by Avery Flynn
Cooper fisted Josh’s shirt front and pushed against the oncoming force. Josh mirrored him, and the two ended up in this close range back and forth in the middle of the street, arms straining for control. Cooper didn’t think he’d ever seen his brother this furious. It took a little of the air out of his tire, but not so much that he was ready to throw in the towel. He was too pissed.
There seemed to be no end in sight to the physical struggle, but Josh finally gave Cooper a hard shove. “Just give it up, Cooper. Put us all out of our misery once and for all. You know it’s what you want to do. You proved that the day you couldn’t even show up to say good-bye to your own father.”
The familiar sting he’d felt in his heart since that day jolted in Cooper’s chest. It was guilt, but not in the way Josh perceived it. That was one hundred percent the problem here.
Cooper felt the sun’s heat disappear off his neck as he heaved several deep breaths and unclenched his fists. “It was my first professional game, Josh.”
“No shit. The entire town was aware of how you chose the game over Dad.”
Coop shut his eyes. He took a steadying breath. “He asked me to play. You know that.”
He opened his eyes to find his brother straightening to his full height. Blinking slowly as if struck dumb. "What are you talking about?"
Cooper was just as confused now as his brother seemed to be. Was there more to Josh’s anger then he thought? “Dad didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what, Cooper?”
“He asked me to stay and play so he could watch. Wanted to see me in at least one professional game before he died.”
The red seemed to drain from Josh’s face. “I… I didn’t—”
Behind Josh, a young girl rang a bell on her bike and cycled out of her driveway into the road. The guys turned their attention to her if for no other reason than to get a breather. And the timing couldn't have been better. A familiar car spun around the corner a little too fast and didn't appear to be slowing for the child.
Josh and Cooper took off toward the scene. A scream tore out of the little girl’s mouth as the squeal of car tires rent through the air. Josh’s old skills on the football field came in handy as he hooked the girl in one arm, spun her off the bike, and out of the car’s path.
Savannah’s car came to a halt and barely tapped the bike already toppling over. Cooper’s hands slapped down on the hood as he came to his own rocking halt. Sucking in a breath, he stared past the windshield at the woman behind the wheel. Cheeks red and sopping wet from crying, Savannah shook and seemed to have a difficult time breathing.
Cooper had seen her like this more than he cared to think about. He knew from the direction she'd come that she'd been at the Scotts' house and that she'd been on the receiving end of Helena's disapproval again. A new fury pushed through Cooper's blood. That was supposed to end. Hadn't that been the promise made to him? Wasn't that part of the deal?
Somewhere past the rush of blood flooding Cooper’s ears, he heard Josh say something about escorting the little girl home. He thought Josh even picked up the mostly untouched bike too. But he couldn’t take his eyes off Savannah to find out. He rounded the car and yanked the driver’s side door open.
He bent and scooped Savannah out, and to his surprise, she threw her arms around his neck and sobbed into his shoulder. He was instantly thrown back in time to a moment when he was the only person on Earth that she trusted. And at that moment, he knew he had a chance to get her back.
Cooper Banks to the rescue. In the past three years, that was the last thing she ever expected to have happened again. And she'd thought about his absence a lot. Especially after every fight with her mother. He'd been her best friend her whole life, and the only person who truly understood what that did to her.
Like how it made her so blinded with tears that she nearly killed a child on a bike.
She had been lucky the Banks brothers were there. Not that she understood how or why, but it had been fortuitous for both her and the little girl. Saved them both from something too horrifying to think about.
The driver's side door opened, and Cooper lowered into the empty seat he'd made her vacate twenty minutes ago. He passed a cup of soft serve ice cream over, and there was that smile again. The one she hated because it was the one he reserved for the cameras.
“It’s cake batter flavored,” he said proudly. “No toppings. Just the way you like it.”
Savannah took the cup. “I haven’t liked this flavor in years.”
