Chapter 32
COOPER
Dad Joke Of The Day:
Why do you never see elephants hiding in the trees?
Because they are really good at it.
Me: Please?
Me: I know you don’t like getting in the middle, and I wouldn't ask if it wasn’t important.
Me: Just please find out where she is?
Thirty minutes later.
Me: Levi…
Levi: Chill buddy, had to do some recon.
Levi: She’s at my place now.
Levi: She and Quinn are playing video games and they kicked me out.
Me: Okay.
Me: She gets tonight, but that’s it.
Eight hours.
That's how long I’ve been waiting to hear from Ally—seven of which were spent in this bed, staring at the ceiling, like somehow it would give me the answer to all my problems.
I spent the first hour after she left pacing on the porch, phone in hand just begging for her to call me.
When Kenna told me she saw her drive away, I thought she was lying at first. Thought she was trying to get under my skin as a way to have the last word.
But when I searched, running through the house for any sign, all I found was a note that broke my heart.
Then pissed me off.
I tried calling her—six times to be exact—but she didn't answer, sending me to voicemail every single time. It took a while for me to cool down, the frustration of her running controlling my emotions, mixed with her ignoring me, each declined call feeling like a punch to my gut.
It was about ten at night when I finally decided to call Levi, begging for him to find out where she was. When he told me that she and Quinn were spending time together talking and playing video games, I knew this was the best case scenario for everyone involved.
Quinn and Ally have been working on their relationship, so the fact that it’s Quinn there for her, it means a lot to me, and I can only imagine what it means for Ally.
But Levi knows about Kenna and how I feel about her, so if he’s there, and he hears, hopefully he can explain that it’s not what she thinks it is. She’s not taking anyone’s happy ending except ours.
But none of this really matters because the second it’s an actual appropriate time to call people in the morning, I’m calling Coach and dropping Lucas off over there, and then I’m going to go catch my girl.
I would’ve been there last night, but when I was up talking to Levi, Lucas woke up and came into my bed to watch movies, so I’ve been trapped here with him snuggled into me.
The second the clock hits six, I text Coach.
Me: Hi, Coach, any chance you could watch Lucas for a few hours this morning?
Coach: When are you dropping him off?
Me: Thirty minutes?
Coach: Text when you get here and I’ll come grab him. We don’t wanna wake the misses—she’s grumpy when she’s up early.
Me: Deal.
Coach: And Johnson
Coach: You break my girl’s heart, and I might just have to break your face.
Me: Wouldn’t dream of it, sir.
Setting my phone down, I don’t think I’ve ever gotten ready as quickly as I did today.
After changing, I get Lucas ready—equally as fast, which is impressive because he made me do all the work, acting like dead weight as I got him dressed and carried him out to the car.
Thankfully, Coach was already outside when I pulled up, and he just carried Lucas in the house to let him sleep more.
After stopping at the store to get the rest of the stuff for breakfast, I make my way over to Levi and Quinn’s house, the nerves starting to set in.
As much as I think I know how this will turn out, how it should turn out, I can’t know for sure, and that’s killing me.
My stomach churns, a heavy rock lodged deep in my gut, but there’s no running from this. I can’t run from her.
I can only chase.
After I get inside the house and get all set up in the kitchen to start making pancakes and bacon, the first thing I do is start a pot of coffee. I’ll be damned if I start making noise in this house at seven a.m. on everyone's day off and not have a peace offering to whoever I wake up.
After coffee, I cook up the bacon before getting started on pancakes, knowing that if anything is going to wake people up, it’d be the smell of bacon…
which is true because I hear the sound of a door closing, and not from the primary bedroom.
My heart starts racing—the thought I’m seconds away from luring this woman into my trap.
My bacon and coffee fueled trap designed to keep Ally forever.
So when she walks into the kitchen, drowning in a big t-shirt and sweatpants, eyes still puffy from last night’s tears, I’m not the least bit surprised that I’m looking at the most beautiful woman in the world.
“Hi,” I tell her with a big smile as she stands in the doorway with her jaw dropped.
“Uh, hi. What are you doing here?” Ally says, her tone clipped as she watches me flip pancakes, looking around the kitchen like she’s searching for something. “And where’s Lucas?”
Stepping away, I grab a cup and fill it with coffee, passing her the creamer before turning back to pull the last of the pancakes off the griddle.
