Last Good Man (A Crown Creek Standalone)

by Theresa Leigh

  The day slipped into night and she yawned. “We’ve barely moved from here. How am I so exhausted?”

  “I mean… we have been getting a lot of exercise.”

  She touched the tip of my nose. “You’ve been doing most of the work.”

  “Coach would be proud I still have the stamina. Turns out drills were good for something after all.” She laughed and then shrieked as I dove back under the covers, then shrieked for a completely different reason when my tongue found her clit.

  Afterward, I held perfectly still as she fussed and twisted herself until she found a comfortable way to prop up her arm. “You know, you can just put that right here,” I told her, patting my shoulder.

  She looked at me. “Won’t that bug you?”

  “Not once I’m asleep. I pass out like a dead man.”

  “I’ve noticed,” she giggled. Tentatively she rested her sling against my arm. “That’s like, the perfect height.”

  “Not the first time a woman has told me that. Ow! You pinched me!”

  “And I’ll do it again if you keep talking about other women while I’m in bed with you.”

  I leaned over and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Honestly, I can’t remember any other women. There’s only you.”

  Her mouth turned up in a smile under my lips. “I feel like we’re in some kind of dreamland. No worries. Nothing to do but kiss and talk and eat cereal in bed…”

  “We’ve done a few other things in bed too. Ow!”

  She made pincers with her fingers. “I’m talking right now.”

  “Fine. So bossy.”

  “You knew that before all this.” Her smile faded. “How are we going to go back, Cooper?”

  “What do you mean?” I pretended I had no idea what she was talking about. But I had a feeling I knew.

  “It’s… easy. Being with you. Here.” I watched her throat tighten as she swallowed. “But when we get back home? It’s not going to be so easy. You have the move. I have my brother. And… oh God, Claire is going to completely shit.”

  I shut my eyes. I didn’t want to think about it either. Here, away from everything, it was easy to forget that she and I had a history. Here there was nothing to remind us of the terrible things we’d said, the terrible things we’d believed. A flash of guilt made my fingers flex. How could I be so disloyal? But I pushed that thought away and instead turned my head and brushed my mouth against her hair. “How about we just don’t go back?”

  She let out a soft laugh and turned her face to mine. “Sounds like a plan,” she whispered.

  So that’s what we did. And when the rain finally stopped, she let me take her hand and lead her across the wet lawn and into the dripping woods, where I knelt down and helped her take off her shoes. Then I carefully led her into the rushing creek, laughing as she shrieked when the shockingly cold water hit her toes. We picked our way over rocks, sat on a boulder and turned our faces to the sun that was struggling through the clouds, and made bets on which fallen leaf would float past us first. I told her about finding my dad’s email open and deleting the reply from his mistress and smiled when she said she would have done the same. Then she told me about the night Jacob’s father had shown up out of the blue and tried to take him, and how she and her mom had fought him off until Jim Crowthers himself showed up to arrest him. “I always thought he was my guardian angel,” Willa sighed as she rested her head against my shoulder. “Until I realized it was you.”

  I kissed her and pressed her back onto her back. And when I made her cry out, it echoed in the trees and I thought that for one wonderful moment, I’d found heaven in a place I’d never even knew existed.

  I knew it couldn’t last forever, but I was determined to try.

  That night she was yawning like crazy but refused to go to bed without me. I was lying there in the dark, perfectly happy to have her curls brushing my face and listening to her soft, quiet breathing when her phone suddenly started vibrating.

  Her body, which only a second ago had been pliant and heavy with sleep, was suddenly rigid next to me. “Shit,” she whispered.

  “I got it.” I reached over her and pulled it from the charger. With a sinking heart, I saw the one word I knew would burst the fragile bubble we were floating in.

  Mom.

  She snatched it from my hand. I turned on the light as she answered with a breathless, “Is everything okay?”

  All the languid happiness I’d grown used to suddenly drained out of her. She was rigid again, a tense mass of anxiety that was heartbreakingly familiar. I reached up to brush my hand over her shoulder and she swatted me away. “Mom, what’s up?” she fretted.

