Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
“We have a lot to talk about, Nico Fallon,” Stassi said as she stepped through the front door of Nico’s Malibu beach house. It was a quarter after eight and she showed up in sweats with a hoodie. Even when she was dressed down, she was effortlessly classy.
Nico closed the door behind her. “Come on in.”
She didn’t need the invitation, though. “You know the house next door is for sale?”
“Yeah, I saw the sign the other day when I was pulling into the garage. Is that why you’re here? You’re going to make an offer?”
He was only half-joking.
“Coop is considering it.” She dragged her hand over the marble island.
“He says we’re here three to four months out of the year and it’d be nice to own something a little more spacious than the condo downtown.
” She grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, twisted the cap off, and tossed it into the trash bin.
“The condo is bigger than the house next door.”
Nico stared at her, unsure of the point she was trying to make. Or maybe he was just dumber than he thought. “I’m confused as to why you need to have a talk with me about a real estate deal.”
She nodded but said nothing. Instead, she opted to take a long gulp of water.
This wasn’t any normal Wednesday. This was the night before the biggest Thursday of the year: the opening game of the 2026 season, and it was a big one. The Hollywood Knights versus the Alabama Oilers. He needed rest, not an unannounced visit from his boyfriend’s—err, situationship’s—fiancée.
She set the bottle down on the counter and leaned against the marble. “What is it about Cooper that draws you to him? Beyond holding the same secret, I mean.”
Nico didn’t have an immediate answer for that. “What does this have to do with the house next door?”
“Because Coop makes him want to do irrational things like buy that house so he can come over whenever he wants. In his head, it would make the cage a little bit bigger and a hell of a lot easier to breathe. Do you know Coop is claustrophobic?”
“I think he’s mentioned it once or twice.”
Stassi fanned herself with one hand and looked to the sliding glass doors behind her. “Mind if we take this conversation outside?”
The question felt less like an inquiry and more like a demand. “I’ll grab a beer and meet you outside.”
“I’ll take one too.”
Nico grabbed two bottles from the fridge and followed Stassi out the doors leading to the pool deck. He popped the caps off with the ledge of a table and passed one to her. “Cheers.”
She clinked her bottle against his. “What is it about Cooper that you love?”
Nico passed her a sideways glance. “Who says I love him?”
“Our eyes have a bad habit of screaming out loud the things we’re too afraid to utter from our lips.” She stared straight into his eyes. “You look at him differently since he won the Bowl.”
Watching Cooper win the championship game changed Nico, though he didn’t realize this until months later.
Small things, such as sticking to the physical training regimen and not reaching for his phone whenever Cooper would text him if he was in the middle of something football-related.
He was happy for Cooper, but also envious.
“Sometimes,” she continued, “we are slow to take responsibility for the things we think about in our minds. We try to delay the inevitable, thinking tomorrow will be a new day and things will turn around. Sometimes, though, things never turn around.”
Stassi retreated to the railing overlooking the ocean. The waves were anything but calm, crashing upon the shore and tearing sand back into the dark abyss. Nico met her there, hanging the bottle of beer over the ledge.
“What do you know about the cage?” she asked, staring out at the sea.
Nico responded with a shrug. “He talks about it sometimes.”
“You should know he’ll never live outside of it.
No matter what he’s told you.” She took a sip of beer.
“He can promise the world, but those promises will end up broken. It’s no fault of his own.
But he promised Luke the world just like I know he’s promised you that one day, far in the future, he’ll break out of that cage. ”
“Why are you telling me this?”
Stassi turned to him with a sigh. “Because Cooper has a way of hurting people. He’s not a bad guy.
He’s the best guy I know. But I worry you’re going to spend years too long hiding and never get to see the sun.
Not with him.” She pointed to the circular table behind them with a chessboard laid out with the pieces in the starting positions. “You play chess?”
Nico shrugged. “I’ve been trying to learn it for the last few months.”
“I’ll let you go first.” Stassi took a seat and pointed to the empty chair across from her. “Have a seat.”
Nico did as he was told. He surveyed his options and moved a black pawn forward. “Why do you stay with Coop?”
