think about her, or her name gets mentioned. I know why all I can think about is wrapping my arms around her and never letting go.
I’m in love with her.
Not just the “she’s been my best friend since I was eight, and we have so much history” kind of love. Although that rings true, that’s not all. No, it’s the “can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t think of anything but her” kind of love. It’s imagining our future together where I’m the one who gets to change her last name. A future where we build a family, and I get to make love to her every damn night before we fall asleep exhausted, just to wake up and do it all again the next day.
It’s the forever kind of love. I know this because there has never been a woman who can hold a candle to Reese in my eyes. I always thought I was just being p
icky, but after my dad called me out at dinner that night a few months ago, I really started to think. Think about my feelings for her, and what I want out of life. It didn’t take me long. Just one long sleepless night to determine that everything in my life pointed back to her. Back to Reese. She is who I want. She’s the missing link to my happiness.
I was going to tell her. I had it all planned out. I had to do my job first, though. Just one more game—the game of all games for a professional football player. I made up my mind that after the big game, we were going to talk. I even told her there were some things I needed to get off my chest. I had a job to do, but after the Super Bowl, I had planned to head back to Ohio, to Columbus specifically, and lay my heart out on the table for her. I was going to peel back all of the layers and tell her exactly what she means to me. What I didn’t plan on was Hunter proposing that very night.
Also, something I never expected was to receive a wedding invitation in the mail for a wedding that was happening just one month later. Again, my eyes travel to the passenger seat, where the invitation lies crinkled. I might have wadded it up when I read it. I also might have thrown the wadded-up paper across the room, only to stalk across the room five minutes later and pick it up. I unfolded it as best as I could and hung it on the refrigerator. I used a magnet of the two of us from our family vacation to the beach our junior year of high school.
So, here I am, sitting in the parking lot like the love-sick fool that I am, trying to find the strength to go in there and watch her practice to give herself to another man. I like to think of myself as a man’s man. I don’t show my emotions often, and I can handle just about anything that comes my way. I’m also man enough to admit that I can’t handle this. I don’t know how I’m going to survive these next two days.
A knock on my window startles me. Turning, I see Nixon and Tessa. Taking in a slow, deep breath, I hit the button to roll the window down.
“What are you doing sitting out here?” Nixon asks.
“I can’t go in there.”
“What? Of course, you can. Reese is getting married. She expects you to be there,” Tessa says, sassy as ever.
“I can’t do it, Tess. I can’t watch her marry him.” I throw the words out into the universe. Speaking them out loud feels good. I’ve been keeping this bottled inside for far too long.
“What do you mean?” Her voice is soft now, and the look on her face tells me she knows exactly what I mean.
“I’m in love with her. I was going to tell her. I told her that we needed to talk, and then I called her after the game.” I swallow hard. “And she didn’t answer, so I called my mom, and she told me that he proposed.” I shake my head to ward off the hurt that I still feel from that night. It should have been one of the best nights of my life, a highlight of my career for sure, but instead, I was miserable, angry, and pissed off, mostly at myself for keeping my head in the sand for far too long.
“Fuck,” Nixon murmurs. “I told you, Reeves. I told you this would happen.” He shakes his head in disappointment.
“I know. Fuck, I know, okay. I just… I can’t watch her marry him. I don’t know what to do.” I sound pathetic, but I truly need some guidance here. I can’t sit there and watch the love of my life marry another man like it doesn’t bother me. That’s not who I am, not when it comes to Reese and how I feel about her. Now that I can finally admit it to myself, I want to shout it to the world.
“I can tell you what you’re going to do.” This from Tessa. “You’re going to climb your ass out of this Jeep, and you’re going to go in there and put a smile on your face, and you’re going to support her with this.”
“I don’t think I can do that, Tess.” I look at Nixon. “Fuck, I can’t do this.”
“You have to. What can we do to help? I have to be up there with her. Nix, stay with him. Don’t let him leave your sight. If it gets to where you need to leave, the two of you go together. Make it a deal about an agent or football or some other excuse. You will not ruin this for her.”
“Do you think…?” I ask, letting my words trail off.
Tessa closes her eyes and exhales. “Yeah, Cooper, I do think.”
“What are the two of you talking about?” Nixon asks.
“I have to tell her, Tessa. I can’t let her marry him thinking that I don’t love her. I have to tell her.” I feel my resolve strengthening as I say the words.
“You have shit timing, Reeves.”
“Better late than never, right?” I ask, and even I can hear the hope in my voice.
“Didn’t Shrek say that?” Nixon asks.
“Focus, Nix. He’s going to tell her.”
“Wait. What? You can’t do that. Not today of all days.” Nixon is shaking his head and giving me a look that tells me he thinks I’ve lost my mind.
