“Cooper Henry!”
“Thatismy name.”
“I’m so pissed at you!”
His eyes meet mine with a smirk. “Interesting,” he drawls before putting the truck in reverse, looking over his shoulder, and backing out.
It’s the hottest fucking thing I’ve ever seen, and I have to stop myself from drooling.
Cooper is bad! You do not like him! He broke your heart!
I’ve found myself needing the reminder more often than not, lately.
We settle into a silence as he drives us home.
Home.
“You know,” I say quietly as we pass the baseball stadium. “I always thought you’d be my first.”
He nearly swerves as he looks over at me. “First what?”
“First everything,” I admit.
“You were my first kiss. My first sleepover, no matter how innocent. You were my first fantasy.”
I watch his knuckles tighten around the wheel. “You were a few firsts, but you weren’t all of them. I trusted you enough that I wanted to give you everything. Well, I wanted that for me. I didn’t want to experience it withjust some guy.”
Cooper’s jaw ticks, and I watch it in awe.
He really did grow upnice.Sharp angles. Beautiful.
“I think things would have been better if you just,” Ipause, thinking over my words carefully. “If you just acknowledged me. Even just once. If I didn’t think that you wanted nothing to do with me. Like I meant nothing to you, ever.”
“You meant everything to me.” His voice comes out cracked. Tortured. Sad.
I ignore him.
“The next thing I know, you’re turning up in Baltimore, playing for our football team. The same football team my friend’s brother plays on.”
The day Isla started talking about the new tight end the team had drafted, I almost spit out my coffee. We had been at a small coffee shop, grabbing drinks before going to the farmer’s market.
I had nearly lost it.
“I just couldn’t understand why.”
“I didn’t get to pick where I went. The draft is for teams to pick the players that they want. But,” he sighs, looking as if he wants his seat to swallow him whole. “A part of me did hope that it was some divine intervention. Something was telling me to reconnect with you.”
“But you didn’t.”
“The first time I saw you with your friends, you looked happy. And you looked at me like you wished I was six feet under.”
I feel my heart squeeze in my chest, a crushing feeling of uneasiness settling over me.
“I didn’t want to ruin it.”
His fists relax on his wheel as he turns into his parking garage. We pass our cars until he’s at the far end, where there’s a little more room for his truck.
And when he pulls into his spot, I notice something I hadn’t before.