“I’m making you guys breakfast. What does it look like I’m doing?
And Lucas is with your uncle right now,” I tell her as I cover the rest of the food before leaning back against the counter, my arms crossed as I watch her, unable to keep the little smirk off my lips as she stares at me like I’m crazy.
Which I might be. I mean, I’m standing in the room with a girl who basically left me a note breaking my heart, all while pretending not a single thing has changed.
So yeah, I see the argument that I’m crazy, but that doesn’t stop me from needing her to realize that at the end of the day, she’s still going to be mine.
“Cooper, why are you here?” she asks, annoyance coating her tone as she adds cream to her coffee, her eyes watching me intensely like she’s trying to be mad.
It’s cute.
I push off the counter and walk toward her, watching her eyes go wide as she backs up, step by step, until the counter stops her escape from me. I lean in, bracing my hands on either side of her, caging her in so close I can feel her breath, trapping her here with me.
“Why am I here, Ally Cat? Why wouldn’t I be?
” I murmur, letting the questions hang between us.
Her eyes glisten with tears, and all I want is to pull her in and let her fall apart against me.
But not yet—not until she lets me into that gorgeous, stubborn head of hers and tells me what the fuck is going on.
“I left,” is all she says, staring back at me like that answer says it all.
“I know.”
“So why are you here?”
“Why did you leave, Ally? Why did you run, again,” I ask her, not able to hide the disappointment in my voice.
I’ll chase her until my legs fall off, but it still stings that she feels the need to run at all.
That she couldn’t just talk to me first. So, unfortunately for her, I’m not giving her the choice.
I’ll make her face it. Face me. Because she’s not getting away.
Not until I know for certain she doesn’t want to be caught.
“I’m not doing this, Cooper,” she says, trying to push past me, but I don’t move. I stay anchored right here, refusing to break.
“Yes, baby, we are,” I say, right as a lone tear falls down her cheek.
Without even realizing it, I’m wiping the tear with my thumb, the contact only making more tears fall.
Unable to hold back any longer, I pull her in against me, wrapping one arm around her body, the other cradling her head against my chest while she sobs.
“You’re okay. I’ve got you. I just need you to tell me what’s going on. ”
“I said I wouldn’t do this again,” she sobs, each word harder to understand than the last. “I heard Kenna. I ruined you guys. I broke her heart. I can’t forgive myself for doing this again. For breaking up a family.”
My heart cracks, not because she’s right, and not because we’re broken. I hate that this woman, the one I’ve come to care for so deeply, feels like she ruined something. And I know that is one of her fears.
“Baby, I’m going to need you to look at me when I say this,” I tell her.
Leaning back, I cradle her face, holding her to where she has to face me, her eyes blurry with tears as she struggles to look at me.
“Kenna is Lucas’s aunt. She is nothing more.
What you heard? That was news to me, too, but none of it matters because it doesn’t change a damn thing.
I’m not trying to be callous when I say this, but Kenna and I never have, and never will, be anything more. There is nothing for you to ruin.”
“But I heard her. She waited for you,” Ally says, her bottom lip quivering as she talks, and it kills me.
“You heard her, but did you hear me? Did you hear me explain that I was sorry she waited, but it wasn’t for me.
That was all her. She had it in her head that we were something, and I had to break it to her that we weren’t.
Not only that, but I also had to have a conversation with her about how inappropriate it was that she still had a key, and that she thought it was acceptable to just come over and walk into my house unannounced. That pissed me off, too.”
“I don’t understand,” Ally says, the tears finally slowing as she looks up at me.
Leaning in, I kiss her, knowing words can’t convey the way I’m feeling quite as well as this kiss can.
My lips claim hers. She freezes at first, her fight or flight instinct kicking in, but I hold her against me until she leans into me, our lips colliding together in what feels like a life-altering moment.
Pulling back, I look down at her, pressing my forehead against hers.
“You are mine; there’s nothing else to it,” I assure her, waiting for her to argue, waiting for the claws to come out and for her to run.
Instead, she smiles wide and wraps her arms around my neck.
“Can you explain that just one more time? I still don’t quite understand,” Ally says, a little grin on her lips now as I chuckle before leaning back in.
“I’ll give you a quick explanation now, a more thorough one when I have you back in my bed,” I tell her, swatting her butt gently as I kiss her.
“I think I like the sound of that.”
“Good, because I don’t have any plans of ever stopping.”