The elevator dinged as the doors parted. Cooper led Stassi into the cellar in the lowest level of the Callahan Estate. Cooper stormed past countless racks of wine and found the rack of bourbon in the back. He grabbed a random bottle, twisted the cap off, and chugged it straight from the bottle.
Stassi ripped the bottle out of his hands. “Okay, we’re not doing that.”
“I’m going to propose to you tonight,” Cooper said, wiping his lips with the back of his hand.
She threw her head back and took a gulp. The heat of the liquor simmered on her lips as she passed the bottleback to him. “By the way you’re acting right now, I’m going to guess this wasn’t your idea.”
“You’re the only person in the world that can read my mind.” He took another gulp, relishing the burn at the back of his throat that opened his airways, calmed him, and allowed him to breathe. “She blindsided me in the kitchen with a fucking ring.”
Stassi took the bottle back and set it on the ground. “You know you don’t have to do everything she tells you to do.”
Cooper considered the preposterous idea presented, but his mother was a master manipulator. She’d already forced all the pieces of the puzzle into place. He lowered himself onto the ground, palming the bottle with his hand. “She told your fucking parents. That’s why they agreed to come out here.”
“Everything is starting to make sense now,” Stassi said, joining him on the floor on the opposite side of the bottle.
Cooper clasped his hands together and bowed his head. “We have to do this.”
“We don’t have to do anything.”
“Stassi, you know I love you.”
“I do.” She nodded. “I also know it’s not real love. It’s the love you feel for a friend. It’s not what you had with Luke. It’s not what you have with Nico.”
Cooper narrowed his eyes on her. “I don’t?—”
She smiled softly. “I see the way you look at him. I know you well enough to know you’ll swear up and down you don’t love him, and I know enough to know you can only lie to yourself for so long.”
“I don’t deserve you.”
“You’re right.” She grabbed the bottle and took a quick sip. “You deserve a life outside of this thing we created.”
“So, we don’t?—”
“No, we do. We make it a long engagement. Five years. Ten years. Whatever.”
Cooper shook his head. “How can you agree to this?”
“Because in this life, you’re looking for someone to love, the same person you fuck and build a life with.” She climbed to her feet and then offered her hand to assist Cooper up. “All I’m looking for is a best friend and that doesn’t change when you inevitably end up with someone else. I know for a horny bastard like yourself, that’s difficult to understand. But at some point, you have to trust me when I say this is what I want. So go up there and propose your ass off.”
Cooper understood how this would complicate the thing he had with Nico, but he also understood that he was between a rock and a hard place. It was a consequence of half of his life being a lie, and the more time that went on, the deeper the hole. “I just need a minute.”
She pressed her lips softly over his forehead. “I’ll hold the fort down.”
He watched as she disappeared into the elevator and when the doors closed, he grabbed his phone out of his pocket.
NICO
We already ate and now I’m bored.
NICO
Think we’re going to watch A Christmas Story.
NICO
Lord, tell me why this movie is so awful.
NICO
