Savored: A Small-Town Contemporary Romance

by Sophie Stern

  I didn’t know, really, but I was faced with a choice. Was I going to let the past dictate my future? Or was I going to go crazy? Was I going to jump right in to what the world was offering me?

  “Cooper asked me on a date,” I told my aunt.

  “What did you say?”

  “You don’t seem surprised.”

  She shrugged.

  Oh, Aunt Hannah. Had she been playing matchmaker? I wanted to ask her, but Aunt Hannah wasn’t going to give away all of her secrets on the first try. Besides, a good magician never revealed her secrets, right?

  “He asked me out for dinner,” I said. “And I accepted.”

  “Do you know what you’re going to wear?” She asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Are you feeling excited?”

  “Yep.”

  “Do you think you might throw up?”

  “A little.”

  Hannah laughed and leaned back.

  “Honey, you’re worried now, and I get that, but I have something to promise you.”

  “What is it?”

  “No matter what happens,” she said. “Everything is going to be okay.”

  6.

  Cooper

  A DATE.

  It had been a wild idea, to be sure. I still wasn’t sure whether it was a good choice or a horrible choice. Taking Cordelia on a date was something I’d fantasized about for a million years, but I’d never had the guts to actually do.

  What could someone as wonderful as her possibly see in someone like me? After all, I’d messed with her head. It hadn’t been on purpose, but still, I’d done it.

  The truth was that I’d never known what exactly had happened with Cordelia. The two of us had been friends who bickered and fought, but at some point, she had started to just despise me. Had it been when she became friends with Larissa? Had it been when we started to grow apart in middle school? I’d never really been certain. Now I knew it had to do with the rumors she’d thought that I started.

  What I had known back then was that I wanted a chance to spend more time with her. The prom had seemed like the perfect choice. I was 17, and I was an idiot. I should have known better than to go for Larissa’s brother’s “please help me out” plan. I should have known it was some sort of trick.

  But I hadn’t.

  And I’d paid the price.

  I wanted to punch a wall. How could I not have known the lies that Larissa continued to spread after high school? How could I really not have known? When I’d come home for visits during college, she’d always tried to get together and hang out, and I’d never wanted to. I was glad for that. If I had, it would have reinforced her lies to the rest of the school.

  Instead of going directly home after meeting with Cordelia, I drove by my dad’s place. He still lived in a cute little two-story house on South Maple Avenue. It was a little old, but not run-down. My dad took pride in what he did, and even though he’d never had a lot of money, he made a point to make sure that the house always, always looked nice.

  I didn’t bother knocking on the door. Instead, I just waltzed right into the house and headed for the kitchen. James and my dad were both sitting at the kitchen table. Dad was eating a turkey sandwich and James was reading a book.

  “Why hello,” my dad said, setting his sandwich down. “Coop, I wasn’t expecting you.” He had the look on his face that said he was worried he’d forgotten he was supposed to meet with me.

  “It’s okay, Dad,” I said. “You don’t have to stop eating. I’m actually here to talk to James.”

  “Me?” James looked up from his book. “What did I do?”

  “I need to ask you something,” I said.

  James seemed like he could sense the urgency in my words because he set his book down and nodded.

  “Anything,” he said.

  “Do you remember my senior year of high school?”

  He rolled his eyes.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I remember.”

  “Do you remember a guy taking you to appointments and stuff?”

  “You mean Keith?” He asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Oh yeah, I remember all right.” He shook his head. “I hated that guy.”

  Wait, what?

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “He was a dick,” James shrugged, as though that settled the whole thing.

  “What do you mean? I thought he was nice to you.”

  “He was nice to you,” James corrected me. “Everyone else hated him and his sister. They were both assholes.”

  “What did I miss?” I asked.

  “Have a seat,” James gestured to the kitchen table. I sat down across from my brother. Our kitchen table only had two chairs: one for dad, and one for me. James sat in a wheelchair, as he had for as long as I could remember. My brother could no longer walk, and the wheelchair gave him mobility when it came to getting around the house and even getting out into town. He didn’t let his chair keep him at home.

  I looked at my brother. Even now, at 25, he was incredible. I’d always sort of looked after him. With our parents both working, I’d done my best to help them out by taking James to his doctor’s appointments and to see his physical therapist. When I couldn’t make it, Keith had helped me out. At least, I thought he’d helped him out.

  “I hated that guy,” James said bluntly.

  My dad ate his sandwich slowly, watching us. My dad was a quiet sort of guy who lived a quiet sort of life. He loved us both dearly, but he wasn’t exactly known for being aggressive or confrontational. I wondered if he’d known how much James hated Keith.

  “Tell me why.”

  “He was cruel.”

  “How?”

  “He was always making fun of me, man,” James said. “He called me all sorts of shitty names when you weren’t around. Oh, and when you were around, he acted like he was the big brother I’d been missing.”

