Last Good Man (A Crown Creek Standalone)

by Theresa Leigh

  Because it was one that he was causing himself.

  "Go ask him," I said again. Quiet. Resigned.

  The hurt in his eyes turned to rage, but I didn't go to him. I didn't reassure him. This was out of my hands. So I held my head high. And kept it high when he turned on his heel and stormed off the porch and into his truck, slamming the door so loudly it sounded like a gunshot.

  Only then did I let myself cry.

  Not for him. Not over him and the way he was breaking my heart.

  I cried for myself.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Cooper

  A light drizzle was falling from the sky. The windshield wipers slapped and squeaked. I gunned it angrily, ignoring the way my truck fishtailed on the slick road.

  It was a carbon copy of the night I'd found her. Here I was again, hurtling through the night while fuming about Willa Harlow. It was as if nothing had changed at all.

  Had it?

  She still refused. Still expected me to accept that what I'd seen was somehow not what happened. It was something my father would do. Like leave his wallet at his mistress’s house and then expect me to deny it was his.

  That thought made me grip the wheel all the harder.

  It took a moment for me to snap out of it and realize I wasn’t even seeing the road. I’d crossed over the center line in my blind fury. Growling, I wrenched the wheel, cutting it too hard and sending myself into a skid. For a few heart-pounding moments, it looked like I was going to flip. If a car came out of nowhere and slammed into me, would that be enough? Maybe if I were the one who was laid up in a hospital bed, she'd finally confess.

  I wanted her to tell me. I just wanted to hear her say she was sorry for what she'd done and then... well, then I'd be done. Free. Free to be with her. Free to... fuck... love her?

  I righted the skid with a grunt and sped the rest of the way home. Tonight was the last night in my parents’ house and there was no way I was going to sleep now. I pulled into the driveway and yanked the truck in to park and closed my eyes. Exhaustion lurked behind my eyelids, a boneless, numb desperation to just fall asleep right here. Sleeping would be a relief, a way to hide from how it had felt when she stepped back from me, closing her mouth on the confession that had been there. I knew it. I knew her. She was about to end this torment, dangling it like a carrot in front of me.

  Then she'd snatched it away. Pulled back the peace she was offering.

  "Go ask him,” she’d said.

  The fucking nerve.

  The steady, quiet way she'd spoken was the worst part of it. Harder to hear even than the sharp ring of her shout that had rattled every glass in her kitchen. It was the sound of her shutting down on me. "Go ask him," she'd ordered me as if there was some part of the story Liam hadn't told me yet. As if my best friend was keeping a secret from me.

  Fucking hell, Willa.

  I staggered toward the back door, ignoring the rain that was now falling steadily. I was so overheated it practically sizzled where it hit my skin. I shoved my key in the lock, swore when it stuck, and then shoved the door open with a grunt and a curse and stood panting on the landing.

  "Go ask him," she'd told me. Like that would do anything. I put my hand on my pocket, brushed it past my father’s wallet. Then with a sudden finality, I threw that to the ground for him to find later and grabbed my phone.

  I imagined calling Liam right now. I almost wanted to. Just to prove to myself how full of shit she was. I wanted a video of his face as he laughed about how ridiculous her request was. "She cheated on me." I imagined him saying into the camera. "What more is there to be said?"

  "If you still believe this, after all we've done, all we've said..."

  I blinked. For all the unwavering conviction I'd been feeling, that was the one part that had struck me as odd.

  I knew her.

  Thought I did.

  No. Was certain I did.

  I knew her. The real her.

  And the real her had never made sense to me when I thought about what had happened. The Willa I knew, she returned stolen money. She doted on her brother. She selflessly helped her mother with parenting. She remembered every birthday, she checked in after every party. She made sure you got home safe. She protected you. She'd rather hurt herself ten times over than see you hurting.

  "Go ask him," she’d told me.

  I yanked my key out of the lock.

  It was time for answers.