  I drew my hand back, stung. “What’s wrong?” I murmured.

  She held up her hand, then nodded and let out a long breath. “Sure,” she said into the phone. “Of course. Yeah, no, I’m feeling so much better. I actually went on a hike today.” Her eyes flicked to me and I tried to wiggle my eyebrows at her, but she shook her head and looked away. “So it’s fine. No, I’ll ask Cooper to take me now.”

  My heart sank as she nodded once more and then hung up. I knew what she was going to tell me before it even left her lips. “That was my mom.”

  “I gathered.” My happiness had drained away as well apparently, because I sounded like a real dick all of a sudden. “What did she need?”

  “Her shift changed.” She let out a long breath. “Somebody quit, so Cal changed her hours to the night shift. Which means she needs someone to be home with Jakey these last few school nights. And then…”

  “And then it’s summer break.”

  “Right.”

  I glared down at my hands, feeling like I’d had something held tightly that was now slipping away. Anger rushed through me, and I had the sudden urge to jump up and bolt from the room.

  A single drop hit the top of my palm. I looked back up again to see Willa silently wiping a tear away from her face. “Thank you,” she breathed. “For taking care of me. This was… a lot nicer than I thought it was going to be and I really… I really liked spending time with you, Cooper.”

  It took only a moment for me to register what she was doing. “No.” My hand jerked out and grabbed hers, and she gasped in surprise. “Are you trying to say goodbye to me, Willa?”

  “I don’t want to but…”

  “Then don’t.”

  She blinked, and I nodded, slowly at first, and then faster. “Yeah, it’ll suck having to go back after this, but why does it have to end?” I squeezed her hand.

  “You mean like… like we’re dating now?”

  “You want to call it that? Sure. I mean…” I gestured to her sling where her left hand rested, still decorated. “We’re already engaged.” She let out a sudden laugh and abruptly knelt up on the bed. I held up my hands. “Wait! Not so fast. Hold up, hold up, don’t hurt your -”

  I didn’t get to finish reminding her to be careful. And with the way she was kissing me, I didn’t even mind.

  Chapter

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Willa

  I hated packing lunches. I hated doing it for myself when I was the one going to school. And I hated it even more now that I had to guess at the changing whims of a cool-obsessed nearly-eight-year-old who seemed hell-bent on making me go prematurely gray.

  Sometimes, when I closed my eyes, I could transport myself right back to the cabin and the dreamy, perfect days I’d spent cut loose from everything real.

  Then I’d open them again and find myself in a cluttered, cramped trailer packing my brother’s book bag for his last full day of school.

  The cabin was a fantasy.

  This was my reality.

  "What do you want in your lunch tomorrow?" I called for what felt like the fiftieth time in the past five minutes. I was standing in front of the fridge, staring at the lackluster pickings. How did my mother do this every night? Part of me desperately wanted to call and ask. "Jake!” I shut the door and hollered down the small hallway. "This ho
use is tiny, and I know you heard me. Get out here and tell me what you want for lunch tomorrow. I'm not having you throw it away again."

  When I'd brought up having to pack Jake's lunch for him as a consequence of my mom not being home until close to eleven, she'd just shrugged. "Make him do it then. He’s old enough.“

  Yeah right. "Jake!"

  My brother finally emerged from his bedroom with that sleepy, innocent look on his face he always wore when he knew I was ready to blow my stack. "Sorry, I had my earbuds in."

  "I'm going to throw that phone in the trash," I fumed. I closed my eyes and tried to find my happy place and was surprised that it looked just like a rocky mountainside stream dappled in sunlight. I snapped my eyes back open again before I started blushing. "Tell me what you want me to put in your lunch, please," I said in much more measured tones.

  "Can I buy instead?" Jake asked.

  I narrowed my eyes. "Mom said no already, didn't she?" I glanced at the school lunch calendar stuck to the messy fridge front with a magnet in the shape of a lobster. "You don't even like taco salad."

  "Yes, I do!"

