Chapter 11
COOPER
The nerves are really starting to settle.
We’re at an estate across the water from Baltimore. All I did this morning was follow orders like a good boy, get in the van when I was told, and be ready when I needed to be.
I left the wrangling of grown men to the producer assistants.
I look over to Leo, his face a little green. “You doing okay, handsome?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “I’m here because I love you, man. But I am not doing well.”
The man ate thirty crabs last night.
Thirty.
It was a challenge. I’ve never seen a man crack a crab so fast. There was hardly any talking. Hardly any words were exchanged at all between him and Dirwin, who traveled back here to Maryland to be here with me.
Dirwin ate twenty-five.
Leo could have stopped at twenty-six.
The night was one of the best I’ve had in a while. Dirwin being here made everything so much more special, and my friend Damon and his wife traveled in from Seattle. He appeared for a little while, but decided it was better for him to hang back. He said the cameras make him a little nervous.
Which is understandable. Because they are everywhere.
“I can’t believe I’m about to do this,” I tell him.
He agrees with a nod. “In under an hour, you could realize that the next several months of your life are going to be completely miserable or not.”
“You’re not helping,” I groan, throwing my hands up.
His lips pull at the sides. “I’m just messing with ya. Though I do hope that whoever they are gets along with the girls. That would be,” he pauses, his eyes growing wide. “Awkward. Can you imagine?”
I can imagine. I can especially imagine one person in particular who would either not care a single bit or kill her.
But killing her would be for sport. She doesn’t want me. It would purely be to assure my eternal suffering.
As if that hasn’t already been assured years ago.
“Either way. You can bow out if you need to,” Leo shoots a look toward Edward, who’s listening in.
He gives a curt nod, his lips twisted in a frown. Looking down at the tablet in his hands, he waves me over. “We need to do an ITM,” he whispers, pointing over toward the large windows overlooking some of the water where cameramen and sound guys huddle together.
I head over, taking my place and letting them adjust what they need to as Edward joins them.
“How are you feeling today?” he asks.
I shrug. “I’m feeling like I’m about to meet my future wife,” I smile cockily, putting my best charm to the test.
“What are your biggest fears about this?”
Sucking in my lower lip, I look around the room. The guys are all together, arguing over the legitimacy of Leo’s King of Crab Picking title. My chest tightens.
In a moment of pure vulnerability, I decide to be honest.
“I’m afraid that they won’t accept me,” I tell him simply. Because that’s the biggest thing, isn’t it? Wanting to be accepted.
Being a public figure isn’t always sunshine and rainbows.
Athletes are torn apart every single week for most of the year as fans and pundits debate whether we’re worth keeping or not.
If we’re good at our jobs. If we screw up even once, there are thousands of fans who have claimed to love us, bought our jerseys, and sing our praises, who suddenly turn on us, saying they never liked us anyway.
That we’re washed up. That we should just retire.
There are journalists who dig into our personal lives. Who would do anything for a sensational story.
And I’m giving them one. I’m fully aware of that.
Broadcasters have already picked up on the fact that there will be multiple shows filming teams this season, and specifically, one filming me.
I’ve been called an idiot for doing this during the season—a fact that Coach agreed with, leaving a few screenshots for me in the locker room—and I can see why.
But it’s no different than the other TV shows that film the guys and their home lives, right?
I guess they’re not putting their emotions on the line. But jokes on them. I know I’m going to be just fine.
If this woman is from here, there’s a very large chance she knows who I am. What I do for work. Who my friends are. There’s a large chance that she already has opinions about me.
There’s a chance she has an opinion about everyone in my life. The people I’ve surrounded myself with and call family.
She could know half the people I’ve been spotted with. She could have a lot of opinions about that.
And maybe she doesn’t. But if she has a family, maybe they do. Maybe her dad is a Pittsburgh fan.
I shudder at the thought.
“Yeah. I think my only real fear is that she doesn’t accept me.” Me now, or the person I want to be. I want to feel like I can let my guard down around her.
I’ve felt like that before.
And I’ve desperately looked for it in someone else. I never found it.
“Who do you think is going to walk down that aisle to you?” Edward asks, a slight sparkle in his eye that I don’t think I’ve seen before.
I smile. A true one. Genuine. One of those smiles that you can feel in your heart as it hums. “I’m not sure!” I admit. “I just hope they like football.” I wink at the camera.
Football. Burgers on the grill with Old Bay fries.
My hometown. The scar I have from stepping on a knife buried in the sand at home when I was a teenager, which took me out of football for a bit.
The tattoos I decided to get on a whim, only a few weeks ago, because I just wanted a distraction from everything.
They sounded like a great idea in the moment.
I keep smiling until I can’t keep it up.
The guys are lined up in front of me, one by one. The large door is closed, and any minute now, I’ll be walking down the pathway to the wedding arch set up by the water. It was just out of sight while we were getting ready, and curiosity is indeed killing the cat.
Except that I’m allergic to cats, and my body is itchy with stress.
Leo glances back at me. Owen does too.
And it occurs to me that no matter how much I wish my grandpa and my mom were here today, I still have family.
I have family that I don’t think I could ever live without.
Edward signals to a few people, and the guys are let out one by one.
“When you walk through those doors, you are to look straight, got it?” Edward asks.
