Of course, why wouldn’t I be? What could possibly make me not okay with this crazy situation or perhaps, please don’t leave me with your friend - my first love - who’s now an older, angrier, unfairly sexy version of himself. The same guy who broke my heart when I was seventeen, who still has a terrifying edge simmering beneath the surface…and who I still kind of want to punch in the face.
Any of the above would have been appropriate, instead I shrugged.
“Argh, yeah,” still confused and feeling the adrenaline from earlier subsiding, I answered.
Seb nodded gratefully before beelining for Marlee.
The air suddenly felt as stagnant as it did charged. I couldn’t remember the last time I was alone with Cooper let alone under such strange circumstances. I swallowed the emotion threatening to surface and mustered whatever courage I could find to look at him.
“I can get an Uber if you need to –” I pointed over my shoulder half-heartedly, to what or who I didn’t know. I wasn’t even sure if I had enough money in my account to cover one and I was suddenly so tired and with the fear of those men still potentially lingering, I was uneasy.
His face scrunched into a frown as he looked at me so briefly, I could have imagined it.
“I’m taking you home.” The authority in his voice told me there was no room for argument but it wasn’t without kindness. The air of assertion which comes from being older, while maintaining the compassion and protectiveness he’d always held. Theboy I knew from all those years ago was still in there and it was that realisation that had me nodding as I stepped forward to lead the way outside.
I halted at the kerb where Cooper stood holding a helmet in my direction.
“You’re joking, right?” Of course, grown up Cooper wore a leather jacket and rode a motorbike. Seriously it was as if he was plucked straight from my teenage fantasies after I read The Outsiders in Year 9 English.
He shrugged almost apologetically, still unable to meet my gaze before stepping forward and looking at me properly for the first time.
I wanted to extricate myself from his assessment. Another part of me, the softer part I hated admitting still existed, wanted to stretch this moment out.
It had been so long since we’d been alone together. And after everything that had just happened, the idea of getting into a car with a stranger felt even worse. So, I took off my glasses, nodded and lifted my chin. I closed my eyes as darkness descended, his fingers lightly grazing my chin as he tightened the strap causing my eyes to shoot open.
Goosebumps tingled across my flesh, timing perfectly with my libido which stretched like a cat in the sun. She was very much awake, smug and ready for business.
Thirty minutes.
That’s apparently all it took for the full spectrum of emotion to flood me - fear, anger, panic and something akin to longing whispering underneath.
My greedy little wanton heart snuck another tentative glance; sandy hair longer than I remembered fell randomly across his forehead. His crisp blue eyes were as clear as ever although now they were framed by a frown rather than the easy smile I remembered. As kids, I always teased him about his Brad Pitt resemblance. Andwith blood drying on his knuckles and chaos in his eyes, he was giving Tyler Durden in a leather jacket. A shiver coursed through me involuntarily. I buried it deep in the vault of things I’d never confess, butexternally gorgeous, internally unhingedwas going straight on my bingo card and Cooper Dane was where the lore began.
Only now he looked haunted. Troubled. The innocence of childhood long ago gone.
He swept my face as if memorising every feature and I stood frozen, powerless to whatever was holding me to the spot. Carefully extracting my glasses from my hand, he gently slid them on for me, taking care not to poke my eyes or catch my hair. Even with another man’s blood still on his hands he was tender. As thoughtful as I remembered, my needs came first to him as he shuffled free from his jacket and draped it over my shoulders, waiting patiently while I pushed each arm through before he secured the zipper.
It swam on me, his broad chest much bigger than my own and I closed my eyes as an earthy smell wrapped me in its warmth. Suddenly I was thrown back to a time long ago, when we sat side by side as he showed me how to play a racing game on his Nintendo.
He laughed freely as my character slipped on yet another banana peel and crashed out of the race.
“How are you so bad at this, Evy?”
His old nickname for me shot forward, a sunny reminder of times we shared. I forgot he ever called me that or how it always made me smile. A name only he ever used. Something only we shared.
His face held a mild curiosity, guarded only by years of separation, but he smelt the same. Leather and spice and all things him.
The boy I fell in love with was now a man.
And he was everywhere.
Memories of the way he broke my heart and belittled me werepushed somewhere in the recesses of my mind as I stood helpless. Fixated under his assessing gaze.
I wanted him to pierce the air with something. Give me a glimpse of his boyish grin which always lit up the room. Anything besides the harrowed expression he now held.
But he didn’t.
The subtle tilt of his head was the only indication he was lost in thought before he brought his hand up and snapped the visor closed. I blinked rapidly, heaving in a breath now there was a barrier between us. The moment eviscerated quicker than it appeared, and I watched as he hopped onto the bike, started the engine and looked back at me expectantly.
