31. Cooper
31
Cooper
L eah’s cheeks are a very sweet shade of strawberry. My family is too busy celebrating to notice that she is currently searching for an exit.
“Wait,” Meredith says, peering from one rejoicing family member to the next. “Did you guys cut the cake without me?”
Levi stands, and it’s the scraping of his chair that seems to give Leah permission to stand too. She’s up and bolting for the door. I stand too, scooting past Alice, then Levi as he wraps an arm around Meredith.
“No, Mer,” Levi tells her. “I can honestly tell you that we have not cut into that cake yet. In fact, they might even give you the honor.”
I smirk at Meredith’s stunned expression and hurry into the kitchen. But Leah must be hauling because she’s nowhere in sight. I pick up the pace and catch her at the front door, hand on the knob.
“Hey!” I shout, stopping her from escaping.
“I can’t believe I did that.” Her chest heaves, but she gives one whole second before she’s turned back for the door.
“It’s not a big deal.”
“I just ruined an important moment for your family.” She blinks back at me. “How can you say that’s not a big deal?”
“Nobody cares.”
She breathes out an anxious huff, those emerald eyes boring into me. “I doubt that. And—it’s all your fault.”
“Whoa.” I stop short, just a few feet from her now. “Me?”
“Yes, if you hadn’t been bragging about how you knew the gender, I wouldn’t have had to explain how I let you help bake the cake.”
I swallow down my need to be right, reminding myself that I still want to be friends with this woman. That I like this woman. “You’re right.”
But agreeing with her doesn’t seem to work either. She tosses out a hand and whacks me on the chest. “I am not! It isn’t your fault, Cooper! You know that. I know that.” Her eyes shut and her head lolls back. “But, man, I wish it were. Everything was so much easier when I could blame you for every problem in the world.”
“In the world? You used to blame me for all problems everywhere?”
She blows a raspberry from her lips. “Global warming—it’s all on you, bud.”
“Wow, your dislike for me ran deep.”
Leah groans, blanketing her eyes with one hand. “I liked it more when you were always wrong and I was always right.”
“Okay, let’s pause. One—no, we did not like that better. Not at all. And two—I’m not sure you realize something.”
“What?” she barks, dropping her hand, her head snapping up to me.
“Yes, you accidentally outed the gender of my unborn nephew.” I tilt my head to the side. “ But no one is mad at you. In fact, I’m pretty sure they’re still celebrating in there. ”
Her chest rises and falls with a breath. “So?”
“So, come back. Don’t leave. Meredith still doesn’t know. Annie might even let her cut the cake.”
Leah’s full lips quirk up in a half grin. “Really?”
I nod. “Yeah. Meredith lived a pretty sheltered life. Firsts are pretty important to her.”
“Does she realize she’s the only person in that room who doesn’t know?”
“Umm…” I glance behind me to no one—just a doorway. “Honestly? I’m not sure. But she’s excited regardless.”
She presses her lips together. “Is it weird that I’m here?”
“It’s not for me.” I bob my head toward the doorway leading to my family. “It’s not for them. Is it for you?”
She pulls in a breath through her nose, her eyes holding mine. “Kind of.”
“Do you want to go?” I shove my hands into my pants pockets. I don’t want her to leave, but I won’t force her to stay, not if she’s really that uncomfortable.
She doesn’t answer, not right away. Not like I hoped she would.
“You don’t have to stay,” I offer.
Leah nibbles on her bottom lip. “I can stay.”
“Do you want to stay?”
She pinches her red lips, worry wrinkles still sporting across her forehead. “Yeah.”
“Great,” I say, and somehow, I keep my tone calm and my buzzing hands to myself. My brain is torn between the sexy, half-Puerto Rican Leah who schools me with a lecture any chance she gets and the adorable, vulnerable Leah who’s always in red tennis shoes and a colorful top, reminding me a little of Alice. Either way—either Leah—I like her, and I’d really like to finish what we started last night.
I’m not talking about wanting to body slam her ex—sure, I’d like to do that too. But what I really want is to hold her again, to breathe her in, and feel her warmth. The woman is starting to consume my every thought. I debate in my head regularly whether Leah smells like her bakery, or her bakery smells like her. Either way, I’ve decided it’s my own personal aphrodisiac.
I’ve never wanted a woman’s attention so badly. And, consequently, I’ve never had to work so hard to get a woman’s attention.
My hand itches to reach out for hers, but Leah made herself clear last night.
Friends .
She’s recently decided I’m not the spawn of all evil. So, she’d like to start—for who knows how long—with friendship.
It’s not a crazy request. We only reconnected weeks ago. And it doesn’t mean she’s shutting me down forever. I can respect her wishes—even if they drive me to insanity.
“Cooper!” Coco steps into the living room. “Where are you? Meredith’s got the knife in her hand.” My sister’s eyes slide to Leah. “Wait. You aren’t going, are you? We haven’t had cake yet.”
Leah swallows. “No—um, no.”
Coco smiles, looking more like Mom every day, and waves a hand at the two of us. “Well, come on, then! We can’t miss the big reveal,” she says before disappearing back into the kitchen.
“Big reveal?” Leah watches me, her head tilting.
Grinning, I reach for her hand, tugging her along—all because we’re in a hurry. The fact that I desperately want to touch her is purely coincidental. “Meredith doesn’t know.”
I lead Leah into the kitchen, and I am very aware when she slips her palm from mine and folds it with her opposite hand. My family stands around the kitchen island, our cake at the center.
Yes, Leah let me see her family’s secret recipe. She let me mix in the dye. But she decorated the cake. White frosting, with a puffed edging of alternating blue and pink frosted ribbon that looks too perfect to have been done by hand. She called it piping. Then, in blue and pink, she wrote boy or girl on the top.
“Are you sure I should be doing this?” Meredith says, confirming my guess that no one told her that we all already know the gender.
Annie’s eyes are watery and her smile kind when she waves a hand at Meredith. “Of course, Auntie Mer. You do it.”
Meredith shakes her head but laughs.
My eyes draw to Delaney, who clutches my brother’s hand, her head tilted to his shoulder. Her eyes are watery too. My brows cinch, remembering her tears and the secret she confided in me not that long ago.
Meredith slices through the cake, peering around at the crowd of Baileys. “Ready?”
Alice stands next to Jude, shaking her head. “Nobody’s gonna tell her?” She rolls her eyes to the ceiling as if we’re all children here, except for her. And maybe we are. Alice has always felt like a mini grown-up.
Meredith pulls the carefully cut slice from its place and gasps at the bright blue cake she’s revealed.
Leah grins, nibbling on her lip, her gaze bouncing from Meredith to me.
And my family celebrates again —sure, maybe not as jubilant as before, but Annie and Owen are having a baby, a son. It’s worth celebrating—twice.