“Because I love him,” Stassi said flatly, moving a pawn forward. Noticeably, it was the pawn adjacent to the one Nico had moved.
Nico moved a pawn. “But he’s gay. Like full-ass gay-gay.”
“There’s more than one way to love someone,” Stassi said, moving another pawn as if she was copying every move Nico made.
Nico moved the knight forward and to the side. “Enlighten me, please.”
Stassi copied his move once more, putting her knight in danger of being taken by one of Nico’s pawns. “Cooper Callahan is my best friend.”
“People aren’t engaged to their best friends.”
Stassi leaned back in her chair and tapped her fingers on the table. “What do you know about Cooper and my relationship?”
He considered that he shouldn’t say anything, not knowing what he was and wasn’t supposed to be privy to. He knocked out Stassi’s knight with a pawn and tossed the fallen soldier onto the side of the table. “I know you don’t fuck.”
“Why do you think that is?”
Nico gestured with one hand. The answer should have been obvious. “Because he’s gay.”
“That’s part of it.” Stassi pushed the rook forward, taking out Nico’s knight.
“Most people would deny it, but this world is full of people who hunger for the next fuck. They eat healthy and work out at the gym entirely too much because they want to fuck. They make as much money as possible so people who are out of their league will fuck them. They pay for hookers and escorts when their charisma and appearance aren’t up to the standards engrained into us by the media and entertainment complex.
Lust is a currency I’m not shackled by. What the rest of the world feels when they fuck, I feel when I’m flirting.
As soon as the clothes come off, I’m ready to run. ”
Nico shook his head. Stassi was one of the smartest people he’d ever met, and yet the words coming out of her mouth were so foreign to him. He shifted a pawn forward to sit diagonally from Stassi’s rook. “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I could go the rest of my life without sex and be content. How many men are out there that could say the same?” She pulled her rook back, out of harm’s way. “With Cooper, I don’t have to worry about doing that thing I really don’t want to do most of the time. He’s safe.”
Nico couldn’t fathom the idea of a life without sex. “You’re telling me you don’t like to fuck?”
“Sometimes I get the urge, but it’s rare and our arrangement works perfectly.”
“So I’m supposed to believe you’re not coming here to scare me away from Coop because you’re jealous?”
“We’re not in competition with each other, Nico. Cooper and my brother were deeply in love and that perfect little life the three of us had is gone. You’re in competition with a past he’s never going to let go of.”
“You think I want that same life?”
“Don’t you?”
“I don’t know.” Nico shook his head, knowing the admission should have been a lie, but there was a deep-seated truth lying in the pinched recesses of his gut.
He didn’t know who he was or what he wanted.
He knew who he wanted, but supposed that wasn’t quite the same thing.
“Right now, any kind of future isn’t something I consider day-to-day. I mean, what’s the point?”
“The point is that you have to want a life outside of this.”
“I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.”
“And what if you never reach that bridge?” Stassi moved a piece on the board. “Or worse, what if Cooper is standing on the other side of that bridge and he burns it to the ground when you’re walking across it?”
“I suppose I don’t know.”
“Checkmate.”
Nico glanced at the board and searched for options, but Stassi was right.
There was no safe place for his king to go.
Stassi knocked Nico’s king over with her queen, which wasn’t exactly how the game went.
The king was never supposed to be moved from the board, but he assumed she did so for dramatic effect.
She finished her beer as she stood up. “I have a red-eye to catch out of LAX.”
“Why did you really come here, Stassi?”
She stood for a moment, lost in contemplation.
“Cooper is falling in love with you and I wanted to make sure you understood the gravity of that.” She left Nico on the pool deck and made her way inside.
She turned back around one last time. “You only have one chance with him. If you break something, it’ll stay broken.
So be careful with it. Be careful with him. ”
Careful? Cooper was the one always breaking things, not the other way around.
Nico didn’t know if Cooper had filled Stassi’s ear with false narratives or if Cooper really was that fragile.
Unfortunately, Nico had a game the next day and didn’t have the mental capacity to delve too deep into the matter.
He finished his drink alone by the pool.