“Yeah, well.” Wyatt downed the rest of his coffee. “That ship has sailed. Let me get in there to make another mug.”
Cooper stepped out of the way so Wyatt could get back to the coffee pot to make another cup for himself. It was the first time Cooper had really gotten to take a look at Wyatt since his arrival back in North Edgewood. He’d grown up so much from the last time Cooper had seen him, but life would do that to a person, he supposed. Life and love and heartbreak, no doubt.
“I don’t mean to put a crimp in your shit with my dad,” Wyatt said, lips pursed.
“You’re not.”
“I don’t want to be here long.”
“You weren’t here long last time, either,” Cooper said.
“Yeah.” Wyatt rubbed the back of his neck as coffee sputtered into his mug. “The circumstances were a bit different. Back then, I had somewhere to go, but now I don’t.”
“You’re here,” he said. “That’s clearly where you need to be.”
“What I need is for it to be a year ago, back before my marriage fell apart.” Wyatt pulled his coffee off the machine and raised it to take a smell.
“I know you think that, but it’s not really true. Whatever is going on now would have been going on then.”
Wyatt set his mug on the counter roughly and made his hands into claws like he was trying to twist and tear at the air. “Right, but I didn’t know about it. It didn’t make me feel like I wanted to tear my skin off.”
“Breakups are shit.”
“It’s not a breakup,” Wyatt snapped. “It’s a divorce.”
Cooper sighed. “You know you could stay here if you wanted. I’m sure there are people in town who’ve missed you.”
Wyatt’s head snapped up and he narrowed his eyes. Cooper held his stare, his expression and posture unwavering.
“No one here has missed me,” Wyatt said.
“Your dad missed you.”
“No one else.”
“Wyatt, I strongly doubt that to be true,” he said.
Cooper was oftentimes a quiet man. But more than that, he was observant. When Wyatt was eighteen, he watched the very careful way he’d circled near Grant without coming close. He had security cameras in the front of the store that had caught them talking together up front on more than one occasion. Grant would bring Wyatt tea from The Cafe on the Corner and they would talk over lunch while Wyatt worked. Sometimes, Wyatt would flip the door sign toClosedand the two of them would go into the back, but Cooper didn’t know much more than that and he’d never ask. The cameras in the stock room had never worked because he was practically always the only employee and he had no need for them.
So he’d watched Adam’s best friend and son dance around each other like they weren’t sure they were supposed to be friendly, while also somehow wanting to be more than that. He’d never asked either of them, and he’d definitely never talked to Adam about his suspicions. There were things that Cooper suspected for years, but the way Wyatt eyed him warily only confirmed the validity of his assumptions.
“It doesn’t matter,” Wyatt answered, scratching his chin.
“Did you want a job while you’re here?” He changed the subject, not wanting to press. He hoped Wyatt understood what he meant and that he was a safe sounding board, either for talks about the present or the past. Or even the future.
Wyatt barked out a laugh. “No offense, Cooper, but I make more in a week now than you paid me in the whole two months I worked for you.”
“You’re not working now, are you?” he asked.
“I had vacation.”
“How long?”
“Four weeks,” Wyatt said.
“Are you going to be here that long?” Cooper asked. Four weeks was a long time for a vacation, but not nearly enough time for a new start, which is what it sounded like Wyatt was after, even if he didn’t know it yet.
“I honestly don’t know. I don’t want to be a problem.”
