by Cassie Mae
“Cooper,” I breathe, my voice getting caught in my throat as a surge of pleasure courses through me. My hands trip over a table full of paint supplies as I try to keep myself from tumbling to the floor. “A condom, babe. We need a—”
“I know, I got it.” He smiles against my lips, his hand snaking out from under my skirt to retrieve the foil package from his pocket. It takes me too long to realize I’ve uttered a pet name at him, and by the time I feel like I should take it back, he erases every thought I’ve ever had.
I think it’s the only cure for the terrifying notion that Cooper may just be the real thing I never wanted to find. Whenever there has been a moment when I feel that inexplicable emotion I can’t put words to, I jump him, eager to have my mind erased completely. This time… well, he only asked me to meet him here so we could go to a showing I set up for him. Instead I caught him in the middle of splashing paint over a giant canvas in one of the side offices. His eyes were dark and sad, and I instantly felt myself swirling into sorrow with him without even knowing if there was anything wrong.
Back when Julie first met Nathan, my mother asked her how she could fall in love so quickly, how she knew it was love that she felt. Julie told her that she feels everything Nathan feels, wants everything he wants, needs him as much as he needs her.
As that description started making more and more sense looking into Cooper’s sad eyes, I crossed the room and brought his lips to mine before I could give it any more thought. He didn’t seem to mind in the slightest—in fact, he’s also in a much better mood.
“Hi,” he breathes, his hand releasing the crook of my knee now that we’ve both been to our peak and back.
“Hi.”
“I’d say I’m happy to see you, but that doesn’t accurately describe it.”
I smooth down my skirt. “Having a rough day?”
He nods, turning around to take care of his own wardrobe. “I found some fraudulent charges on one of our accounts. If it’s who I think it is…” He lets out a long sigh, a soft smile somewhere in the worry lines of his face. “He’s a good friend.”
“A good friend doesn’t steal from you,” I point out, trying to be helpful, grateful once again for Cooper’s straightforward personality; he can so candidly talk about what is bothering him. I do not possess that particular quality.
“I know.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I want to talk to Robbie first. See what he thinks.”
“I can wait,” I tell him. “The place I’m showing you is vacant. We can leave whenever you’re ready.”
He leans forward and presses a gentle kiss to my forehead, so contradictory to our hard and fast romp not two minutes ago. It throws me, because I can’t help but appreciate how wonderful both displays of affection are.
“Actually… if you want…” He stops and shakes his head. “Never mind.”
“What?”
“Well, this room was set up to get these canvases painted for an ad we’re shooting. If you feel like playing around, that’d help us out.”
I snort and let my eyes drift over all the different colors on the table my butt was up against. “I don’t paint.”
“Neither do I.” He jokingly nods to the splash of blue he chucked at the far back, wall-length canvas. “Guess I’m a natural.”
Before I can give him crap about his painting skills, he pushes a quick kiss to my lips and heads down the hall. I crook my neck, letting my gaze follow until he’s no longer in sight. Poor guy. I know how it feels to have to fire a friend. And I set my hand to my heart and push away the sorrow that’s starting to creep back in there. I’m only empathizing. Yes. It couldn’t possibly be because I’m feeling what he’s feeling just because I’m strongly attracted to him. Yet, it’s the first time I’ve watched him leave a room without checking out his ass.
I shake my head, feeling ridiculous. He hasn’t proved anything, really. Our experiment so far has been… fun. If this is his definition of a long term relationship, maybe I could handle it. Even taking him to the dentist wasn’t boring in the slightest.
It's just because our relationship is young. I’m infatuated, is all. Infatuation: a foolish and extravagant admiration.
Yet, that word doesn’t seem to fit.
I growl under my breath and head out the door, following in his footsteps. The urge to calm my ragged breathing is too strong to just sit and wait. He’s worried, so I’m worried, and I’m not going to try to figure out why that is.
I stop when I hear Robbie’s voice billowing from an open office door, and I rest against the hallway wall and try to look inconspicuous.
“Why are you even hesitating?” he says, and I hear a thick file hit a desk. “Fire his ass, then sue it for good measure. I’m about ready to get our lawyer on the phone.”
“Whatever happened to giving people the benefit of the doubt?” Cooper says, his voice vibrating somewhere deep in my chest. “He’s been with us for a long time.”
“Probably means he’s stolen way more than we should’ve let him get away with.”
Cooper’s quiet for a moment. “I know.” He sighs. “I know, you’re right, I just… this is gonna be messy. He’s got a family. Little kids at home.”
“Then he shouldn’t have taken the risk. Damn it, Coop, don’t get soft. We all got problems.”
“It’s not about being soft. It’s about knowing all of that and still wanting to take him to court. It’s about being his friend for years only to put him on the street. I wasn’t like this. It’s pennies to us, yet I want to ring his neck. What does that say about me? Firing him feels so… heartless.”
Robbie chuckles, but that sound only guts me from the inside out. I clutch at my chest, push back the sting behind my eyes, and try to calm my breathing. No one has a bigger heart than Cooper, and to hear him talk so openly about how he feels he doesn’t have one? It ruins me. I want to break down the door and assure him otherwise… and give Robbie a glare over his blasé reaction for good measure.