A line ground between his eyes. “But it’s your favorite.”
“I like strawberry now. Sometimes chocolate.” She nodded at the second cup he held in his left hand, getting ahead of his offer to switch. “Never vanilla.”
He glanced out front at Sweet Dips, the soft serve shop that had been there since they were kids. Their usual go-to hang out as teenagers, but rarely considered now that she was an adult. Not that she was complaining. It was surprisingly comforting. She'd have to remember that for next time when Cooper wouldn't be around to save her anymore.
"I'll go get you strawberry," he said and started to open the door.
"Cooper wait. This is fine. Really." She took a bite to prove it and was instantly reminded why she'd loved it once upon a time. Guess you never really outgrow your first loves. "Yum."
He chuckled, and there was the boy she loved. Handsome and real. It warmed her heart to see him.
“Feel better?” he asked.
“I was fine before.”
Cooper's expression lost its humor. "You were driving recklessly through a neighborhood full of kids on bikes and parents with strollers. What if there'd been a game of street hockey going on? You'd have mowed over an entire team. Killed their chance to win the season."
Only he could start out heavy handed and end on a sarcastic note to take the sting out. Which was lucky for him, because she’d started to feel pretty irate and had been two seconds from taking one of those pretty hazel eyes with her red plastic spoon.
“Wanna talk about it?” he asked.
Savannah lowered her attention to the soft serve turning soupy in her cup. “Look. I appreciate this. Really. But I’m not your problem to fix.”
“Okay. I’ll change the subject.” He waited for her to meet his eyes. “Tell me about your song writing. When did that start?”
No way did he want to talk about her writing music again, and she certainly didn’t want to get into the fact that West Parrish, Cooper’s high school best friend, was her writing partner. “It’s nothing. A silly hobby.”
A corner of Cooper’s lips lifted into a smirk. “Silly like that boy you knew who wanted to be a professional hockey player from Georgia where the closest thing to snow he saw was from a cup of shaved ice? Silly like that?”
“Exactly like that.”
It felt completely unnatural to continue holding him at arm’s length. Especially now that he’d driven her here in an effort to cheer her up. It was so Cooper-like, which made him leaving the way he did that much more hurtful. And he hadn’t even begun to explain why yet. Did he actually intend to sit there and act as if everything was normal? The only thing that hadn’t changed in three years was the fact that she loved him despite herself. But she also hated him for what he did.
“We should go,” she said.
“Why?”
How did he get away with actually looking puzzled? “Because I can’t do this with you. Nothing’s changed since I last saw you. I’m still pissed at you in a way that soft serve won’t cure.”
Frowning, Cooper looked down and away. “I want to tell you everything.”
“Do you? Because it looks to me like pro hockey player Cooper Banks thinks I’m easily swayed by his so-called Southern Charm.”
Now that she’d started, she was already beginning to feel better. Maybe a small percentage of her aggression was residual from dinner, but he wouldn’t know the difference.
“I don’t think that,” he said.
&n
bsp; Savannah didn't believe that for a second. Otherwise, he'd have come out with the truth already.
“All right,” he said, holding up a hand. “I admit I hoped I could soften you up a little before we got down to business. But this”—he held up his soft serve—“was honestly about cheering you up. It was sort of our thing, remember?”
“I remember,” she said quietly, stirring her now soupy-looking ice cream. “But I’ve been on my own for three years now. I haven’t needed rescuing.”
Cooper pursed his lips and twisted toward her as much as the space in her car would allow. "Nothing's changed with your mom, has it?"
She laughed darkly. “You expected otherwise? C’mon, Cooper Banks, I thought you knew better than that.”
“Actually, no. I was led to believe the exact opposite. That’s why I left.”
Savannah waited for him to laugh. Crack a smile. Anything but the completely straight face he wore. The longer he stared, the more she believed he meant every word.
“Led by who?” she asked.
