Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
SUTTON
The boys lost by one. Four to three.
All three periods were intense. From the first puck drop, it was fast and physical. Jaxon might be goofy off the ice, but on the ice, he is a bruiser. Ohio State players were getting chippy with Cooper, and he was there pushing them around, protecting his teammate and best friend.
Still, Cooper had two goals and one assist.
Zach left immediately when the game ended, needing to catch back up with his teammates. We’d bumped into each other at concessions, and Elliot invited him to come sit with us—which involved flirting with the person next to us and convincing them to sit much higher up.
After the game, Elliot and I hung around, waiting for the guys. They shuffled their way in pairs out into the lobby. Chase and Dawson. Jaxon and Beck.
No Cooper in sight.
No one knew if he was coming.
I tried calling him, but it went directly to voicemail.
An hour later, I’m in bed reading when my phone buzzes, a text from him coming through.
Cooper
Is my therapist on call?
I’m not your therapist.
Cooper
Still on call? I need to talk to someone.
Please.
Give me five and I’ll call you.
Cooper
I’m at your door.
I hastily tug on a pair of sleep shorts. Throw my curls haphazardly into a claw clip and rush to the door. I open it, and he’s breathing heavily. A large hand pressed to the center of his chest.
“Did you run here?” Cooper nods, barely. I sigh. “Are you stupid? You played thirty minutes tonight and took a nasty hit.”
“I’m fine.” I shut the door, then follow him into my living room. “You live seven minutes away.”
There’s a layer of glistening moisture on his skin. His chocolate brown hair is disheveled, the ends of it sticking out in different directions, as if he was tugging on it after he took his helmet off.
Cooper is in a matching sweatsuit with our school’s logo, a growling grizzly bear, in the center of his chest. This is what he wears after the game—a bit of me wishes he came in his suit. He leans down, unbalanced, to untie his sneakers.
“Your socks are inside out.”
He appears dazed. Confused. Not entirely here. Broad shoulders are hunched over, making him smaller than the larger-than-life boy he is.
I take a step closer to him, and that’s when I see it. The small tremors in his hand. Tight, quick breaths—I don’t think his chest is heaving from running, he’s too in shape for that—and small hiccups. Dark lashes fall across the tops of his cheeks when he shuts his eyes.
Instinctively—I think, but I’m not too sure anymore—there are a lot of things with Cooper now that I feel called to do, maybe want to do, that I’d run away from before.
I shove them aside and say something bratty to compensate as my hand reaches for his.
As soon as my fingers graze the bare skin of his wrist, his head jerks away.
Then it’s back on me, eyes open, and he reaches for my hand.
“Come. Sit.” I gesture to the couch.
Cooper doesn’t budge. “No.” The word cracks. He coughs, clearing his throat. “Can we lie in your bed?”
“Oh. Um.” Say no, Sutton. Say no. That rings between my ears. I have a million reasons why that’s not a good idea, and number one is that we kissed. Even if it was for practice, I think about it. Sometimes I want to do it again.
Sometimes? Okay, a lot of times.
And earlier, when he was staring at my mouth, it took all of my willpower not to ask him to kiss me again. The first time was for practice. Good, but maybe a fluke?
Cooper might be the bad kisser, not me.
Plus, it’s intimate. My room, my space.
“Yeah, sure,” I say despite myself and the common sense I pride myself on having.
He follows me down the hall to my bedroom. Elliot and I’s bedrooms are next to each other. Our headboards are against the shared wall, making it quite interesting when she has a “friend” over. She has an en suite, while my bathroom is across the hall from my room.
Like the rest of our apartment, it is a hodge-podge of thrifted and Facebook Marketplace decor. Nothing but everything goes together. Picture frames—round, square, gold, chipped neon paint, seashells, and zoo animals—litter the large wall in the hallway containing photos of our friends.
I open my door, once again pulling him with me. Inside, we disconnect. The tight grip on my hand is gone.
Cooper lies on my bed. Back against the queen-sized mattress, staring up at the ceiling fan. I turn on the light.
“Turn it off,” he croaks. “P-pl-please.”