  That one stung, and I swallowed hard, trying not to freak out about what I was hearing. How naïve had I been in high school? I knew perfectly well that kids could be terrible to each other. I had plenty of bullies at the school where I worked. It was my job to keep them under control and to keep them from hurting each other too badly.

  Now I was learning that my own brother had been bullied, and I’d had no idea.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “You didn’t know.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Why do you think?”

  Of course, I knew.

  “He threatened you,” I said.

  “Not me.”

  The only reason my brother would have given in to a bully’s requests if the person was going to hurt someone they loved.

  “Me?”

  “Yep.”

  “Tell me how.”

  “He said that if I told you he was giving me a hard time, he’d make sure you never played sports again. Said he’d make sure you ended up just like me.”

  James shook his head, obviously disgusted. I felt a pang in my stomach: a deep, sharp pain that made me feel like I was going to be sick. How had I not seen the signs? James had made up excuses for not going to appointments on the days when Keith was supposed to drive him. He’d said things like he had a headache, or he had diarrhea and couldn’t make it to the clinic. He’d said he needed to stay home for a variety of reasons, and sometimes, it had worked.

  Other times, my parents had told him to suck it up.

  My mom had been the one who had seemed the most uneasy about James’ experiences. She’d thought about quitting her job so she could always be available to drive him, but my parents just hadn’t been able to afford that. No matter how much they scrimped and saved, they needed the health insurance they got through my mom’s position. Besides, after living on one income while my dad was between jobs, they knew that it wasn’t something they could do again. Not with the way the economy was.

  “I didn’t know,” I whispered.

  “I didn�
�t want you to.”

  “But even after I left...you kept it to yourself.”

  He shrugged and shook his head.

  “Brother, I love you, but you had your own shit to deal with. You didn’t need me weighing you down with my problems.”

  “It wouldn’t have been a problem.”

  “Maybe not, but let me ask you a question.”

  “Anything.”

  “If I’d told you that Keith was bullying me, would you have gone off to college?”

  “No.”

  “And that’s why I didn’t tell you,” James said. “I figured things out. I grew up. I got control of my life. I figured out who I was and who I wanted to be, and I knew one thing: I didn’t want to be a man who held my brother back.”

  “That’s very big of you.”

  “Thank you,” James smiled. He shook his head. “You know, you always worried about me because of my chair, but I always worried about you for other reasons.”

  “You worried about me?”

  “Every brother worries about his brother,” James pointed out.

  “Why did you worry about me?”

  My dad took another bite of his sandwich, and then he mumbled something about this being a private moment and he stepped away from the table. He left his plate and glass beside the sink, and then he left the room. Then James and I were alone.

  “Because you never knew how to go after what you wanted.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “I don’t mean sports,” James said. “Sports were easy. I mean you couldn’t go after the girl you wanted. You couldn’t be honest with her. You couldn’t even be honest with yourself.”

  “You knew about Cordelia.”

  “Everyone knew about Cordelia,” he said. “Including Larissa and Keith.”

  “I took Larissa to prom senior year.”

  “I remember.”

  “Keith said I owed him for all the times he helped you out.”

  “I never understood why you asked Larissa,” James said. “That makes a little more sense.”

  “I wanted to take Cordelia, but since I knew there was no way she’d go with me, I figured double dating to prom was the next best thing.”

  “A classic mistake,” James pointed out.

  “Apparently, everyone thought that Larissa and I were dating my senior year even though I’d gone off to college.”

  James watched me for a second. He wasn’t judging me, and I appreciated that. He was soaking up everything I’d said, but he wasn’t upset with me. That wasn’t his style. He didn’t exactly freak out on people. I felt safe with James. I appreciated the fact that I could tell him anything and he’d be totally calm and stoic. He was the kind of friend who would help you bury a body at 2AM and the only thing he’d ask is, “How deep should we dig?”

  “She’s back in town,” James said. “Are you going to ask her out now?”

  “I kind of did,” I said.

  “Is that so?”

  “You think it’s a bad idea?”

  “Not at all,” James said. “I think it’s a perfect idea. You both probably want a second chance, right?”

  It was a rare thing we were being offered. I knew enough about how the world worked to know that not everyone had a second chance to make first love work. Not everyone got a do-over.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, this is your shot,” he said. “You have a rare opportunity to try again. Not a lot of people get that.”

  “I don’t know if I’m too broken,” I said.

  “You aren’t.”

  “I don’t know if I’m too old.”

  “You aren’t.”

  “You seem pretty sure,” I laughed. My brother always looked up to me. He always believed in me. Even when I couldn’t believe in myself, he believed in me. That was a rare treat. It was a rare thing that someone could look at me and just have this complete, unstoppable belief and trust.

  “I want to tell you something,” James said.

  “Okay.”

  “It’s not about you.”

  “Okay.”

  “Well, it sort of is.”

  “James?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Spit it out.”

  “I went back to college,” he said.

