“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?“
"You're twenty-three years old, Willa. You're allowed to have a social life. And a boyfriend."
"I know that. But I also have - " I caught myself before I said something I'd regret.
Cooper jumped right into the pause. "You have what?"
"Other stuff going on,“ I finished.
"Really."
"Yeah, like my little brother who shouldn’t be exposed to this kind of thing.”
"Is that it?"
"What?"
"The other stuff you have going on."
"Yes!" I felt like my head was spinning. "Cooper, I told you about his accident. I know you said I should forgive myself, but you have to know it's..." I caught myself again, wondering why the hell I thought I had to make excuses for why an eight-year-old needed to be supervised. Why we couldn’t be fucking like that with him only a few feet away.
Cooper took a deep, steadying breath. “Nothing happened, baby. Why are you so freaked out?“
I shook my head again. “Cooper, you need to go now.“
“Can I see you tomorrow?“
I had no idea. “Maybe. I might be busy.“
“Busy with what?”
“I don’t know,“ I exploded. Guilt was making my voice rise. How could I have done that with Jake around? This was not who I was. “Just busy, okay?“
“Well, I’ll call you then.“
“Fine, fine, call me.“
He was staring at me like he was seeing me in a new light. “You sure you going to pick up if I do?“ he asked. There was something of his old sarcasm in his voice.
But I didn’t have time for that now. “If I can, yeah.”
“Well, I’d be grateful if you could pencil me into your busy schedule,“ he snarled.
“Cooper, you knew that this was how it was going to be. I’ve got other shit going on in my life than just you. You can’t just show up in the middle of the night like this just to get your rocks off. Don’t be so goddamned selfish.“
“Is that it then? You sure there isn’t something else you’re not telling me?“
Something snapped inside my chest and I suddenly couldn’t take a deep breath anymore. Tears stung my eyes, but fuck him if he thought I’d start crying about this again. “Don’t even start with me. Just, go. I don’t have time for this right now.“
I hesitated for a second. As freaked out as I was, something inside me knew that I shouldn’t leave it like this. Not with him.
But his jaw twitched in anger, and he walked away. And then my brother called back out for me and reminded me of who I really was, and what was real in my life. So I didn’t look when Cooper pulled away in his truck. I just went back into the house, took the ice cream out of the freezer, and ate it until it was gone.
Chapter Forty-One
Cooper
“There he is.” Ryan stood up from his bar stool when he saw me and gestured for me to sit.
I hesitated for only a moment. Not enough for him to sense my wariness, I hoped. “Random of you to want to get together just the two of us,” I observed as I slid onto the stool.
He nodded, screwing up the side of his mouth like he wanted to say something. I had to resist tapping my fingers impatiently on the bar. After all, it wasn’t his fault I’d only answered his call because I thought he might be telling me he was out with the rest of the girls. And Willa.
I kept playing that night back in my head. Looking at it from every angle. Obsessing over the way she’d pushed me out of her house. The way she’d hedged, choosing her words too carefully, catching herself before she revealed too much. It was keeping me up at night, and I knew the only remedy was to see her again, to look into her eyes as I fucked her and make sure I saw only truth there. But I couldn’t do that if Ryan Howell was going to be all squirrelly about getting a beer together. “So you said you needed to give me something?” I prompted him, my mind a million miles away.
Ryan took a deep breath. He’d always been a decent dude. Loyal, like me. He’d been skilled on the football field but didn’t have the desire to lead that would take him places. It was hard for him to put himself out there, which was why I was careful not to interrupt him when he was trying to gather his thoughts.
I just wished he’d gather them a bit faster.
