“Now I’m not saying that we have a Meryl Streep or Angela Basset on our hands, but I’m saying that there’s a moment when she’s on stage that the pain of her past slips away. That it’s just her and the audience. And if that’s where she can find her moments of peace, then that’s what I want for her.”
Carla’s words rock me to the core. I’d always believed that I was doing the right thing by Owens, but maybe I haven’t been. Maybe I’ve actually been the completely clueless narcissist that everyone thinks I am and made this all about me.
“So you don’t want her to work for me.”
“At first I thought it was insane for her to give up such a great position. God knows you pay her well and she gets to meet so many cool people. Travel places.”
“But–”
“But I think you’re confusing her.”
“How?”
I’m not sure what Owens has told them and what she hasn’t.
“What I’m saying is she’s never going to follow her dreams working for you and…falling in love with you. She is going to get hurt. You and I both know that. And that is something me and our entire family won’t stand back and let happen.”
“Fall in love with me?”
“I don’t need my sister to tell me that she’s falling for you. I can tell, and based on what I know about Ursula, it needs to end. You need to let her go.”
“Things are a lot more complicated than they seem, Carla.”
“What’s complicated? You let her quit, and you let her go, and then you go live your big glamorous life. We’ll take care of any collateral damage. There will be some but not as much as if you wait a year to break her heart.”
“I’m not going to break her heart.”
Wait…will I?
“I’m asking you to let my sister go. Let her figure out on her own how to fill her empty spaces. She’s filled them with you for so long, she doesn’t know anything different.”
I just had an aha moment and it hurts something awful. Worse than any broken bone I’ve ever had.
“I understand what you’re saying.”
Carla stands up, lifting her shopping bags with her.
“It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Coop. You’re not as fucked-up as I thought. You have a good life.”
A painful smile reaches my eyes.
“Good luck with the baby.”
Carla waits for me to get in the car and start driving before she rings the bell. She wants to make sure I’m gone. As we drive away, I can see Tito staring at me in the rearview mirror with a look on his face that I can’t quite describe. If I had to give it a name, I’d say it was disappointment.
“What, Tito?”
“What are you going to do?”
Tito is the only person I’ve ever confided in about the little girl I pulled out of the car that day. I’m not sure why I told him. I guess I needed to tell someone, and I knew I could trust him with it.
“I’m going to go to the airport. I need to get away and get my head straight.”
“You sure that’s what you want to do?”
“I’ve got to put her first for once.”
“You’ve put her first for three years. You made good on your promise to her. You came back for her. You protected her. You made her strong. You love her, man. Anyone with half a brain can see that, or at least I see it.”
I lean my head against the window as we move silently through streets of Brooklyn. It feels heavy like my heart. Like there’s nothing that I’ll ever be able to do to lift it.
I miss her already.
Chapter Twenty-Six
A day that has been so painful for Owens that her subconscious chose to protect her from it wasn’t the case for me. I can still smell the smoke. I can still see the fire. And I can still see the cars piled up on top of each other like mangled Legos. I always have.
The fact that Owens knows the truth or at least part of the truth scares me. The fact that she was staring at me like I’m some hero who saved her wrecks me. I’m nobody’s hero. And actually, for a long time I thought I was a coward. A coward that allowed a middle-aged woman with red lipstick and large breasts to trick me into a car, then kidnap me, then frighten me. I hated myself for a long time over it.
The accident that stole Owens’s mother gave me back my freedom, because I was also a part of that crash. The storm was coming down hard and fast and my kidnapper couldn’t see well no matter how fast she increased the wiper speed. If she had been smart she would have pulled over until the rain passed, but she wasn’t smart, she was desperate. Desperate to move me to a new location and take the place of her dead son. A son whom I later found out that she murdered.
Our car skidded into the car in front of us which was Owens and her mom. Sending their car spinning and toppling over to the side of road. Another car hit us from behind, and then another, and then another. The front of our car crunched like an accordion, trapping my kidnapper in her seat. I, on the other hand, was injured but able to free myself from the back.
I later discovered that my eardrum was punctured, but that I probably didn’t feel much pain because of the adrenaline coursing through my body. I remember banging the back door with my fists. Frantically trying to free myself. I didn’t know if the kidnapper could move or not. All I could hear were her grating moans of pain and pleas for help. They fueled me. I wanted to get away from her as fast as I could. I hoped that she died in there.
Once I escaped, I did my best to hobble as quickly as I could to the wreckage. I didn’t know who I’d find inside but discovered that it was a woman in front and a little girl unconscious in the back. Owens. I went to the woman first. She was hanging upside down, her breaths were shallow, and her eyes wide open. It was frightening at first.
“Help her,” she whispered through what seemed like excruciating pain. “Help my daughter.”
