His kind eyes, his sexy beard, and his curious expression. No doubt he wondered why I was tripping out.Play it cool, asshole. Play it cool.
“I missed you,” I blurted.
Oh, fuck. Not cool. Not cool at all.
Cooper grinned. “I missed you too. Welcome home.”
Home.
There was that word again. I liked it.
We barbecued the veggie and shrimp kabobs and sipped wine under the stars by candlelight, catching up as though our four days apart had been more like four months. I told him about my reception in Boston and the press conference.
“It was…nice. Great facility, talented coaching staff. I think they really want me there and not just because of Alli’s circus.”
“She’s supportive?” he asked, tossing me one of the wool blankets we’d found in a basket in the mudroom. Whoever had handled the interior design for Val’s place had thought of everything.
“Yeah, she is. And…I think she feels a little guilty.”
“Why?”
“’Cause she was the one who left,” I replied matter-of-factly. “She wanted out. She didn’t want to work on our issues, and I don’t blame her for not wanting to deal with my moody ass. I understood. I was injured and I wasn’t easy to be with. Trust me, I didn’t like being with me then, either.”
Cooper frowned. “You weren’t hurt or angry?”
“Hurt…yes. Angry? No.” I pulled the blanket under my chin and sipped my wine. “You can’t make someone stay if they don’t want to, and you can’t make them love you. Alli and I always got along well. We could joke around, have fun, and the sex was nice, but we weren’t good in tough situations, and we didn’t liketough conversations. For example, I wanted kids, Alli wanted to wait. Wait for what? I didn’t know, and she wouldn’t say. She’s a travel writer…or she used to be—and a good one. She lost an assignment that would have required her to spend a month in Iceland after I landed in the hospital with a concussion. She was so bummed. I was lying on the sofa and recouping with sunglasses on ’cause my vision was so bad that I couldn’t watch TV without them and she wanted to go to Iceland.”
“You didn’t like that.”
I scoffed. “No. It wasn’t like I expected her to wait on me or anything, but I wanted her towantto be there. And it sucked that she didn’t, and she thought it sucked that I didn’t support her career. Those were arguments no one was going to win, and we had them all the time. At the end, I didn’t care if she was home, and she probably felt the same way. And I stopped thinking about being a dad ’cause our house wasn’t a good environment for a kid. Trust me. I knew that story well. But I was still sad when it ended.”
“Yeah.” Cooper didn’t have to say anything more. He’d been there too.
“It felt like failure. A terrible failure. And since she was the one who left, I was on defense, answering questions like, ‘What happened?’ when I didn’t fucking know. But you have to tell people something, right? Everyone is in on your worst moment, judging you, wondering where it went wrong, who did what, and which one of us cheated. It sucked.” I inhaled deeply and continued. “In that way, wewerein it together. We bonded over our misery and as much as I didn’t want to talk about it, I was brutally honest. I told her, ‘I miss my friend. I miss the easy stuff. I don’t want you back, I don’t want to try again, but Iwantto wish you well. It would be nice if we could at least say that much publicly.’ And now…wearefriends. Better than we were before,I think. No pressure to perform, no tiptoeing around tricky subjects…just the easy stuff. It’s a relief.”
Cooper hummed. “That’s good. I can’t imagine dealing with a public divorce. That must have been difficult.”
I studied his strong profile and continued. “Yeah. The reality is that I don’t have a low-profile job. I didn’t play football to become famous, but I used to get mentioned in sports podcasts and blogs and whatever. I dated a beautiful woman, and that was news on a slow news day.Peoplemagazine wanted an exclusive on our wedding day. My agent and the Devils’ publicist were all for it. Alli and I didn’t mind, either. It was fun. Until it fell apart and rando reporters wanted the inside scoop of our demise.”
“And now she’s with someone who’s more famous and?—”
I barked a laugh. “Dude. That’s like saying Elvis Presley is more famous than Wood Hollow High’s prom king. I’m a big fat nobody in that scenario, and I’m okay with it.”
“You wouldn’t have signed a new contract if you were okay with it,” he commented gently.
“Okay…true.” I nodded. “True. But I don’t care about fame.”
“Then why does the final season redo matter?” He set a hand on my elbow. “I’m not trying to put you on the spot, I’m just curious.”
“Funny you should ask. I’ve been thinking about this a lot.” I leaned forward, suddenly intense. “I don’t need the money or the spotlight. I like the idea of positive press or at least press about my game rather than a failed marriage, but if I get attention for coming back, I should do something with it. Like sponsor a cause and raise a shit-ton of dough. It could be for wildlife conservation, animal shelters, youth sports, or…I don’t know. Something important. Something I can be proud of.”
Cooper laced our fingers and kissed my knuckles. “That’s a great idea. I love it.”
That meant more coming from him than he might ever know, but I was awkward with compliments. “I’m full of big ideas and noble intentions. Or I’m full of shit. Who knows?”
“I know,” he said in a low sexy timbre that turned me inside out.
And that was that.