“So it was the weirdest thing,“ Ryan finally said. Super casually. Too casually. I was instantly on the alert. “You see, I was over at my aunt’s house.” He checked to see if that meant anything to me. “You know, the one who stole my grandpa’s place from my parents?” I nodded, remembering the sordid scandal of it all. “Well, she’d asked me to do some work for her, and even though I knew it pissed my mom off when I talked to her, I needed money… fast.” He cleared his throat. “She was trying to get ready for the painters to come over and needed me to move all this heavy ass furniture. So I was lugging her giant ass vanity from one side of her bedroom to the other, and this man’s wallet fell out from behind it.“
My blood ran cold.
He reached into his back pocket and pulled it out. The faded brown leather was sickeningly familiar. “Isn’t this your dad’s?“
He flipped it open.
“Huh,” was all I could say as I stared down at it. There it was. Everything. His license, complete with our address. His business cards. His credit cards. The faded and outdated pictures of me and my mom. The stilted family photo that had gone out with the Christmas cards. Fred Grant, Frederick Grant, Freddie Grant.
There was no denying what was right in front of me. But I had the strongest urge to do just that.
“How in the ever-loving fuck did your father’s wallet end up at my aunt’s place?“ Ryan wondered.
"I have no idea,“ I lied through gritted teeth. I had every idea.
“Anyway, here.” He slid it across the bar. “I bet he’s probably looking everywhere for it. Going crazy.”
“He hasn’t said a thing.”
“Huh. Weird.”
Shame burned the tips of my ears. He knew. He wasn’t saying anything, out of deference to our friendship. But he knew. And if Ryan knew, then Naomi would know soon enough. Then Avery, then the whole group, then the whole fucking town. The secret was out. The shame my mother and I had tried to hide for so many years, the secret we’d kept hidden away. It was all for nothing. One fuck up, and my father had exposed his lies. And in doing so, he exposed all the rest of us too.
Ryan cleared his throat awkwardly. “So yeah. Anyway. Where’s Willa tonight?” He slid a bottle of beer across the bar and into my hand.
“It’s not like we are attached at the hip,“ I grumbled into my beer, then took a long swig. My father’s wallet was burning a hole in my pocket. I wanted to run outside and throw it right into the creek.
“What she up to?“ Ryan asked.
I set the bottle down and peeled back some of the wrapper. “She said something about having to go chaperone a birthday party.“
“Sounds fun,“ Ryan deadpanned. “Guess that’s why you were free to meet up, huh? Don’t know why she wouldn’t want you to tag along.“
“Willa doesn’t really like to mix business with pleasure,“ I said, trying to keep my tone light even as I was remembering how she’d pushed me out of her house.
But it nagged at me. The way she kept me at arm’s length. She knew I wanted more, knew that’s what I needed. Why would it be a problem that I wanted to spend as much time with her as I could? Why didn’t she ask me to tag along and help chaperone? I would’ve liked to see her brother with his friends.
But she hadn’t even thought to ask.
No matter how hard I tried to ignore it, I couldn’t shake the feeling that ever since we returned from the cabin, she’d put me right back into the box she’d always kept me in and shoved me to the back of the neatly labeled shelf where she kep
t all the parts of her life sorted by importance.
It had been days since that ragged, desperate moment in her kitchen when I’d needed her so badly and she’d pushed me away. Days since she shoved me out the door with my pants still unzipped. Our calls had been short and not so sweet. She’d been distracted. Like she was hiding something.
What was she hiding?
Being suspicious of her was such an easy habit to fall back into. I didn’t want it to be so easy. But all the reasons why I shouldn’t trust her were right there.
“Look, man, if it’s bugging you so much, go find her,” Ryan advised. Clearly, he was getting uncomfortable with my brooding silence. “Spending my Saturday night with a bunch of little kids sounds like hell to me personally, but that’s Willa for you.“
It sounded like hell to me, too. Why would she even need to be there? It was a birthday party, and it’s not like Jake was two.
Unless there was no birthday party at all.