  I got into my truck and drove back out into the night.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Cooper

  I leaped out of my truck and slammed the door. The street was quiet and still dark enough for the streetlights to be on, but the sky was an early sort of pre-dawn half-light that drained the world of color. Feeling like the only person on the planet, I crossed the empty street and stood in front of the gray brick building. Then pulled out my phone.

  “Hey. I’m here. Yeah. Can you open the door?”

  Silence again. Then the sound of footsteps far away coming closer. Then pounding loudly just before the door squeaked open.

  “What the f-" Liam looked out onto the street and then back at me. “Cooper? What the hell are you doing here?“ He stepped out onto the sidewalk. “Jesus Christ man, you’re shaking.”

  I lifted my hand and saw he was right. The drive across the state had felt endless, and the lashing wind and torrential rain meant it took everything I had just to stay on the road. It gave me no time to think about what I was doing, driving to New York City in the middle of the night. I had no plan other than finding out the truth once and for all. “Go ask him,” Willa had told me. So here I was doing just that.

  I opened my mouth to start giving him the whole story. But I was too exhausted to say anything other than, “You and Willa. You have to tell me."

  A shadow passed across his face, but I was too strung out to register what it could mean. The exhaustion hit me all at once and I staggered, leaning up against the wall for support.

  "Shit man." He snapped out of the defensive pose and stepped out to catch me. "You look like shit, did you really drive all night? It's four in the fucking morning.”

  I shook my head. “I know. But you have to tell me. About you and Willa. The truth."

  He stood stock still. "I will," he finally said after a long beat. "But. Not now. You woke me out of a sound sleep and you haven't slept at all by the looks of it. Have you been drinking?"

  "No."

  "Your eyes..."

  I wiped at them. There was wetness on my cheek. "Rain," I lied.

  Liam let that one go. "Here. Come in.“

  I followed numbly up the five flights of stairs to his apartment. The simple action of putting one foot in front of the other felt soothing. Every step I took was one step closer to the truth.

  Liam pushed the front door open. Scattered boxes still lined the walls of a small three-room apartment. I was too exhausted to take note of much more than the pile of coats hung in the entryway and the video game system in the corner. Since when did Liam start playing video games?

  “It’s a bit smaller than back home,” Liam said.

  “It’s yours though, so that’s pretty cool.”

  Liam smiled gratefully and pointed me toward a small spartan room off the main one. It looked about the size of a big closet and was furnished with just a wobbly floor lamp and a futon couch. "I'll pull that out,” Liam told me. “I dunno if I have any extra sheets though."

  "Just a blanket is fine." Now that I was here, I felt like I was ready to drop with exhaustion. But also relief because answers were close at hand. And fuck, it was good to see Liam, even if it was at four in the morning after driving through a storm for almost six hours.

  I was about to fall into the bed when I took another look around. "Wait, he's not going to come home and wonder what the fuck I'm doing on his bed, right?"

  Liam went rigid. “Who?"

  "Your roommate. The guy whose bedroom this is?”

  L
iam blinked at me.

  "That wasn't your coat on the hook out there, Liam. The letter jacket? And unless you’ve picked up a serious gaming habit in the past few weeks, that’s not your system out in the living room. I don’t want to piss him off if he comes home and finds me crashed on his bed. Where is he?"

  “Don’t worry about it. He’s on a business trip."

  "So he won’t mind if I crash here?”

  Liam looked exasperated. “It’s fine. Good night, Cooper."

  “We’re going to talk in the morning, right?”

  Liam nodded and looked down, then blew out a long exhale. “Yeah.” He nodded, slowly at first, and then faster. “Yeah, I think it’s time we talked about a few things.”

  “That sounds ominous.”

  “It’s not.” He stepped back and rapped his knuckles twice on the doorframe. “It’s a good thing.”

  I nodded and sat at the edge of the bed, then caught the throw blanket he chucked at me. “Right. A good thing.”

  “Night, Cooper.”

  I laid back on the uncomfortable bed and tried to believe him. Would it really be a good thing to know for sure that I couldn’t trust Willa? Would this be the clean break I needed to be free of her?

