Chapter 26
COOPER
I’ve never sat through a more awkwardly silent ride than the drive home from the game with Amara.
Especially when all I want to do is ogle her in my jersey.
I get it now. I do. Seeing someone you care about so much with your name on their back feels like winning some kind of award.
Thankfully, the drive from the stadium to my place is short, and when we pull in, Amara sighs.
“They shouldn’t be filming much,” I assure her, unbuckling.
Her eyes meet mine, and my heart misses a beat. “Do you think we can be friends?” she asks softly.
I’m confused, but I think about it for a second. Normally, I would say, of course, we can be friends. We can be whatever you want.
But that wouldn’t be honest.
I suck at my bottom lip before meeting her eyes. “Amara, I would love nothing more than to tell you yes. But there’s actually nothing I want less,” I tell her, and her face drops.
“Oh—” despair drips from her voice.
“But that’s because I don’t want to be your friend. And I feel like you know that.”
“You’ve made it clear—”
Shit.
“No,” I correct, grabbing her hand. “I don’t want to be your friend, because I want so desperately to be more. If being friends is all you’ll ever give me, I’ll be happy with it.”
I close my eyes, wondering if I’m ready to even say this.
“If I have to watch you move on after this show with another man and fall in love and give him everything I always wanted with you, then I will. I was prepared for that before this show, and I’ll be able to do it after.
” Even if it’ll hurt so much more. “But if you’re asking me if I honestly think that we could ever be friends, the answer is going to be no every time.
Because I want nothing more than to be far more than that with you. ”
Her breath catches, her eyes wide. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do.”
She looks at her lap, and I grab her chin, forcing her to look at me again. “I may have hurt you before, but I mean it when I say that I’ll do anything I can to make up for the past. I need you to know that, Sweetheart.”
“Don’t call me that,” she whispers, forcing her chin out of my grasp.
I fall silent.
With a sigh, Amara quickly gathers her things and gets out of the car, making a beeline for the door into the building.
I give her a second before following, catching her right as she entered the elevator.
And I immediately shut the elevator down, the lights dimming as it comes to a stop.
Turning, I watch her eyes grow weary as I take a step toward her, capturing her against the wall.
“I know that we’re both trying to figure things out here,” I say, bringing myself eye-level with her. “But I think we can both agree that one of the last things either of us wants to do is air out our dirty laundry, right?”
She nods, her jaw ticking as she looks up at me with a look that I can’t quite describe. I’m not sure if it’s her trying not to punch me, or her hoping I’ll kiss her.
“Then why don’t we just pretend like we’re a couple falling in love for the rest of this show, and figure it out after.
Give them what they want with minimal issues.
Make sure they don’t have anything that they could use to make us look bad, and if you want to run off into the sunset without me after this, then so be it.
But at least we can say that we gave it all we’ve got with no regrets, right? ”
She nods again, no words leaving her lips.
“Okay, good,” I breathe out a sigh of relief, letting her go and flipping the elevator back on.
It doesn’t take long to walk through our front door to the cameras and lights. “There you are,” Eddy grumbles, his hands flying up.
“Go back outside the door and come in again. We need a clip.”
Exchanging a look with Amara, we step out, shutting the door behind us. “That’s weird,” I mumble.
“I’d like out of this fresh hell,” she agrees. I’m about to respond when I feel her cool fingers brush against my palm, sliding between my own.
She holds my hand so tightly that I almost forget to breathe.
Like I forgot that she ever let go all those years ago in the first place.
“Come in!” Eddy calls.
I’m not sure what Amara has had to drink lately, but she’s been on a roll.
“Oh, he was amazing,” she says, her eyes wide. I’ve never seen her so animated and, maybe, excited? At least, not in a long time.
She almost looks as if she’s enjoying this.
“I haven’t seen him play in a long time,” she looks at me with a smile that sends a ringing through my skull.
“It was genuinely the best thing in the whole world. Seeing someone you’re falling for playing football, a game they love?
” She places her hand on her heart, closing her eyes.
Her dimple deepens, and all I want to do is kiss it.
“Cooper, how does it feel to have someone there supporting you?”
I flex my leg, my fingers brushing Amara’s arm as mine drapes over her.
“I couldn’t believe it,” I say honestly.
When I first saw her, I almost passed out.
Forget the game. Forget the nerves. “I didn’t know she was going to be there.
Seeing her there in my jersey was something else, that’s for sure. ”
She looks at me with those wide, brown eyes that seem to see right through me, and I desperately wish everyone were gone. That I could ask her if she’s telling the truth.
“Okay,” Eddy shuts his binder with a slap. “Just go about the rest of your night, and the camera is going to follow you, okay?” he looks at her specifically, his eyebrows raised.
