PROLOGUE - ADAM SPENCER
THREE YEARS AGO
Ever since I was a kid,I’d had a sixth sense about things. Not about ghosts and shit, but a sense of when something bad was going to happen. My childhood probably prepared me for that. And right now, the knot in my stomach indicated tonight was one of those times.
As I climbed the stairs to Cooper’s apartment, my stomach knotted in dread instead of anticipation. Little things about him had tipped me off that our relationship seemed to be cooling off instead of heating up. Like the short, humorless text messages that didn’t sound like him at all. He was always all smiles and happiness. But that wasn’t what I was getting from him. The only thing I could do was hope I was wrong, and he was just mad at me.
When I reached his door, I dropped my duffle on the floor and looked down at the envelope in my hand. I had a surprise for him. But the longer I stood there and turned it over in my hand, the more I realized tonight was probably not going to go the way I hoped. But I’d never know until I saw him. So with a heavy sigh, I knocked on the door and tucked it back into my jacket pocket.
When Cooper opened the door, the big, happy smile I was used to seeing wasn’t there. It had been replaced with a strained one that didn’t quite reach his eyes. That’s how I knew I was right.
This felt like the beginning of the end.
If I were a betting man, I’d put my money on Greg Foster winning our battle for his attention, and that fucking sucked. Coop’s best friend was a six-foot-eight tight end for the Portland Pirates. How could I compete with that? All I could do was hope I was wrong and show him how much he meant to me. So I smiled and walked into his apartment when he stepped aside to let me in.
“Hey, what’s wrong? Why do you look so down?”
I closed the door behind me and pulled him into my arms. But instead of wrapping his arms around me and giving me the smile that had grabbed my attention from the moment we met, he stiffened and pulled away.
As Cooper slipped from my arms, I stayed put as the panic began to grow. I brought my hand to my mouth and swallowed in an effort to push down the unease and ever-present feelings of never being enough.
From his spot a few feet away, Cooper stared at his hands and wouldn’t meet my eyes. He kept his head down and walked towards the sofa, where he sat down close to the end. Not in the middle, where he usually sat close to me. I watched from my spot by the door as he nervously rubbed his palms on his jeans several times and continued to avoid looking at me. It looked like he was about to be sick, and I was right there with him.
I rubbed the back of my neck to give myself time to think about how to handle this, then made my way to the sofa. I had no idea what to do and very little experience with relationships. So the only thing I knew to do was dive right in. Might as well get it over with.
“I’m sorry I’m late. Did you get my text? The tour promoter was being a dick about the schedule, and I couldn’t leave.”
He nodded and smiled for the first time, but it still didn’t reach his eyes. “Yeah, I got it. It’s not that. I understand late meetings. And your tour is important. You’re gonna make it big.”
Cooper’s blue eyes became glassy as he held my gaze. When he looked down at his hands, his normally easy-going demeanor was nowhere to be found. I tried to control my breathing, because deep down, I knew the next words out of his mouth would break my heart.
I cleared my throat and clasped my hands in front of me as I leaned forward on the sofa. I loved him, no matter what or how he felt about me. And because of that love, I had to put him out of his misery. “Just spit it out, Coop.”
There was no way I could stomach a long, drawn-out break up. I knew I’d made some mistakes and I’m sure the big fucker had pointed out every one of them to him.
As we both continued to stare at the floor, all the hope I’d foolishly held on to that he was ‘the one’ slowly began to die. When he finally shifted toward me and met my gaze, the pleading look on his beautiful face confirmed what I already knew.
It was over.
“I can’t do this right now, Adam.”
“Is this about Greg? About me calling him?”
Cooper shook his head forcefully from side to side. “No.” He put his hand on his chest. “It’s about me. It’s just…”
He roughly pushed his hands through his hair and left them there as he looked at me. “I’m just dealing with a lot, and I need to figure some things out.”
I wanted to tell him to figure them out withme.
To lean onme.
But I knew words would be futile. I could see he’d already made up his mind. And whether he wanted to admit it or not, I knew this was about Foster.
There was no other choice but to accept his decision. I’d learned long ago that trusting anyone with my heart only led to pain and disappointment.
No one had ever chosen me. And it was becoming increasingly clear that I wasn’t meant to be loved like that. Not even by my own mother. It was the story of my life, after all.
All I had was my music and the Bradleys.