  I’d driven all this way, but was that really what I wanted? That was the last thought I had before I slipped uneasily into a dreamless sleep.

  The smell of bacon and coffee works much better on me than any alarm clock.

  I was confused when I first opened my eyes. Last night seemed like some kind of surreal dream, but here I was, tangled in a blanket in Liam’s roommate’s windowless bedroom. I sat up and stretched the kink out of my back, then sniffed.

  Bless Liam for making breakfast. I didn’t think I could face this conversation on an empty stomach.

  I pulled on yesterday’s jeans and opened the door, blinking as my eyes suddenly adjusted to the light streaming in through the windows. “Hey man,” I greeted Liam’s silhouette.

  “Mornin’,” came the reply.

  That was not Liam’s voice.

  I blinked again. The man making breakfast had deeply tanned, almost olive skin, jet black hair, and a close-shaven black beard. He was very much not Liam.

  My sludgy, pre-coffee brain slowly put two and two together. “Oh shit, man. Sorry. I’m Cooper.” I rubbed the back of my neck, feeling like an asshole. “Sorry about crashing in your bed. Liam told me you were on a business trip.”

  “Hey Cooper.” He flipped the bacon casually. “I’m Marco.”

  “Marco, man, sorry about that. It must have been a real kick in the teeth to get home and find some random guy crashing in your bed. Did you have to sleep on the couch?”

  “No.” Liam walked into the small living room. He was bare-chested and scratching his head, still yawning from sleep. “He didn’t.”

  I looked at Liam, then back at Marco. “So wait, you just got home or something?”

  Liam and Marco shared a glance. Then Liam pressed his hand down on the counter and turned to look me full in the eye. “No, Cooper. He slept in his bed.” He paused. “With me.”

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Cooper

  "What the fuck?" I looked from my best friend to the man who was now standing next to him, resting his hand possessively on his shoulder. I felt like the earth had opened up under my feet.

  Liam took a deep breath. “Babe? Could you get Cooper some coffee? Black, with more sugar than makes sense.”

  Marco nodded and went to the cupboard. But I couldn’t even form words to say think you.

  “Cooper. Sit down.” Liam gestured to the broken down couch. I nodded and sat down, but stayed perched at the very edge of it, my elbows braced on my knees. Marco brought over a mug of coffee and handed it to me. “Stop jiggling like that,” Liam said. “You’re gonna spill it all over yourself.

  I tried to sit still, but I wasn’t sure I could do it. “What the fuck, man?” It was all I seemed capable of saying. "What the fuck, man, what the fuck?"

  Liam sighed and pushed himself up to sit on the counter. Marco immediately went to stand by him and the two shared another glance. When Marco gave him a small nod of encouragement, Liam nodded back and turned to me. “So, I’ve known I was gay since I was twelve..."

  I shook my head. “No, dude, I don't care about that." Seeing his face, I amended that. "I mean, of course I care, but not that you're gay!" I was panting, struggling to breathe through pain like a vise squeezing my heart. "I'm your best friend. You always told me that. How could you keep something this important from your best friend?"

  Liam glanced at Marco, who made a "go ahead" gesture with his hand. "It's not that I didn't trust you, and I'm sorry if I made you feel like that because it's not true at all. It's that I didn't trust myself." He looked up at me. "You know who my dad is."

  “Of course. Mayor Bill."

  "And you know... how he is. About being mayor."

  I nodded slowly. Bill Mulligan viewed every single person in Crown Creek as a potential voter. He counted every vote against him and held on to the pain of it, searching for reasons why the people he viewed as his loyal subjects might have turned against him.

  "Having a gay son..." I said slowly.

  "Would be bad PR,” Liam finished. He shrugged and looked back at Marco who gave him a private smile that, if I hadn't believed Liam when he told me he was gay before, made it glaringly apparent that they'd found each other and were totally in love.

  The way I was with Willa. "Fuck. So Willa. What was… What did you really...."