Ryan looked up sharply as I stood up. “You have a sudden hankering for birthday cake?“
“What are you talking about?“
“You’re going to find her now, aren’t you? I can tell, I got pretty good at reading your face out on the football field, Cooper. You’d be a really shitty poker player.“
I grimaced. “I thought… Maybe she could use a hand?“ I supplied lamely. Trying to make myself sound like something else other than the suspicious boyfriend I was. “Hey, thanks for uh… finding this for my dad.”
“No problem. It’s fine, you can go. Go get your woman.”
My woman. Was that what she was?
I thought so. But did she?
You knew she’d do this. That nagging thought that had been lurking in the back of my brain suddenly lashed out like a striking snake. Once a cheater, always a cheater. The wallet in my pocket was all the proof I needed that I’d always been right about that. You knew you couldn’t trust her, and you did anyway. Just how naïve are you?
I slapped a twenty down on the bar and rushed out the door.
Chapter Forty-Two
Willa
Jake was high on sugar and buzzing from the avalanche of caffeine he’d ingested It really seemed like he was trying to make up for eight years of soda being forbidden by drinking his lifetime’s supply in a single go. The whole way back from Brycen’s party, he’d whooped and chattered and kicked the back of my seat as I drove.
“I’m glad you had fun,“ I said to my brother.
His smile was so wide it nearly cracked his freckled face in half. “Thanks,“ he said.
I glanced in the rearview mirror and smiled back at him. Swallowing down my reservations about this party had been one of the hardest things I’d ever done, but Cooper was right. Jake was almost nine, and his heart deserved as much protection as his body did. Going out with friends was something I had to let him do. I couldn’t keep him my baby brother forever.
So I compromised. Offered to come along as an extra pair of adult eyes. I’d stayed in the shadows, out of Jake’s way, and my reward was seeing him prosper. He was nervous and overeager, but no one seemed to notice that except me.
And not a single person said a word about his hand.
Being around twelve eight and nine-year-old boys for a three-hour orgy of sugar and terrible overstimulating movies was going to have me feeling like I was hung over for the next three days. But it was all worth it to see my brother so happy.
“You’re going to go in, get washed up, and head right to bed, okay?“ I reminded him. “It’s really late. But you can sleep in tomorrow. First day of summer vacation, huh?“
That made him grin even wider. Then his face fell. “Can I go over to Brycen’s house tomorrow?“
I swallowed back my reflexive ’no.’ “We’ll see if that can happen,“ I said. “We just have to check with his mom first, okay bud?“
He nodded happily and looked out the window.
By the time we were pulling into our long drive, he was looking less manic and way more sleepy. “You’re going to pass out any minute,“ I chuckled.
“Who is that?“ he asked. Confused, I looked where he was pointing. “Is that Cooper‘s truck? What’s he doing here? Isn’t it past his bedtime too?“
“I… guess not.“ I parked the car and turned off the lights. “Hey, Jake? Run inside and get yourself into your pajamas okay? I’ll be in in a second.“
Jake wavered. I could tell he wanted to stick around and see what was going on. But he was smart enough to realize that doing what I asked was the best way to get his playdate tomorrow. “Fine,“ he grumbled and shut the back door behind him.
I waited until I heard the front door slam before I approached Cooper’s truck. “Everything okay?“ I asked as I tapped against the window.
He was sitting there with the dome light on and an unreadable expression on his face. “Was that Jake?“
“Yeah, we just got back from that party. He did really well actually.“ I gestured for him to follow me onto the porch so I could hear if Jake was really getting ready or watching TV.
He followed slowly, dragging his feet. “That’s where you were?“
I narrowed my eyes. “Yeah, I told you. That’s where we were.“
He nodded and looked down.