  I raised a skeptical eyebrow. "I have never seen you willingly eat lettuce in your life."

  "No, it's fix your own and Brycen does this thing where he makes a volcano out of the meat and then it - " he paused to catch his breath and then dissolved into laughter again. "It's a cheesy volcano and it erupts melted goo all over the place, and last time it got in Raelynn's hair and she freaked out, but Ashley was laughing too." Saying Ashley's name made his eyes glow and I caught him unconsciously covering his scarred hand.

  I sighed. He just wants to fit in. “Go get my purse."

  Jake jumped up and down, then seemed to remember he was a big kid of nearly nine and not a cute little pogo-stick anymore. He rushed to the pile by the door, then remembered his manners. "Thanks, Willa," he recited, then knelt to paw through my purse and grab my wallet.

  "Bring it here. You don't take money out of people's wallets, it's rude." He was so overjoyed that he didn't even argue. I shuffled the receipts around until I unearthed enough quarters to make a full two dollars and fifty cents out of the change, then handed it to him. "Guard it with your life," I instructed.

  Jake gave me a smart nod and then dashed back into his room.

  I sighed and closed the fridge. At least I didn't have to pack his lunch anymore? Now if I could only afford to hand him lunch money all the time. And I had a whole summer of lunch battles stretching out in front of me.

  I sighed. The cabin seemed very, very far away.

  As if it knew I needed to be derailed from that depressing train of thought, my phone buzzed on the counter. I grabbed it without looking, fully expecting to hear Mom's apologies about being asked to work even later.

  Instead, I heard a voice that made the goosebumps on my arms rise with only one word. "Hey."

  Instantly my grubby, cluttered kitchen fell away. I was back at the cabin, breathing the crisp, clean air and leaning back against his broad, warm chest. It still felt like something out of a dream. And I'd have believed that it was just that - a beautiful dream - except he was calling me right now.

  "Cooper." I couldn't control the soft, girlishness of my voice. And I didn't want to either. "Hey," I breathed. Just hearing his voice made me smile so wide, I felt like my face might split.

  "Can't wait to see you tonight."

  Instantly my smile fell. "Tonight?" I wracked my brain. Had we made plans? Things weren't exactly nailed down when I left the cabin, but I didn't think I'd fucked up quite so bad that I'd forgotten a date or something. Since we were - oh God - dating.

  He chuckled. "It's Thursday."

  I exhaled. Thursday. Our standing get-together at the Crown Tavern. I hadn't been in almost a month. Not since Liam left town. Not since the accident. Not since... Cooper.

  Tonight, my friends would be getting together like we'd been doing since we were old enough to force Ethan's cousin to slip us drinks underaged. It was something that had been going on for years and showed no sign of changing.

  Not even when everything else was changing around it.

  I was broke as shit. I was watching my brother. I was still sore and tired from healing. These were all good excuses as to why I didn't want to see my friends tonight. But none of them were as pressing as the real reason.

  I was... sort of for-real dating Cooper Grant now.

  "Oh my God." I tried to laugh to hide my awkward stammering and backpedaling, lest he figures out why I was silently freaking out. "I guess I'm all thrown off. I have no idea what day it is."

  Cooper picked up on what was bugging me immediately. Of course. "It's not going to be weird," he reassured me.

  I licked my lips. "You sure?"

  Cooper laughed. "They barely blinked when we were fake engaged. Why would they get weird about us dating for real?"

  How could I explain that feeling I had? I'd tried to do it back up at the cabin, but words had failed me, and his kisses made me too dizzy and delirious to hold on to anything for long. "We're dating for real," I echoed, hoping to make it sound more firm in my brain.

  Cooper sighed. "We are." I hated the small hitch of hurt in his voice. "I know we didn't get the best of starts—"

  "The cabin was nice," I rushed in before he could start apologizing. That wasn't what I wanted. I... Well, I had no idea what I wanted other than to stay floating in the protective bubble of Liam's cabin. Where he and I weren't Cooper and Willa with all our shared history. Where our friend’s questions, and raised eyebrows, and skeptical glances from over the top of a pint glass had no chance of piercing the shimmering surface of the fragile thing that was holding us together. "We just need to keep the cabin with us now that we're back in Crown Creek though, right? No matter how hard it is?"