  “She was my beard.” He spat the word with flat self-loathing, then let out a long breath. "It wasn't fair to her at all, it really wasn't. I used her as a human shield because I was too wrapped up in how terrified I was of my father finding out.” He wrapped his fingers around his coffee mug. “I told her how scared I was and we came up with the idea together. Having a pretty little ‘girlfriend’ would keep my dad off my back. I’d be ‘normal.’”

  Marco made a growling noise, and Liam took his hand. “But toward senior year,” Liam went on, looking at his boyfriend. “After I'd done some growing... and I started getting more comfortable with who I am... I took a look around and realized she'd given up so much just to protect me from my bogeyman.” He shook his head. “How many guys had been interested in her that she had to reject to keep up our charade? How many guys had she been interested in and had to let go because of me?" Regret was written in every line of his body. “It was like I woke up one morning and was like, 'whoa, I'm a real piece of shit.'"

  Slowly I put two and two together. “So… that night when I saw her at the movies… you knew about that?”

  He nodded. "I actually forced her to go. Eli Jordan is a couple years older than us so we didn’t think we had to worry about her running into anyone from our crowd. And he’s a nice guy and had his own car and all that. She liked him. Maybe even had a tiny crush on him too, though she’d never admit it. So I told her to go.” He shrugged when he saw the shock on my face. “They were going to the movies in Reckless Falls. It’s not like they were at the Royal Diner or some other place in town where they could be spotted. I told her to go and not worry about it." His eyes flicked up at me and then down again.

  A chill went through me. “But I was there.“ I still remembered that night with my cousins. I felt like such hot shit hanging with Cole and Derek. I was convinced I was all grown up, both college-bound like my whip-smart cousin Cole, and a total badass like the grown-up Derek.

  So when I thought I spotted my friend's girlfriend, I enlisted their help, leading the mission to catch her cheating like I was some kind of teenaged General Patton. “It would have all been okay if I hadn’t been visiting my cousins.”

  He nodded silently.

  I felt like he’d poured a bucket of ice water on my head. I shook it, then shook it again, trying to make all the pieces fall into place. For years I’d had the jigsaw puzzle of what I thought had happened all perfectly assembled i
n my head, but now it seemed I’d put together something that didn’t even resemble the picture on the box. "But why didn't you go to prom anyway, then?” I wondered. "You paid for the freaking limo and then didn't even use it. I was so pissed that she got a fancy night out with her friends all scot-free while you stayed home -" I glanced at him. "Okay, clearly not heartbroken at all, so what the hell?"

  He and Marco shared another private smile. "Tell him," Marco encouraged.

  Liam sighed. "So... okay. When you caught Willa with Eli, I knew she and I had two options. We could keep 'dating,' and pretend we'd worked through our differences, that she was sorry, that I forgave her, all that bullshit. And that's what I was prepared to do except..."

  "Except?"

  Another smile with Marco. "I'd met someone."

  I looked between the two of them. "Wait. Him?"

  They both nodded. "When the orchestra came down here to play in the state competition,” Liam explained. “I fell in love with him in spite of the fact that he's a dirty percussionist."

  “And he’s a finicky, uptight violinist.” Marco rolled his eyes. "It was a real Romeo and Juliet situation."

  "Romeo and Romeo?" I corrected. "Sorry that was terrible," I apologized when they both stared at me.

  “Not the worst we’ve heard,” Marco said with a world-weary grin. “Sadly enough.”

  ”Willa told me to dump her,” Liam went on. “I still remember it so clearly. 'It was my fault for getting caught,' she said. 'And time you spend with me is going to eat up what little time you have to be with him.'" Liam patted Marco’s shoulder and inhaled sharply.

  And so did I, because I could actually hear Willa saying those words. Of course she'd take the fall to protect him. I knew her heart well enough - I thought - to not be surprised by this. But the strength she had to have to live under this cloud all these years. Never once had she tried to defend herself with the real story. Not even at his going away party. She stayed strong for as long as he needed her strong.