When Stassi arrived home early in the afternoon, the front door was cracked open.
Cooper had stopped answering her texts over twelve hours prior and she steadied herself for what she might find inside.
She pushed the door open and called out for her boyfriend, but there was no answer. On her way to the stairwell, she took a quick glance into the living area to see a bottle of wine and an empty wine glass sitting on the counter. She gripped the railing of the steps and prepared herself.
She found Cooper in the shrine, sitting against the wall with his feet kicked out beneath him and his arms limp. She’d seen him like this once or twice before, right after the first time Cooper and Luke broke up and then again right after the accident on the morning of Luke’s funeral. Cooper’s face was reddened and puffy, with dry tears staining a trail down hischeeks.
Stassi knelt down in front of him, slinging her purse onto the ground. “How long have you been here?”
Cooper could barely speak, only edging out a very soft, “Don’t know.”
She took inventory of the room. Everything was the same as it had always been. Nothing was out of place. All of the photos she had no business seeing. All the photos she hated seeing. Photos that meant the world to Cooper but made her own stomach churn because it was her flesh and blood in the photos with Cooper. No, nothing was out of place except the Rookie of the Year trophy lying sideways on the floor.
Stassi looked back to her boyfriend, the man she loved more than anyone in this world. “What happened?”
“I…” He snorted, wiping away snot from the bottom of his nose. The tears started again, his eyes straining at the corners. “I… Uh… I don’t…”
Stassi nodded in understanding. “You miss him.”
He looked her dead in the eye for the briefest of moments and nodded back, his lips curling inward.
She missed Luke too. She’d never stop missing him. She’d never stop missing how happy Cooper was back then or how the cage was so much easier to live in when all three of them were still alive. But she also knew Cooper better than anyone in the world. He was too careful, too guarded to break like this.
There was something else.
Somebody else.
“But, this isn’t about Luke, is it?” She shuffled over to meet him against the wall and took his head into her chest. “Not really, right?”
“I fucked up,” he sobbed into her lap. “I fucked up bad.”
Part Two: The Cobra and The Knight
Chapter Twelve
september 2021 - hollywood
Cooper metNico at the center of the field, each of them flanked by two of their team captains. A referee stood between them explaining the rules of the coin flip, but these were rules Cooper had heard a hundred times.
The league knew exactly what they were doing, pitting the former rookie against his former coach. They were banking on a rivalry, and considering how things went the last time Cooper had seen Nico, they might have blindly walked into having gambled correctly.
Cooper took a good look at the sleeve tattoo peeking out underneath Nico’s black and blue jersey. A forest of roses with twisted vines latching onto clocks. Cooper had seen photos online when scrolling aimlessly. Certainly, he had not gone to Nico’s Instagram every night for the past five months. He had seen photos of the arm sleeve tattooed on the other man, but in person it looked different. Nicolooked different. The good boy image, the squeaky clean image—that of innocence—was gone.
Cooper himself was a simple man, his body unmarked. Hell, he was probably the only guy in the league without a single tattoo. But tattoos told stories and he considered himself a closed book.
That’s why he hated his scars—they told everyone who saw them he was a broken man.
There on the field, he pondered the idea of covering up his scars with tattoos, as if he could rewrite the story they told into something a little less traumatizing.
The Cobras won the coin toss and Cooper made the decision for his team to defer the ball to the second half, meaning the Hollywood Knights would get the ball first.
Cooper reached out his hand to shake Nico’s, who hesitated before apparently realizing the camera was aimed directly at them. The other man’s grip was strong. Too strong.
Cooper tried to hide the wince on his face as he pulled away.
Nico backed away as he pulled his helmet over his head, and with full eye contact, the Hollywood Knight dragged his pointer finger over his own throat as if he were slicing it.
Cooper received the message loud and clear.