  "It's not hard," Cooper said. And he had such an air of finality about it that I forced myself to pin my lips tightly together rather than contradict him.

  "No, it isn't."

  "So I'll see you tonight? Do I need to pick you up?"

  "No, I can walk..." I started to say then caught myself when I heard his grunt of disapproval. I cleared my throat. "Okay."

  "Damn straight." He seemed like he was on the verge of saying something else, but I had no idea what it could be. "See you soon, baby."

  A little jolt sizzled through my body and I was right back to smiling so wide it hurt. "Don't call me baby."

  "You love it." I could practically see the arrogant roll of his eyes and dammit if he wasn't right. "My baby's chariot will arrive at ten o'clock sharp."

  I nodded, and then remembered. "Shit, Cooper, could you make it ten thirty?"

  He paused a moment. "You want to make an entrance or something?"

  "Why do you sound upset?"

  "I'm not."

  "It's not a big deal, you can come at ten if you need to, I was just worrying about overlap. My mom's shift change."

  He hissed out a long breath. "Right. Sorry. I forgot about that. Ten thirty it is." The smile was back in his voice, to my relief. "Tell Jakey to get his ass in bed early for me, okay?"

  I laughed. "He'd only do it for you, he doesn't listen to me." I took a deep breath. "Thanks, Cooper."

  "For what, baby?"

  I opened my mouth to tell him, but he'd already hung up the phone.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Cooper

  Growing up, I’d spent as much time at Liam’s as I possibly could. And when it wasn’t possible to hang out at the Mulligans, I spent my days down by the creek or riding my bike aimlessly through town.

  When I got older, I filled my time with practice. I’d been a four season athlete not out of any love of sport, but as a way to avoid having to go back to my house.

  I’d grown up in a house. But it had never felt like a home.

  Now that I was an adult, the place that felt most like my home was the Crown Tavern. The dive bar was perched on a prime piece of property on Main Street, right by the cree
k and the second set of waterfalls that tumbled through town. It was the kind of building that my father would have loved to get his grubby hands on and turn into luxury lofts or something equally dumb. But the Graham family had owned the Crown for three generations, and Ethan’s grumpy cousin Taylor was just as resistant to letting it go as his grandfather had been. It was a solid place, the kind of home-away-from-home where couples met on their first dates, and better fathers than mine took their sons for their first drink. Ethan’s family connection meant that we’d all been drinking here way before it was actually legal. I’d always walked in and immediately felt like this was my home.

  And tonight, I was bringing my girl home with me.

  I pulled in around the front of the building and parked in the side lot under the glow of a single streetlamp. Nightbugs buzzed in crazed circles above us, forming a silent tornado that seemed to hold all of Willa's interest because she wasn't making any moves to get out of the truck. "You're waiting for me to open the door for you?" I asked, half teasing, half worried-but-trying-to-hide it. "Want me to swat them away first?"

  She blinked a, "Hmm?" then shook her head like she was just waking up from a trance. "No. Sorry."

  "Hey, what is it?" I had a feeling I knew the answer to that question, but I had to press. Because I wanted to reassure myself as much as I wanted to reassure her. "You still worried about how they'll react?"

  "Livvy had a thing for you," she suddenly blurted.

  "No way."

  She nodded, looking down.

  "Well she never said anything and obviously she's moved on." I tried to search my brain, but couldn't come up with a single moment where Olivia Morgan had ever articulated any interest in me. Sure, she was shy, but she certainly said enough once you got her talking. I cocked my head at Willa. "Seriously? Livvy?"

  Willa gave a one-shouldered shrug. "It was a crush." She shrugged again. "But it was something, and she told me about it and I feel sort of bad now.”

  When I said nothing, she glanced at me. Whatever she saw on my face made her whole expression change. "Stop."