I used all of my strength left to open the back door of their car. Sliding out the girl I later learned to be Ursula Owens to the side of the road.
She was small, shivering, and at the time it seemed like the life was escaping her little body. Perhaps she was only in shock. I didn’t know. I did the only thing that I could think to do. I covered her with my body. Shielding her from the rain until help arrived.
Soon I heard the sirens. They were still at a distance, but they were making their way towards us. I knew help was coming. Coming for me, for the girl, for her mom and to arrest the horrid woman who took me.
But then I saw the car door jiggle. My kidnapper was trying to free herself, and I feared that she was getting real close to succeeding. There was no way I was going back with her. No way.
“Wake up.” I tried shaking Owens awake. “Wake up, little girl.”
When her eyes finally opened I was so relieved. Then I saw my captor nudging her car door open. Her beady eyes looking desperately for me.
She still couldn’t get the door open enough to slide out, but I didn’t know that at the time. I panicked. I had to get away. I can leave the little girl here I remember thinking. Help is on the way. She’ll be fine. The woman wants me. A boy. Not a little girl.
“Sit here for a minute,” I told her.
“My mommy,” she pleaded.
She wanted me to go back and help get her mom out of the car. She didn’t understand that I couldn’t help even though I wanted to. I was only a kid myself. I couldn’t carry a grown woman. I had barely gotten her out.
“One of the grown-ups will help her,” I assured her. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do it.”
She began to cry.
“Wolf! Where are you, Wolf?”
I could hear my kidnapper calling for me. She was in pain. She was angry. It baffled me for days how she knew my family nickname– Wolf. I later learned that she had been watching me at the playground for days. And after that week as her captive, I never wanted to hear that nickname again.
“I gotta go,” I told Owens. “The firemen are almost here. Don’t worry. They’ll get y
our mom out.”
“Wait.”
“I’ll come back for you, but I gotta go right now, okay? Sit right here. Don’t move and they’ll help you.”
“Don’t forget,” she said before falling back into unconsciousness. “Don’t forget to come back for me, Wolf.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
There’s a heavy knock on my door. It startles me because that doesn’t happen very often. I don’t often talk to my neighbors because I’m never home and when I have a guest over, they have to be buzzed in the main door by me. I didn’t buzz anyone in. I’m in pajamas and on the sofa watching Charmed reruns.
I open the door to find a contrite but beautiful man standing before me. It’s Coop and it’s only once I’ve opened the door that I realize how much I’ve missed him. I didn’t go to work for the past few days because I was so angry at him, but at this moment I don’t care about any of that. All I want to do is hug him…but I don’t.
“How did you get inside of my building?”
“A couple of nice ladies let me in.”
“Of course…it’s always so easy for you.”
“You think anything about this is easy?”
“What do you mean this?”
“Can I come in, Owens?”
“I don’t know. Are you in your right mind today?”
I open the door and allow him inside.
“Are you still worried about the guy who was willing to throw me under the bus and write about something private. Something I didn’t want to share with the world.”
“I didn’t realize he threatened you with that information.”
“He did.”
“Okay, but he didn’t write it.”
“As far as you know.”
“He promised me he wouldn’t when he told me.”
“Oh, right and because he promised that means it’s true.”
“I’m just saying that you didn’t have to hit him with a football. There are legal options you can explore if he prints misinformation or–”
“It’s not about what happened back then. He made it quite clear that he was interested in you. That he was going to pursue you. And it looked like…it looked like that was happening.”
“We were just talking like we do any other practice. He’s a friend.”
“Really? Because you seem to be really concerned about his well-being right now.”
“I was worried for you not him. Hitting him with the ball was beneath you. You were embarrassing yourself.”
“Well I’m not embarrassed by the shit at all. I’d do way more than hit somebody with a football for you, Owens. I would do any fucking thing.”
“Coop–”
“You think you know what happened that day. You only know half of the story. Yes, I was abducted. Yes, it was us who crashed into your car ultimately killing your mother. Yes, it was me who pulled you out of that car then left you on the side of the road.”
“Coop–”
“I told them, Owens. I told anyone who would listen that you two needed help and went to you. The officers finally listened and took me back, but the ambulance was cutting your mother out of the car and they had you on a gurney. It looked like you were safe, so it was time for them to do their job and get me back to my family. I didn’t think your mother would die.”
“Thank you, Coop.”
“But your mom.”
“You didn’t kill her. That insane woman who took you is responsible for that. That wasn’t your fault. You have to know that.”
“But I left you there.”
“I never thought that. I don’t think that. You pulled me out of the car and you comforted me when I was most afraid. That’s more than most adults would have done.”
“Your mom asked me to help, Owens. I need you to know that in those last moments, she was thinking of you.”
Tears start to fall.