“Cooper?“ Something hot and nasty was twisting in my belly. “Are you here to check up on me to see if I was where I said I was? Did you think I was lying about a kid’s birthday party?“
“I just wanted to see you,“ he said, sounding glum. “And you haven’t had that much time for me lately.“
“So you decided to drive all the way out here to check up on me,“ I said flatly. “That seems a little fucked up to me.“
“I think it’s fucked up that I thought I had to, honestly.“
“What the hell do you mean by that?“
“I shouldn’t have to beg for space in your life, Willa. I’m your fucking boyfriend.“
“Yeah, you are. And you’re part of my life. But just that, a part. Not the entire fucking thing.” I twisted my hands around each other to keep from shaking him. “That’s your problem, Cooper. You expect the people around you to stop living the second you’re not with them. You did the same thing to Liam all the damn time.“
At the mention of Liam, his eyes blazed. “You’re absolutely right,“ he said coldly. “And there are definitely some things about Liam‘s life that I don’t know everything about.“
I snapped my mouth shut. Aware that we are heading into dangerous territory.
But he had already sensed it. “Yeah,“ he said. Softly, dangerously.
I tried to hold it together. After all, this was nothing I wasn’t used to. Holding my head high up against Cooper’s accusations was practically a fucking hobby of mine.
But not now. Not after everything had changed.
“Liam is my friend,” I choked. “My best friend. If I thought for one second he’d have a problem with this… that this was betraying him in some way…. Do you really think I would do it?
“I don’t know.“
It was like he’d slapped me in the face. “You don’t know.“
“No.“ His lip twisted with scorn. Scorn I hadn’t seen there in weeks. But it was back again. “No, I guess I really don’t know that for sure, do I?“
"Go home."
The scorn dropped away and he looked stricken. It took everything I had just to keep my voice steady. I reached out blindly and closed my fingers around the porch railing to steady myself so that I wouldn't suddenly drop to the ground. ”Go. Home,” I repeated.
The look on his face nearly broke my heart in two, but I had to say it. "If you still think I am capable of betraying someone..." I held up my hand as he started to protest. I needed him to stop talking because if I let him talk, let his words and his voice wash over me, it would drown out the last bit of dignity I was clinging to. "If you still believe, after all we've said, all we've done, all we've learned about each other…" Here my voice caught a
nd I had to catch my breath, which allowed him the space to robotically mutter, "It's in the past, though."
"Is it?" Sudden fury straightened my spine and I no longer felt like I was boneless. I unclenched my fingers from the railing and shoved them right under his nose. "There's no such thing as the past when it comes to us, Cooper! It's all there, all those years we spent sniping at each other, all those bad thoughts we had, they're all right here in the present. We've had a few good weeks, but what are those in the face of so many years?" I choked and stepped back. "Clearly, these few weeks weren't enough to rewrite the past. You still think I cheated on Liam."
“I saw you."
"You saw me,” I repeated. “Yes. You've said that. But you have no idea what you actually saw."
His mouth worked. That beautiful mouth I'd relished kissing, those perfect lips that had traveled over every inch of my body, it twitched, grimaced, formed the shape of a word and then was consumed by a sneer. "You're still on that? That's still your line, even after all this time, even after the cabin?" He stepped back, shaking his head. "How well do you know me now? After... everything... you still think that'd be good enough? Just fucking say it, Willa! Say you cheated!”
I opened my mouth. He leaned forward, listening, eager. I could just tell him, right now. Exonerate myself, make him believe in me.
Except...
I promised.
And more than that, he should already believe in me. I shouldn’t need to prove myself over and over again.
I stepped back, shaking my head. "If you still think I betrayed him, there's nothing I can do." He made a noise, but I held up my hand and turned away so he wouldn't see my tears. "Ask him though, okay? Just go ask Liam."
"What the hell good will - "
"Just go!" I shouted so loud that it rang in my ears. Inside the house, the glasses rattled in the cupboards.
He looked at me. Full in the eye so that I was treated to every emotion as it passed across his face. I saw love and forgiveness in the same moment I saw hurt and heartbreak and all of them made me wish I wasn't frozen to the spot so that I could go to him and kiss his fears away. Protect him from the hurt he was feeling.
Last Good Man: A Crown Creek Novel Page 18
