I turned to face him properly and as my eyes fully adjusted to the dark, I could make out the perfect line of his jaw. The haphazard fall of his hair across his forehead and those eyes which were searching for me too.
I stared at him, wondering why anyone would choose fighting to self-soothe. There were healthier ways to manage your anger, and a renewed fury bubbled inside my stomach when I thought about how his parents were responsible for him not understanding this. They’d never shown him how.
“Does Seb watch you?” I interrupted our moment, desperate to know more and somehow, I thought knowing he did would make things better because it would mean Coop had someone in his corner.
“Not really,” he answered, his face mere centimetres from mine. “Not by invitation anyway,” he huffed.
“It’s not a nice place and I’m not me when I’m there.” He shrugged and my heart ached. A tiny fissure in the centre, telling me this man needed more love, more people on his side.
Him and Sebastian were good friends. And I knew he spent time with Andy, Jack and Jay, even playing poker with them mostmonths, but had he ever had anyone whose sole focus was him? Someone whose first thought in the morning and last thought in the evening, was him? Someone who stood in his corner every second of every day.
“While I’m staying here, can you please tell me if you’re going there?” My voice shook a little, knowing what I was asking was a lot for him, but imploring him to agree. Desperate for him to understand, I was on his side, always. “I won’t try to stop you,” I added, despite every bone in my body begging me to take it back. “But I’ll be here waiting for you to come back. To make sure you’re okay.”
He didn’t speak, his stare settling on me like the summer sun.
“Why would you do that?”
What did he mean? Surely, he wasn’t so naive as to not know how I cared for him. Regardless of all the time which had passed since we saw each other so regularly, confided in each other so easily, at the end of each day, he was always my protector, and I wanted to be that for him too.
“Because I want to.” I answered honestly before I bridged the remaining distance between us and pressed a kiss to his jaw.
I allowed my lips to linger on his skin for a second longer than I should have. Inhaling the musky scent of sweat and leather while ignoring the slight squeeze of his hand around mine. “Because you were there for me so many times when I needed someone and because I’ve always been in your corner too, just from afar.” I confessed in a hushed whisper, the tears I’d been withholding losing the fight as I stood from the lounge and headed to bed before I did something to muddy the waters even more.
CHAPTER 23
Cooper
Iawoke with a jolt, my heart thudding like I’d spent ten minutes on the boxing bag. For a second, everything was foggy, the house as still as it always was but the dream still clung to the edges of my mind.
Like a whack to the jaw, it hit me. The heat in my chest, the mess under the sheets…and her.
Evangeline.
Curly brown hair. Big brown eyes. That laugh she always let spill when we played Nintendo, and she lost another car race.
With a groan, I flopped back onto the pillow, half-horrified, half-stunned.
What the heck? Why was I dreaming about Evy…and like that? I didn’t have a crush on Sebastian’s little sister. Did I?
I stared at the ceiling, trying not to think about what the hell this meant, but helpless to think of anything else.
Because I’ve always been in your corner.
Even in the limited hours of sleep I’d been able to achieve when I finally did make it to bed, Evangeline was front andcentre. Her words on repeat and my habit of overthinking every little thing about her was particularly annoying when for once, I’d peeled back the layers and shared things with her I’d never actually said aloud.
Coming home to find her on the lounge, so fucking beautiful even in sleep, had softened any remaining anger I had lingering over the fact she had a boyfriend. That she wasn’t mine.
The heavy post-bout fatigue hit me hard and fast and when I fell to my knees before her, it wasn’t to wake her, but because I had nothing left.
Somehow, I’d thought that having her here would be easy. Having someone in my space wouldn’t matter as it was only a few months. But nothing was ever that simple with Evangeline - not when it came to this - this thing between us. You could never name it because it wasn’t built on words. It was founded on instinct, familiarity and years of shared experiences and the sight of her encased in the soft flicker of the television cracked the icy exterior I maintained.
She was everywhere.
Her reappearance in my life somehow brought with it memories of her in everything I did, everything I saw and even now, with the morning light washing away the horrors of last night, I wanted to tell her everything she desired.
To tell her why I found salvation through my fists. How the anger and jealousy was so much stronger now because her presence lingered in the air; even when she wasn’t around and the slightest reminder that she wasn’t actually mine, couldn’t ever really be mine, hurt.
Fucking stung actually and I’d never been very good at talking. Only last night, with the shield of night hiding the shame of knowing she saw me when I was stripped so bare, I’d felt the answers bubbling up, knocking for escape. She made it all seem so easy. Her warmth and openness allowed the truth to curl on the tip of my tongue, but some stubborn part of me still wasn’t ready to let it go.