I have for her.
For Reese.
“What I think is that I’m crazy for even letting you entertain this, but I think you’re right. She needs to know. Give her the information and let her decide. That’s all you can do,” Tessa says.
“Come on then, Romeo. Let’s get this shitshow started.” Nixon pulls open my door. I reach over and roll up the window, grabbing my keys and phone, and climb out. I follow them to the doors, and as soon as they open, my throat closes up.
I’m scared out of my mind that telling her will make me lose her for good. However, I’ve already lost her. If she marries him, I’ll have already lost her. My eyes scan the room in search of her, but I don’t see her anywhere. Hunter is standing at the end of an aisle talking to two older gentlemen. I’m so focused on looking for her that I run into the back of Tessa and Nixon when they stop walking. “Sorry,” I mumble.
“She’s in the bride wing.” Tessa holds up her phone to show me a text message from Reese. “The time got pushed back, so you have an hour to lay your heart out on the rug.” She points behind me and to the right.
“Thank you.” I nod and turn on my heel in search of Reese.
“Cooper.” Eve, Reese’s mom, spots me. “I didn’t know you were here yet. How are you?” she asks.
Oh, you know, fine. Just getting ready to tell your daughter I’m in love with her.
“Good, Eve. I was hoping to get to see Reese before this thing gets started.”
“She’d like that. She’s down this hall. Last door on the right. I just left her.”
“Is she alone? You know, I don’t want to walk in on anything.” I smile. It’s forced, but I don’t think she notices.
“Yes. She’s alone. She needed a few minutes, but I’m sure she’ll be glad to see you.” She pats my arm and moves on down the hall.
I take long strides until I reach the last door on the right. My hand poised to knock, I suck in a deep breath and slowly exhale. This is it. This is my one and only chance to tell her how I feel about her. To tell her she should be marrying me. My hand raps on the door three times, and I shove it into my pocket, waiting for her to answer.
“Coming!” she calls out. My knees threaten to give out as she pulls open the door. “Cooper.” She whispers my name, almost as if she wished for me, and she can’t believe I’m really here.
“Hey, Reese. Got a minute.”
“Uh, sure, yeah, come in.” She steps back and allows me to enter the room. She shuts the door behind her and takes a seat on the couch. “I wasn’t sure you would be here.”
“Honestly, I wasn’t sure I would be here either. Well, I knew I would be here. I just didn’t know if I could come inside. I sat in the parking lot for an hour before Nixon and Tessa forced me inside with them.” I walk to the door and turn the lock. We don’t need any interruptions while I’m pouring my heart out.
“What are you doing? And why did you need to be forced to be here? If you don’t want to be here, Cooper, just leave.” I can hear the hurt in her voice.
“Th-That’s not what I meant.” I close my eyes and try to compose my thoughts. “I want to be here for you. Always for you.”
“T
hen why?” Her brow is furrowed as she tries to figure out why in the hell I’m talking in riddles.
Taking a seat on the couch next to her, I turn to face her. “I have so much that I want to say to you. So much that I had planned to say, and then it all got messed up. I lost my chance, and then this, here this weekend, I feel as though this is my last opportunity to tell you everything.”
“Are you okay?” She leans into me, her hand landing on my forearm. It’s like a shot of electricity just from one small touch of her skin to mine. I’ve fucking missed her.
“No.” I shake my head. “I’m not okay.”
“Talk to me, Cooper.”
I don’t have a speech prepared. Hell, I didn’t even know I would be sitting next to her, just the two of us, giving me the opportunity to tell her what’s in my heart. “I love you.”
Her eyes soften. “I love you too.”
“No.” I shake my head. “I mean, I’m in love with you.”
She freezes. “What?”
“Reese, I’ve always loved you. I just fought it. I was afraid that I would lose you in my life, and that if things didn’t work out between us, I wouldn’t have you, but yet here I am, and I’ve lost you anyway. To Hunter. No matter how hard we tried or how bad we wanted things to stay the same, they just didn’t.”
“I-I don’t understand,” she murmurs with tears in her eyes.
“Don’t marry him. Please, Reese, don’t marry him,” I plead with her.
“Are you kidding me right now? This is low, Cooper. You don’t want me, but you don’t want anyone else to have me either. That’s not fair.” She chokes on a sob.
“No, baby. I do want you. I want all of you.” I place my hands on her cheeks and wait for her to look at me. “I love you, Reese. Not just because I don’t want you to marry him, but because I want you to marry me.”
Her eyes widen at my confession. “Why are you doing this? Today of all days, why are you doing this? You’ve known I was getting married for weeks. Why now? Huh? Why today at my fucking wedding rehearsal? Why today, Cooper?”