The room is dunked into darkness, only the thinnest beams of light coming in from the cracks in my blinds. They’re like spotlights on him. On the boy who broke me, but I think broke himself too.
The carpet is soft against the soles of my feet. Sitting down next to him, the bed dips and shifts as I scoot back and lie down too.
“I like the dark. I think it understands me the best,” he admits to me, or maybe he’s admitting it to the darkness. Bonding them even deeper together. “None of me feels real in the dark. I don’t have to prove anything in the dark.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can just be me in the dark.”
“You are real, Cooper.” I let my fingers dance across my bedding, finding his, softly brushing against them, a silent request to touch him, to hold him.
He curls his pinky around mine. “You are real to me; and there’s nothing you need to prove to me…
or anyone else. The only person you owe anything to is yourself.
What you think about yourself, how you view yourself isn’t determined by what others expect.
It never has been, and it never will be. ”
We lie there for a bit longer. His breathing slows, allowing us to breathe together. My head rolls to the side, cheek pressing into the bed.
“I tried calling you after the game.”
“I know, but you were with Zach.”
I swallow. Cooper can’t see me or my frown. “It wasn’t on purpose. Elliot invited him to sit with us.”
“You don’t have to make up an excuse.”
“It’s the truth.” I push at his hair with my free hand, clearing his forehead. “I called to check on you.”
He sighs and tells me everything. About the players before the game, and how he feels the pressure to win, especially this game.
Mentions his parents not being there in which I remind him his mom is sick, and otherwise they would be.
Besides that, I listen and only speak when he asks a question.
Cooper rattles off every ‘mistake’ he made in the game, and his last few words stun me: “And…and you were there with him.”
Cooper sits up, cursing at himself.
“I already told you, it wasn’t on purpose.”
“But—”
“I’m sorry.” I don’t let him finish.
He runs his hands through his hair, interlacing them behind his neck. “Things with Zach are going well? Yeah, you’re happy?”
We’ve been through this before. “Cooper…”
“Can I take a shower or bath?” he asks, taking this conversation in a one-eighty, letting a third mention of Zach tonight fall away.
“Um. Yeah, sure.” I had assumed from his dishelved appearance when he showed up that he’d rushed to get dressed and get here…
but I’m confused. Getting whiplash from him helping me date Zach, then upset about seeing us together.
Drunkenly telling me he wants to be happy together and giving me his shirt to wear.
I can barely keep up with my changing emotions, I can’t keep up with him, but for whatever reason, right now none of it matters.
I leave my bedroom to grab him a clean towel from the linen closet. “Here.”
In the bathroom, he’s already stripped off his shirt and sweatpants. He’s in his boxer briefs. Black. Tight. Revealing.
Cooper’s XXL shirt suddenly feels like the size of an American Girl Doll shirt. Constricting around my neck, I tug at it and suck in an inhale. Then again. Digging my teeth into my bottom lip.
Stop looking, Sutton.
We don’t like him.
But wow. Wowowowow.
Cooper turns, dropping his clothes on top of the sink.
It takes everything in me not to groan.
“Twist the knob to the left twice for hot water,” I say, jamming my eyes closed.
I start to exit, my back to Cooper, but I stop. Turn around, and close the door. The darkness might be how he hides, but I can hide with him. Stay with him. Pretend that the world doesn’t exist, and inside these four walls there’s only us.
He sits on the toilet, folding in on himself. Elbows digging into his knees.
I start the water, letting the rush from the spout tune out his heavy breathing. From a container next to the bath, I spoon in a few tablespoons of lavender epsom salt to help him relax. I dip a finger in the tub once full.
“It’s ready.”
He stands, silent. Climbs in and sits down. He’s still in his boxers. I mentioned that he forgot to take them off, but he shook his head left and right. Is it bad I would have been okay if he did take them off?
The tub is too small for his frame. Knees bent, the tops stick out of the water. His head falls back against the tile where he’s leaning back.
Whatever halted me from leaving, comes over me again. I don’t question it. I don’t know what it is, but I let it happen. “Let me.” I take the washcloth from his hand. Squeeze soap onto it.