  “What?” James had dropped out after a semester at a local community college. It had been hard for him to manage his doctor’s appointments with class times, and the entire situation had been wildly overwhelming for him. Even though he was smart as hell, he’d said that college just wasn’t for him.

  “Online,” he said. “For coding.”

  He’d always loved video games, so I couldn’t say I was totally surprised, and yet I was.

  “How?” I asked.

  “How could I afford it, you mean?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “I got a scholarship, and a grant, and I took out a loan,” he said. “But I went, Coop. I’m still going, actually. I’ve got two semesters done so far, and I was just offered a job that I can do from home while I continue my studies. I have three years left, and having a job will be tricky, but I’m excited. It’s going to help me and dad out a lot.”

  “Holy dragons,” I shook my head. I reached across the table and tapped his shoulder. “I’m so proud of you,” I said.

  “Thank you,” James beamed.

  “Dad knew about you being in school,” it wasn’t a question.

  “He knew.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” A year was a long time. He’d been in school for two semesters, and I hadn’t noticed. How had I not noticed?

  “I thought about it,” he said. “But I wanted to make sure I could do it, you know? I didn’t want to get you all worked up, and then drop out or something, and then have to tell you.”

  “I would never think of you as a failure.”

  “I know,” he said. “That’s not how you are. At least, not when it comes to other people.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Coop, forgive yourself.”

  James looked at me sadly, and I had the feeling he kind of thought he was talking to a little kid. He wasn’t entirely wrong, though. I’d been carrying a huge burden. I’d been carrying so much guilt that sometimes, it overwhelmed me. There was plenty of guilt in the world, and I’d taken a lot for myself. It was easy to tell other people to forgive themselves. It was so much harder when it was you.

  “I don’t know if I can,” I told him.

  “If you don’t, it’ll eat you up alive. You’re getting a second chance, brother. Close your eyes and take the leap.”

  7.

  Cordelia

  MY DAY SEEMED TO DRAG on, but soon it was time to meet Cooper for dinner. When I arrived at the restaurant he’d chosen, I was delightfully surprised to see that he was already there and waiting outside by the doors. I’d driven instead of walking – a rare choice for me – because I didn’t want to be sweaty when I arrived, and I was already wildly nervous.

  As soon as he saw me, his eyes lit up, and that was the best damn feeling in the world. He’d noticed me. Cooper Clark had finally noticed me, and he’d invited me out, and more than that, he seemed happy to see me.

  No, no, he seemed delighted to see me.

  That was its own reward, I thought. Having someone wonderful and wild and sexy notice you and feel excited to see you felt like floating.

  “You look beautiful.”

  “Thank you.”

  He hugged me by way of greeting, and I hugged him right on back. He smelled good, and the scent made me feel even more like I was dreaming.

  “Shall we go inside?” He asked.

  “Yeah,” I said, swallowing nervously.

  We went into the restaurant and were taken to our seats. It was a small, locally owned Italian restaurant that served the best lasagna you’d ever had in your life.

  “I know everyone says not to eat pasta on a first date,” Cooper said.

  “But they haven’t eaten here,” I sai
d, agreeing with him. “This place is the best.”

  We gorged ourselves on breadsticks and pasta and we each had a glass of wine. Somehow, talking to Cooper felt natural and easy. It seemed normal, and I realized about halfway through dinner that this was something I’d never felt with Jake. Cooper seemed to notice my change in attitude right away.

  “Is everything okay?” He asked.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Cordelia?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I know you better than that.”

  “Okay,” I said, spinning my fork in my pasta. I twirled it, and then I looked up at him. “I’m thinking about my ex.”

  It was honest, but I wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. Hadn’t Cooper and I gotten into this predicament because we hadn’t been truthful enough with each other? We hadn’t been honest. We hadn’t done anything like that. The two of us had made the mistake of believing what other people said was happening instead of just going to the source and talking to each other.

  Communication could save a lot of trouble. At least, I thought it could. That was my theory.

  I waited, looking at Cooper. Was he going to freak out? Jake always had. If I ever tried to bring up high school or people I’d thought about, people I’d wanted to date, or Cooper in particular, Jake would shake his head and hold up a hand and snap at me about it.

  Cooper didn’t, though.

  Instead, he set his fork down, laced his fingers together, and propped his chin on his hands.

  “What about your ex?” He asked.

  “You aren’t mad?”

  “That you’ve dated other people?”

  I nodded.

  He only laughed.

  “Cordelia, we’re in our thirties. I hardly think you’re a virgin.” Then he cocked his head and raised an eyebrow. “You aren’t a virgin, are you? Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” he quickly added.

  “No, I’m not a virgin.”

  “Then what were you thinking about?”

  “I was in a long-term relationship,” I said. “And when I say long-term, I mean a really long time. I mean, Jake and I were together for ages. We worked together. We lived together. We did everything together. When you’re with someone that long, it kind of feels like the relationship is never going to end.”