“Yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Crisis averted.”
I squeezed the pillow. “Good.”
He reached out and ran a finger over my mouth. I could hear my breath hitch and wondered if he’d heard it, too. It was so loud. “I’m happy you’re here.”
“Are you?”
Cooper nodded. “I am.” He pulled me closer to him. “You asked me a question earlier.”
Distracted by his thumb moving in circles on my knee, his scent wafting to my nose, his breath on my lips, I nodded.
“Ryleigh and I are friends.”
“Only friends?” I managed to say.
“Yes. But it wasn’t always that way. We had a thing years ago. It ended in a not so good way, which I always regretted.”
“You hurt her?”
“I did,” he confessed. “We didn’t talk for a long time—until the funeral.”
The fact that he’d chosen honesty lifted some of the doubt that had crept in earlier. I was grateful he didn’t lie. I knew what I saw.
“We’d been so much to each other over the years that I had to make it right,” he continued. “Ya know?”
I swallowed hard. “Yes. I get it.”
“I’ve done a lot of dirt, Angel.”
I caressed his face. “Cooper, we don’t have to do this. I don’t expect you to be perfect, to never have done anything wrong.”
He held my hands against his cheeks. “I want to be upfront with you.”
“Yeah, but you don’t have to tell me everything tonight.”
Barking out a laugh, he brushed his lips against each of my palms. “Angel,” he murmured against my skin. “This is different for me.”
“How so?”
“In the past, I’ve never stayed around long enough to have this conversation.”
“Not even with Ryleigh?” I asked.
“She was… With her it was easier because we had a shared past, a common history. We knew each other. I didn’t have to explain my fucked up relationship with my father. I didn’t have to pretend to be something I’m not.”
“Do you still love her?” I held my breath, awaiting his answer.
His eyes flashed to mine. “For a while, I considered her the woman who got away.”
If she is the one who got away, who am I? “You wanted her back?”
“I told myself that if she ever gave me another chance, I would take it.”
I lifted a brow. “Really?”
“She gave me a reality check.” He laughed softly. “Made me realize some things that I hadn’t thought of. Long story short, what we had wasn’t what I thought it was—and it’s over.”
I let out a slow breath. He’d been so forthright, I felt wrong for not sharing more of my past with him. He knew Mehki’s father was dead, but that’s really it. “Malachi died before Mehki was born,” I said. “We were high school sweethearts. He was the only man that I’ve ever loved.” I paused, waiting for Cooper to say something. When he didn’t, I continued, “The night he died, I didn’t think I’d make it. But I did because I knew that I had someone who I needed me and I wanted to be there for him.”