“You want to talk heartless, bro? Stealing from the guy who gave you a job… not just any job, but a lucrative career… now that’s pretty damn heartless.”
I drop my hand in the silence that follows, let it swing like a pendulum down by my side. This isn’t my concern; it’s Cooper and Robbie’s and my opinions here don’t matter. My nose is buried deep into things I know nothing about, and I can’t know any more about. Cooper and I are separate entities; he owes me no explanation and I owe him nothing when it comes to the day to day stresses. That is marital relations, serious couple talks, not for two people playing house. I force myself back to the canvas-filled office, trying to convince myself that I don’t care.
It doesn’t work. I care all too much, no matter how frightening that is.
***
A strip of light streams across the canvas, turning the colors I carefully selected into bright hues that completely contrast. I chuckle at the painting, brush poised between my thumb and forefinger. A blue droplet falls onto my knuckle, and I let it streak down to the back of my wrist along with several of its friends. I believe there is more art on my hand than made by it.
“Well, you can rule out painter for your retirement plan,” Cooper says from the doorway.
I turn with a frown. “Don’t like my interpretation of a midday horizon?”
“Oh, I do. Especially the signature.”
My name resembles that of a kindergartner, scribbled across the entire bottom of the canvas in black. It covers the original signature in orange that was, believe it or not, much worse on the eyes.
He chuckles, pushing off the doorframe and wrapping his arms around my waist. “Thank you. I’ll make sure it’s in the back of the shoot.”
“The way back.”
I feel his smile on my neck, and based on touch alone, I know it’s a lackluster grin.
I swivel in his arms. “You ready to go?”
“Just about.” He pushes his forehead against mine. “I have one more conversation ah
ead of me, but… I had to see you first.”
The words I overheard ping around in my head, and I let out a sigh and run a hand over his chest. He has no idea just how wonderful his heart is, how I wish I had one just like it.
I pull at buttons of his shirt, undoing just the top few to expose the white undershirt hugging his pectorals. Careful not to get any bit of his clothing, I tug the material down with one hand and hold it out of the way while I push the tip of the paintbrush against his chest.
The brush leaves a broken path along his skin, flecks of paint speckling his arm as I form the only shape I know how to paint correctly.
“What’s this?” he asks, his lip crooked up in an adorable half-smile.
“A heart,” I simply say.
“Yes…” He chuckles. “Why are you painting it on my skin?”
I let out a breath, pulling the brush away to study my work. “I would hate think that because you have to make some hard decisions today, that you start to doubt that you have one.”
He meets my gaze, the amused glint in his eyes slowly fading into something else entirely. The power behind his stare sucks the breath straight from my lungs, causing my heart to work that much harder to keep me upright.
“You heard?”
I lift a shoulder. “A little. You mad?”
His hand covers mine still poised near his chest, fingers weaving and making me lose my grip. The paint brush tumbles end over end to the floor, forever staining the carpet with this moment that somehow already feels significant. The small of my back warms with his touch as he pulls me even closer, our bodies melding in a comfort comparable to a warm bed on a cold morning.
He takes the first step into a soft waltz, and I follow his lead, grinning against his chest in a sweet realization that this is another thing I didn’t believe I wanted, or would ever enjoy, yet I find myself wanting to stay under the covers, in a manner of speaking. Impromptu dancing to nonexistent music was more likely to happen in the movies, never to someone as unromantic as I am.
As I was…
My fingers tighten between his, and I leave the foreign emotion I feel in this moment unspoken, though I’m pretty sure I’ve discovered exactly what it is.
19
Love Bug
I flip to my side, blowing out a frustrated breath in the darkness. It’s 2:30, and I haven’t had an ounce of sleep. I never had this problem B.C. (before Cooper), but it seems a side effect of falling for the man is insomnia.
My hands flop onto the bed sheets, nothing disturbing either Tom or Cooper as they sleep soundly on the other side of the massive king-size. Mr. Grumpy Butt has set up camp alongside Cooper’s bare back, stretched out so much that his front paws rest near Cooper’s hip and his tail curls up over Cooper’s upper back.
If Cooper woke up, he’d probably pretend to hate his new cuddle buddy, but I know better, and the realization that I know that much about him crashes into my stomach and makes it that much harder to sleep.
He’s a stomach sleeper. His muscular back rises and falls with his heavy breathing and the comforter rests across his hips. If I wasn’t afraid of waking him, I’d stroke a finger down the line of his spine and trace over the hills and valleys of muscle that cover his body. Imagining it alone has my thighs clenched together, but what’s more concerning is the fact that it isn’t his muscles at all that have my heart pitter-pattering and my mind refusing to shut down.
It’s because when I touch him, he gets a twitch in the corner of his mouth that is so freaking adorable that it makes me want to touch him any chance I can get. It’s the hopeful, childlike look in his blue eyes when I agree to whatever mundane task he’s asked me to do for him. It’s the word vomit he spouts at the most random of moments that make me blush and take my breath away. It’s watching his nose wrinkle when one of my cats jumps up on his lap. It’s the wince that pinches at his forehead when I stick my cold feet on him. It’s the content and joy that rests in his eyes when he held my nephew, or when he had tea with my niece.