Cooper sits up. On my knees, leaning over the tub, I wash his back and chest, careful of the bruise from his game. His breathing shudders under my touch. When my fingers dip into the curve of his muscles, they tighten.
I wash his hair. Using my fingers as a comb to work the shampoo and conditioner into the strands. He’s going to smell like me, but I don’t think that’s a problem. I don’t mind having him in that way.
He’s quiet the entire time. Eyes closing occasionally, grip tight on the tub edge.
Finishing up, I start to stand, but Cooper tugs on my arm, and I fall into the tub. Water splashes over the edge, soaking me and the bathmat.
His hand still wrapped around my wrist, he tugs again. I fall forward onto him and into a kiss.
Cooper drops his hold on my wrist. Relocating his hands to the back of my head. Gripping it possessively. Fingers weaving into my curls, my clip broken and lost in the tub somewhere.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.” He pulls back.
“It’s okay,” I say against his lips before pressing my mouth back to his.
“I’m not kissing you because—” Cooper pulls away, but I lean into him, not wanting to lose this moment or connection. A desperate version of me claws her way to the surface. I need him. I want him.
“I know. I’m not either.”
We kiss again, I don’t know who initiates it. Mouths gliding over each other, his tongue slipping past my parted lips. The kiss is messy, unyielding, a desperation that makes me think I’m his breath of air.
The water around us goes cold, but I barely register it. All I can sense is him.
I brace my hands on his shoulders. The sound that vibrates through him when my hands move over the tense muscle pulses through me, an invitation to keep touching him. I move a hand up into the hair at his nape and tug. Our kiss deepening.
The doorknob turns, and I’m grateful I locked it. Elliot’s voice floats through the crack.
“Sutton, you in there? I’m home.”
I pull back from Cooper. “Yeah, taking a bath.”
“Want a glass of wine? Or your book? I saw it on your bed.”
“Oh, um. No, that’s okay!”
“Okay.” There’s a pause. “Can you ask Cooper not to leave his shoes in the middle of the living room?”
Our eyes flare wide.
“Oops,” Cooper jokes and I feel like I’ve won a carnival prize with the brightness that’s returned to his features.
We can hear her walk away.
My focus is back on him. “Wanna get out? You are getting a little pruney.”
Cooper shakes his head no. Eyes flooded with emotions, I don’t think either of us cares to admit. “I’ll have to go if we get out.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“No, but I should.”
“Cooper—”
“Dave, you want to date someone else.”
“I—” I don’t know if that’s true anymore. I don’t think I know what I want anymore.
“Take the towel. I’ll get another one.”
“No, wait—you’re soaked. You’ll get water everywhere.” I hand him the towel. “Take this, mine is on the hook.”
I pull my towel from the door, but am spun around, and drop it.
Cooper holds my waist in one hand, pinning my hands above my head with the other, and pushes me up against the bathroom door.
He kisses me hard. Commanding, overtaking, and it feels like a claim.
I’ve never felt so alive within a kiss itself.
“What was that?” I push my head against the door, touch my fingers to my lips.
“Don’t bring him to my games. Don’t bring anyone else.” Cooper licks his lips. “I’d ask you to lose him, but we both know I’m competitive.”
“Are you telling me you’re—”
“An option? Yeah, I am, Sutton. I’m making myself an option.”
Cooper picks up the towel. Dries off his torso, then runs it up and down his muscular legs. I watch the entire thing. He gives me a casual, quick smirk when he stands up. Ruffles his hair with the towel.
Water droplets hit my forehead.
“Here. Let me,” he says when I go to dry it off.
Cooper takes the corner of the aqua terry cloth towel in my hand and dries my forehead.
My eyelids flutter, the tips brushing against his skin.
I want to kiss him again.
I think I want to do a lot more than kiss him.
Cooper must sense it. He kisses me again, squeezing my chin, dragging my mouth up to him so that I’m on my tiptoes.
Then he stops. Drops my chin. I hit the ground and reality.
“And that?” I pant.
“I’m greedy.”