“Thank you for telling me that.”
He continues explaining himself. I know he needs to do it, and I want to hear everything he has to say, so I continue to stand patiently in front of him and listen to every word.
“Once I signed my first contract with the NFL, I knew that the very first thing I wanted to do with my money was to look for you. The little girl I made a promise to which I couldn’t keep.”
“You did keep it. You came back for me.”
I won’t allow him to keep saying that. He’s distorted the truth. Coop was a hero.
“It took me almost two years to find you, because like Jim told me once, no paper trail is ever truly destroyed. I can only describe it as kismet when I found you though. You had been out of school for three months and needed employment. I needed an assistant. I found your résumé on a basic job site by accident. I recognized the name from a copy of the police report that I’d gotten my hands on. I forwarded your application to the agency who was screening applicants for me.”
My heart actually almost skips a beat.
I wasn’t invisible like I thought.
I actually was important to him.
“They must have thought you were an idiot passing on that pitiful résumé,” I laugh.
“Nah, they were too busy thinking about all the babies they wanted to have with me to question my applicant selection.”
“Honestly, Coop, not every woman is attracted to you.”
“Your sister couldn’t catch her breath when she saw me in person at the bar and grill.”
“She was acting like that because she was drunk and you’re a celebrity, not because you’re gorgeous.”
“You think I’m gorgeous?”
He moves closer to me.
“I didn’t say that…exactly.”
“I think you just did,” he says in a voice dripping with want.
My eyes close and I practically melt when Coop cradles the side of my face with his hand.
“And you know what they say. Birds of a feather flock together. I think you’re drop dead gorgeous too. Especially these big, brown eyes.”
He kisses each of my eyelids softly.
First the left.
Then the right.
“And these soft lips.”
He kisses each corner of my mouth until he coaxes it open. The kiss begins sweetly and crescendos in a passionate claiming of my mouth.
When he releases me from it, I am breathless.
I am forever changed.
That was an unforgettable kiss.
But he’s not done.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Coop’s hand starts to slide down my neck and trace my collarbone softly. Then he carefully works his fingertips farther down.
“And your breasts.”
I hold my breath as his fingers move deftly over my nipples. My breasts are relatively small, but my nipples are extremely sensitive to temperature and to touch. He kisses my neck as he continues to lightly tug on my right nipple.
I let out a small groan of pleasure.
“So fucking responsive.”
Coop drops to his knees, and because of our height difference, his mouth comes directly face-to-face with my breasts. He quickly claims my left breast as he continues to manipulate the right nipple with his fingers.
I moan in delight.
While I have made out with other guys before, not one of them ever gave my breasts this much attention. I think because of their size, they were an afterthought to some, but Coop seems to like them. That makes me a lucky girl.
He blows a few warm breaths on my nipple and then switches maneuvers. Sucking the right and now playing with the left.
My eyes close in bliss, but when I do, it throws my equilibrium off for a moment. Before I topple over, Coop grabs me by my hips and holds me still. Now he alternates suckling at my breasts.
“I think everything about you is beautiful, Owens. The look of you. The smell of you. The taste of you.”
He slides my sweatpants down gently and kisses my hip bones and my belly button. I start to grow nervous as he reaches m
y pubic hairline. That’s been a no man zone my whole life. I tense up.
“Are you nervous?”
“Uh-uh,” I lie.
“Do I have your permission to explore this beautiful body any further.”
“Yes.” I grin.
“Have there been any explorers here before me?”
“Coop!” I laugh. “Who asks a question like that at a time like this.”
“This is the time to ask it. I need to know how slow I need to go, how careful I need to be, because right now I want to rip your clothes off and devour your cunt. I’m sure its dripping for me by now.”
I almost choke on my own saliva.
“I don’t know how to answer that.”
“Are you a virgin, Owens?”
“Yes.”
He seems very pleased with that answer.
“I’ll go slow then.”
He slides my pants a bit down farther and slides a finger in between the folds and then into his mouth.
“You’re soaking fucking wet.”
I close my eyes in embarrassment.
Coop is so dirty.
“Eyes on me, darlin’.”
I open them slowly.
He’s grinning. Almost laughing.
“Do you think dirty thoughts about me when we’re at the office? When you’re watching me at practice? Are you wet like this all the time for me, Owens? You must be. You’ve been a very bad girl these last few years.”
“Coop!”
“Should I continue?”
“I feel like I already said yes a thousand times already. Stop playing around.”
“Just checking.” He chuckles. “I don’t want there to be any question that you were practically begging for it when you complain about how sore you are tomorrow.”
“Saying yes is begging?”
He yanks my pants completely to the floor now and lifts each one of my legs out of them.
Wolf: A Sports Romance: The Nighthawk Series #2 Page 12