I reach out, but stop halfway to his back and quickly flip onto my other side. How did this happen? A couple weeks with him and a lifetime of views have flipped on its head. I push the comforter off of me, flinging Kat to Cooper’s side of the bed and causing Tom to let out a low growl. I stand at the foot of the bed and wait, watching Cooper until I know for certain I haven’t woken him up.
There’s a smile on his lips, and he’s totally snoring. He’s even adorable while sleeping. Damn him.
I tiptoe across the carpet and sneak into the hallway. The house is so big, so quiet. It feels weird to me, suddenly, even though this was essentially my dream. Make money, buy a huge house just for me. No kids to make noise, no relationship outside of the one with my cats. A place to have cocktail parties—if that’s even a thing anymore—or to entertain people, but mostly to just have all this space to myself. As I listen to the silence—minus Cooper’s cute snores—that seems so… empty.
“But I’ll travel,” I whisper out loud, like I’m trying to convince myself that I haven’t changed my mind. “I won’t have to find babysitters or compromise on where I go and what I do when I get there. It’s going to be so great.”
But even putting a voice to it doesn’t make it sound so great. Cooper’s snoring isn’t helping things either because suddenly I feel like I could listen to that sound every night for the rest of my life and that would be great.
I shake my head and start down the stairs, putting as much distance as I can between my ears and his snores. I need a wake-up call—some cure for the love bug bite. After rummaging through the fridge and cupboards and coming up with nothing that sounds good, I wander around the house, going from floor to floor, from room to room, arguing with myself the entire time.
When I step into basement and hear water lapping, I slip off my slippers and push open the door to the pool. The air in here is sticky and humid, but it clouds my head with thoughts of that instead of the other, so I already feel better.
The pool is surrounded by windows, all fogged from the heat rising off the water. I can’t see any stars, the night sky either clouded over or the windows too foggy to see clearly through. I rub my arms, not from being cold—I’m very much the opposite even in my pajama shorts and cami—but to try to rub out the jittery feeling running under my skin. I’ve spent two weeks with Cooper here in this house, a house that is neither of ours, and as determined as I was that I wouldn’t fall, I feel myself slipping off the edge. Thoughts of a future with him keep invading my mind, keeping me awake, making me equally excited and terrified.
I’ve been with other men for much longer, and never did I entertain the ideas that have been running wild in my head. I’ve found myself wondering what our house would look like someday, if I can convince him to build one, and then I shake myself out of it, shocked that my mind went in that direction so naturally. I’ve paused at wedding magazines in the checkout, doodled his name on Post-Its in my office, wondered about when I should let him meet the rest of my family.
And now, as I sit on the edge of the pool and dip my feet in the surprisingly warm water, the thought that enters into my head is that if I’m meant to have babies, I want them to be his babies.
I bury my face into my hands and try to breathe. For years I’ve argued my point, driven it home to all my family and friends who asked. It’s okay to not want kids. It’s okay to want to stay single. It’s okay to have fun and live my life the way I want to live it. Admitting that I’m starting to see something different, want something different, feels like I’m admitting that I was wrong.
I don’t think I was wrong at all. Some people don’t want a family, and that’s okay. But wanting a family isn’t wrong either. Wanting the wedding, the house in the suburbs, the kids running wild… that’s not insanity. It’s not a false hope. It’s just someone else’s dream. And seeing Cooper want it so badly, and falling for him not despite it, but because of it, now makes it feel like my dream, too.
A
low grumble escapes my lips, and I slide fully into the water, clothes and all, just to see if it’ll jolt me back to the person I used to be. My head dips below the surface, and I try to sit on the pool floor, but I’ve never been much of a sinker; I bob right back up to the top. So I float around for as long as I can hold my breath.
As much as I want the water to make my mind shut up, now I’m chuckling to myself at the thought of Cooper trying to clean a pool by himself instead of letting a professional do it. No doubt he’s tried before, if he has a pool in any of his numerous properties.
I don’t think I want a pool. It seems a little scary, to be honest, not to mention the maintenance on one of these things. What if I forget to lock the door or something, and one of my kids finds their way into the water? My heart squeezes just at the thought, and then it jumps as if it just realized that I’ve pictured kids in my future again. Because honestly, I’d want a pool if it weren’t for that.
So I guess I want a pool? Ugh, what has that man done to me?
I lift my head and take a deep breath before settling back into the water. I watch my clothes float around me, my hair curtain out on the surface. This is relaxing—maybe I should flip to my back and sleep here.
The water jostles around me, a flurry of bubbles popping right next to my body. Next thing I know there is a tight grip on my stomach, whirling me around and making me gasp in a mouthful of water.
“Maya, Maya!” Cooper rushes out as I sputter water in his face. His hand is frantically wiping away droplets from my cheeks, his other arm holding me so close that even if I tried to cough away from him, I’d hit his skin anyway.