"Before I left for New Orleans, I walked in on our fathers arguing in Dad's study. I guess William had come to pay his last respects, and the things I overheard…" Cooper stopped and shook his head. Took a deep breath. "Let's just say for now that the feud between them stretches beyond them in ways I never fathomed. It's the reason my mom left my dad. It's why William hated my dad, and even I have to admit it was for a good reason. Why he took it out on me holds no merit."
She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Cooper knew what was behind the feud between William and Andrew? And he hadn’t bothered to pause for even a second to fill her in on it?
Just as she prepared to tear him apart, he said, “It’s also the reason your mom acts the way she does.”
All he was giving her was effect, when she needed to know the cause. It was frustrating the hell out of her. “Cooper Banks, I swear to Christ, if you don’t tell me the whole truth right now…”
He hesitated. Actually stopped to deliberate. She’d waited three years, and he was taking a breather?
“We should probably wait for your dad,” he said.
Cooper may as well have patted her head like an impatient puppy. “When am I going to be important enough?”
“Savannah, you—”
“And are you honestly going to put your leaving on our parents?”
His eyes widened. “One hundred percent.”
How could she still be in love with a man who couldn’t even take ownership of his actions? “You are a piece of work.”
“Savannah Jane, if you’ll just let me explain.”
“Get out of my car.” She didn’t need him to explain a thing. Not if he intended to dance around the important parts. Now that she knew what questions to ask, she’d go straight to the source. “I don’t ever want to lay eyes on you again.”
She shoved her styrofoam cup at his chest until he was forced to take it. Yellow cake batter ice cream sloshed up on his shirt. “Take your damn peace offering with you.”
4
Cooper woke to light so abrupt that he sprung off his old mattress and wobbled, half-dizzy, half-confused. Where the hell was he? Then the smell of his old room hit him. That ghostly reek of sweat and dirt inadequately covered by floral-scented air freshener. His dad used to enter Cooper's room wielding the canister like a sword, and now the scent survived like a pesky ghost.
As he blinked into the morning sun on the other side of his recently thrown open blinds, he couldn't quite account for the man in his room with Cooper's past strung around them. His present and past mixed like oil and water.
Saul Avila, Cooper’s sports agent, strode over the dresser and picked up a picture frame. His black eyebrows rose in time with a nod. “Nice looking girl. Prom photo?”
Cooper leaped out of bed in nothing but his blue boxers, snatched the frame from Saul, and reset it in the clean line where the dust had gathered around it. “Winter formal.”
A time when the worst thing he’d ever done was forget Savannah’s birthday. Now she was so pissed at him she hadn’t let him finish explaining. He’d been up half the night trying to figure out where precisely he’d gone wrong. All he’s wanted was to make sure her parents got to tell their side of the story too. His intentions were good, damn it.
“Who’s this kid playing handyman downstairs? Male, looks like a rugged version of you”—Saul looked Cooper up and down—“maybe an inch or so shorter. Sound familiar?”
“My brother Josh.” Cooper narrowed his eyes. “Please tell me you at least knocked on the front door.” He could only imagine how Josh must have reacted to the tiny man with big attitude strutting into the house as if he owned it. Wearing a thousand-dollar suit, no less.
Saul kicked at a yearbook braced against the open closet door, and the two of them watched it slam shut as if thrown by an invisible hand. "You should get the handyman to fix that."
Cooper pulled an old Penn State shirt over his head in a deliberately slow way to hide the roll of his eyes.
“Ready for today?” Saul asked. “Gonna be a long one. We’ll need that smile on full blast for the next twelve straight hours.”
Hours of interviews weren’t a concern. Just like his confidence on the ice. Easy. It was holding his patience for the uninvited agent currently eyeing Cooper’s old plastic trophy collection before he’d even had a chance to brush his teeth. That was the problem. Just one he didn’t bother with fixing. It would do him no good.
