Chapter Fifty-Nine
Declan
Cooper’s up to something, and I sure as hell don’t like it.
For years, I’ve perfected the art of keeping people at arm’s length, shoving them back before they get close enough to matter. Employees, regulars, strangers; it’s the same rule: keep it light, keep it surface, don’t get close. It’s a hell of a lot easier this way. Cleaner.
Except when it comes to him.
Cooper has never taken a hint in his life. He’s been here. Every. Single. Day. Good for business? Sure. But I can’t tell if he’s trying to buy forgiveness or if he’s genuinely developed an addiction to our salads and pestering my staff. Either way, he’s impossible to ignore.
Worse, he’s not even trying to be subtle.
There’s something different about him now. The storm-cloud energy from The Verge still lingers, but it’s lighter around the edges. More focused. He looks like someone who decided on something and refused to let up until he gets it.
And every morning, he’s the first one through the doors.
Sweat-damp hair, workout clothes, cheeks flushed from the cold.
Jesus, I didn’t even know he ran. He collapses onto a barstool, orders a smoothie—since apparently, we make those now—and talks with whoever’s on that day like he’s known them his whole life.
And in not even two weeks, he’s wormed his way in like he never left. The team adores him. The regulars fall over themselves to talk to him.
And me? I watch him. All the time.
And I fucking hate that I do.
Because every time someone asks about new music, his face shutters. That bright Cooper grin turns brittle, and he pivots away with a joke that most people wouldn’t notice.
But I do.
I’ve seen him hunched in the back booth, scrawling lyrics, only to rip the page out seconds later. I’ve seen his grip tightening around his pen like he wants to snap it into two, trapped by the frustration in his head.
He can’t write.
And something unwelcome cracks through my anger.
The Verge should have been a closed chapter. I was done. Anything he said came years too late. But I keep replaying it. His voice trembling. His hands in his hair. Words whispered like they physically cost him to say out loud.
Now, every time I see him in that booth—hair falling into his eyes, shoulders tight around his neck, tearing another page to shreds—I watch longer than I should.
Then snap my attention away too fast, pretending I didn’t.
Because that light inside him I loved so much?
That spark? It’s dimmed. Gone in ways that make no sense for someone who’s supposed to be on top of the world.
But it’s not my business. Not my problem. And I’ll keep telling myself that until the words turn sour.
Scowling, I tighten the screw beneath the shelf I’m installing. My thighs burn from crouching too long, my knee twinging, but the ache grounds me. It’s easier to focus on that than the thoughts that won’t leave me alone.
“Hey, Reign,” Vince calls out from the register.
I close my eyes. Seriously? Again?
His laugh drifts across the bar, familiar as the beat of my own heart. It curls through the air like smoke, slipping under my ribs and squeezing until there’s no room to breathe.
Pathetic.
Even Vince, who doesn’t know the real story, has picked up on the way I try to duck out any time Cooper walks in. Like I’m some lovesick fool who never grew out of it.
Am I really that obvious?
“Yes.”
The voice is closer than it should be.
I jerk upright too fast and smack my head against the underside of the shelf. White-hot pain flashes across my skull.
“Fuck—”
Cooper leans against the bar, arms crossed, watching me with that smug, infuriating shine in his eyes. A curl falls onto his forehead, begging to be brushed back. I stand quickly. Too quickly.
“You said that out loud,” he teases.
I grit my teeth. “I’ll be more careful next time.”
His smile falters, and I pretend that doesn’t bother me.
Tossing the screwdriver into the toolbox behind me, I wipe my hands on my jeans as Vince slides a drink across the counter.
“You okay, Dec?”
Fan-fucking-tastic. Now I have an audience.
“Yeah,” I mutter, grabbing my toolbox. “I’m heading out.”
Vince’s gaze flicks between Cooper and me, the tension palpable. “Cool, got you covered, boss.”
Cooper’s gaze tracks me as I cross the room, like he’s willing me to stop and turn around. I don’t. I can’t. The walls I built are cracking, but at least they’re still standing. And if I let him through even an inch, I know exactly how this ends.
Me, left behind.
Him, walking away.
Again.
I need space.
I need somewhere he’ll never follow.
Somewhere he’d never willingly go, where his ghost won’t be. But mine always is.