She smiles. “Of course,” she says politely.
Too politely.
“Well,” she says, turning in her seat to face me. “I’m going to make us a drink. What do you want?”
I don’t have to think. “How about a cherry old-fashioned?”
Amara looks to the bar, a smirk crossing her lips. “Coming right up.”
I turn myself so I can watch her as she goes to the kitchen, opening the fridge and grabbing the cherries she bought the other day. She carefully cuts a few of them in half, taking out the pits before bringing the small bowl over to the bar.
Splitting the cherries between two old-fashioned glasses, my girl adds her syrup, some lemon juice from the bar fridge, and muddies them together.
The movement is sexy. The way she knows exactly what she’s doing, as if she’s done it a million times. And she has.
But the idea of her making drinks for me feels more intimate.
Amara grabs a bottle of whiskey from the shelf, pouring it into the glasses before dropping one of the large ice cubes from my molds in the freezer.
Finally, Amara picks up one of the whole cherries, making sure I see her as she bites the fruit off the stem. And with a smirk, the woman places the stem on her tongue and, in a few expert moves, produces a perfectly tied cherry stem.
Only one.
She doesn’t do a second one. No, that would make it a little less special, wouldn’t it?
Instead, with a mischievous look, she drops it in my drink.
“Here you go,” she says with a wink, taking a seat way too close to me.
I don’t take my eyes off of her as I take a sip, letting the alcohol rest on my tongue. “This is good.” My voice is low, almost tortured.
“It’s one of my favorites.”
“Not a fan of the traditional?”
Her lips tip upward. “You know I need something a little extra, Henry.”
“Do I know that?”
I watch as her eyes flutter to my lips as she takes another sip.
One thing I do know about my girl is that she is not good with her alcohol. It only takes a couple of sips for her eyes to turn glassy.
I nearly count down the seconds.
“It was really nice seeing you play today,” she purrs as she strokes my face, her lips so close to mine that I can smell the whiskey on her breath.
I place my hand on her neck with a smile. “I’m serious, I really love seeing my name on your back.”
“I feel like that’s some weird, masculine urge to possess something talking.”
“Maybe it is, but is it so bad to want all of you?”
It’s a game of who can push further, both of our gazes drifting down, our heads getting closer and closer by the second.
“I mean, I’m still wearing it,” she flirts.
I don’t respond to that because I think she’s well aware by now that, after the game is done and over with, I’d rather see the damn thing on the floor.
We flirt for what seems like hours. She finishes her drink slowly, fully self-aware of how she can be, before getting up with a yawn.
“I’m going to bed,” she tells the camera crew.
Honestly, I forgot they were even there.
“You guys get ready for bed, and they’ll just film you getting into it,” Edward says.
Amara’s eyes grow panicked. “We sleep in separate beds,” she squeaks.
Edward places his fingers in his eyes, looking as if there’s nothing more that he wants to do than bang his head into a wall. “Can you guys please just give us a little more tonight, and then you can have a few days without dealing with us? Please?”
I watch the wheels turning in Amara’s head before she agrees, eyeing me.
We head silently to our rooms to grab our clothes and quickly change.
There’s a knock on my door, and a second later her head peeks around. “Are you ready for me?” she whispers.
I signal for her to come in, and the crew follows. How weird is it to have cameras following you as you get ready for bed?
“Do you need water or anything?” I ask her gently, grabbing my own water glass and heading into the bathroom to fill it.
“Nah. All good,” she says as she climbs under the blanket.
And I stop. Just for a second. Because she looks like she belongs there.
Her curly hair is up in a pink bonnet, the oversized t-shirt riding up her leg as she gets situated. I’m desperate to know what’s underneath.
Gulping, I set my drink on the bedside table and crawl in after her.
“Today was nice,” I whisper.
“I can’t wait to see you play again,” she smiles, her eyes twinkling in what light we have.
I hear the door close, and we both sit up, listening carefully for everyone to leave our place. “Why wouldn’t they just tell us they’re leaving?” she wonders aloud.
“I don’t actually have an answer for you.” This whole thing is bizarre.
The second we hear my front door close, Amara is climbing out of bed, her cherry scent stirring as she goes.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“I’m going to my own room, I figured that was the plan.”
A part of me wants to feel sad. Another part says that I expected this. Obviously, she would go back to her own room.
“Oh. Okay.”
“You thought I was going to stay here?”
“I just thought we had such a good day, and you were saying all those things out there—”
Amara instantly straightens, her eyes steely. “Cooper, we were supposed to be acting.”
Without another word, she turns on her heel and walks out the door, leaving me to pick up the pieces of my heart as she goes.