“So I can’t look around?”
He shakes his head vigorously. “No. We need to keep it as much of a surprise as possible. This means that you pay no one attention, got it?”
I nod.
“When you get to the end of the aisle, you stay looking at the water until we tell you to turn around.”
I salute him. “Heard.”
He doesn’t look so sure, and regards me with a careful glance, as if his entire job is riding on me following this one order. Maybe it is.
I mean, I’ll try to follow it. I get distracted by a damn butterfly.
Leo pats my shoulder one time before he exits into the sun. And suddenly, I’m standing alone.
Edward appears by the door, counting down from five with his fingers.
It’s all happening far too quickly now, and my heart starts beating out of my chest. My brain starts moving at a million miles an hour, and all the positive thoughts I was just thinking melt away into the abyss.
And when the doors open, I feel blinded by the sun.
Maybe that’s the whole point.
I step out, my thoughts whooshing in my ears. All I can hear is a mild murmur around me as I struggle to process what’s happening.
My feet hit the grass. I keep my gaze on the water.
I take a step.
And another one.
And another.
And all of a sudden, I’m nearing the platform in front of me, a beautiful arch of hydrangeas looking grander than I could have ever imagined.
And they remind me of home. Of my grandpa’s garden, full of them.
Full of them because my grandma had planted them decades before.
I haven’t visited home in a long time. Maybe I should go and make sure they’re still there…
Snap out of it.
I defy Edward’s orders. Just a little. I make eye contact with Leo, his eyes round and wild.
Weird, but okay. He looks a little freaked out.
Having my friends there grounds me just enough to finish my walk. I stand on the platform, looking out at the water, counting to five, and then counting again.
The music changes.
Edward appears in front of me once more, keeping my gaze. Do not turn around yet, he mouths as cameramen flank him, capturing my every move as things happen behind me.
I bite the inside of my cheek.
And something changes within me.
I feel it before my brain remembers.
I know this song.
I heard it a million times when I was young.
Specifically, I heard it that time—
My stomach drops into my ass.
No.
No, no, no.
Edward snaps at me in an attempt to get my attention, but it’s too late. I risk a glance at Leo, confusion and panic on his face only growing as he watches whoever is walking toward us.
And I tune into the murmuring happening behind me. To the confused chuckles.
And my whole body stills as a deep voice tells everyone to rise.
It wasn’t even the bride walking down the aisle. What the—
The song pauses as I hear people stand. I can see almost all my groomsmen looking at me wildly, Emmett trying as hard as possible to tame the shit-eating grin on his face.
I feel like I’m the butt of a joke.
I close my eyes, heart pounding. Hands sweating. You can’t do this, my brain screams.
The music starts again at the climax of the song. The very moment I’ve experienced before. As a kid. When everyone would joke that we’d—
Edward gestures for me to turn.
And I do.
Slowly.
Everything comes to a stop.
The music stops. The people fade. My ears ring as I feel pressure in my neck; a creeping sensation that makes my chest ache.
Amara Flores stops too, her face twisted in confusion.
My eyes start to water.
Because I have never seen anyone look so perfect.
Gasping for air, tears spill over, and I feel someone’s hands on me, keeping me upright.
“I’m not dead, right?” I whisper.
“Not dead, but definitely look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Leo says.
None of them know.
Well, they know her. Of course, they know her. The black cat who has tried her hardest to resist their friendship.
The one who doesn’t like going to games.
The one who doesn’t like hanging out with the group.
They all think she’s just shy. That she just has a lot going on and doesn’t want anything to do with us.
But that’s not true. I know that.
It’s because of me.
And now she’s here, standing in front of me in a giant, white ball gown, her beautiful, natural curls cascading down her back, and all I can think is that I must be dead.
I pinch my wrist between my fingers so hard, I’m shocked I didn’t break the skin.
But I’m here, alive and well, watching as Amara Flores looks around, her captivating brown eyes wide as she starts to process what’s happening.
Well, that makes two of us.
She takes a deep breath, her chest heaving. Looking at the ground, she continues her walk down the aisle.
Her makeup is light, but she’s never looked more beautiful in her life. And that’s a feat I wasn’t sure was possible.
Her deep, dark summer tan sparkles under the sun, her hair as shiny as always.
I wonder if it’s still as soft as it was when—
Her dress is simple. The corset top tapers into a V at her hips, the fabric spilling over like a gorgeous, flowing waterfall.
I don’t know how to describe it. But what I do know is that I want her.
I’ve always wanted her.
It takes me a second to realize that she’s stopped in front of me, her eyes refusing to meet mine.
Licking my lips nervously, I glance at Leo, who looks mildly confused. They all do, actually.
Looking out into the crowd, I meet her mom’s gaze, and her eyes light up, her smile larger than when she used to see me at their house on the weekends.
Her mom always loved me. Well, I think. Did she?
Her dad sits next to her mom, his face stony.
And my sister. Well, she’s beaming and grinning like the Cheshire cat.
Amara breathes in a sudden gasp of air, and the man hired to fake marry us takes his place behind us.
“Hi,” I whisper.
I just want her to look at me.
But she doesn’t.
Instead, she shakes her head. “I need a minute,” she says.
And within seconds, she’s turning around and running.