Saul might have no sense of personal space, but he’d landed Cooper a great contract and put him on a cereal box last year. Not to mention the numerous photo shoots he’d been through for various publications; he’d seen his grinning mug on more than a few “the hot side of hockey” top ten lists.
Saul would say that Cooper's talent landed him the deal, and his smile put him on the box. The lists? That responsibility fell solely on the eye of the American female. But they both knew Saul was behind everything. Earning his fifteen percent and then some.
“Hotel room is set up and ready to go,” Saul said. “We have reporters coming in from every local network, as well as national and a few from Canada. That bitch from New York got her name on the list; you’ll have to be careful with that one. She’s a huge Spartans fan, and not happy.”
Cooper groaned. After how the Spartans fans acted during those final games, if he never crossed paths with one ever again it would be too soon.
“Anyway, they’re all amped for the reveal we’ve been dangling in their faces since the win.” Saul spread his hands across the air as if unveiling a huge name in lights. “What will the Rajuns pretty boy do with his turn with the Cup? Fill it with champagne? Drink it with his childhood sweetheart, perhaps?”
Saul’s gaze ventured over to the winter formal photo where Cooper held Savannah in that typical awkward pose. She’d worn something without shoulders in a soft pink. Like the petal of her favorite rose. They looked great together, and if that were the story he planned to reveal today, the press would eat them up.
“All I know,” Saul said seriously, “is that it better be good. I’ve been plugging this as epic. So if that champagne doesn’t come with a girl attached—and I’m talking the one that got away kind of girl—then you and I—”
“There’s a girl, but she has nothing to do with this. And I’d rather not turn her into a media spectacle.” The last thing he needed was to give Savannah one more reason to hate him.
“So what are we dealing with, Coop? You have to at least fill me in before your first interview. I’m dying here, kid.”
Cooper hadn’t told him before because he hadn’t wanted Saul to talk him out of it. Or try to, anyway. Taking the Cup to a graveyard? Cooper? The guy portrayed as one of the most eligible men, or the southern sweetheart, or—the one he hated the most—Mr. Southern Charm? This was going to be a pretty morbid trip, but an important one. This was his dad’s final wish. Well, the second if he counted the request to play that first game.
>
Only a couple hours from sitting down for his first interview, there was very little Saul could do or say to “fix” this. No time to re-spin.
So Cooper spilled the entire thing. Dying wishes to watch his first game on professional ice, followed by a visit with the Cup to Andrew’s grave. Saul had been quiet at first. And stone still. That’s what worried Cooper the most. If Saul went into shock, there was a high probability that it would end badly. Cooper didn’t want to try finding a new agent on top of everything else.
Finally, Saul unfroze, but only to speak in a low even tone. "That's not what I expected."
“Maybe not,” Cooper said, preparing to fight this battle to the death. “But it’s what I’m doing. You won’t change my mind.”
Saul broke into a smile and clapped his hands as if banging a couple of symbols together. “This is an hour long documentary on all the big sports networks. We’re going to have grown men and women sobbing all over North America. Brilliant!”
Cooper’s heart skipped a distressed beat. He saw through to the end of this idea, and it wasn’t good. He already had his work cut out for him. The town would think he’d planned this as a publicity stunt. They’d call him a liar. They’d feel used by the time it was all said and done, not to mention using his poor dead father who couldn’t counter the story. And that was all before adding docudramas to the mix.
"I don't know about all that. Small interviews are one thing, but I seriously don't want to do a detailed dramatization."
Waving a dismissal, Saul headed for the exit. “We’re out of here in twenty. I have a few suits for you to choose from at the hotel.”
Thirty minutes later, Cooper's day turned into a whirlwind. Stylists for clothes, hair, and sweet baby Jesus…makeup. People took donuts and bagels and even a bite-sized muffin out of his hands before he got a single bite. He couldn't get near the coffee. One complaint of thirst and someone slapped the world's smallest water bottle in his hand before pushing him off to the next task.