Chapter Sixty-Four
Cooper
Why is it easier to talk to an eight-year-old than literally anyone else?
Maybe I took the coward’s way out, using my best friend’s little sister as a buffer, saying things I should have said directly to Declan.
But how was I supposed to admit my failures to the one person who always believed I’d make it?
That I sometimes wake up in a cold sweat, dreaming about the endless demands from Liam, irate messages from the label, headlines saying it’s over.
How do I tell the man whose dream was stolen from him that mine is slowly breaking me?
When it’s the reason we’re where we are now?
As soon as Grace leaves, I dive right back in with a fresh page, pen moving fast, lips mouthing words as they land. My foot taps an uneven rhythm under the table, completely losing myself in it.
Write what you know.
I told Declan that a lifetime ago. Told him I’d use us, our friendship, late-night calls and endless texts to sell records. And I did. Thousands of them. Until the words dried up. Until they fell silent and I stopped writing.
Well…not all of them.
Four years ago, one night in Toronto, an album clawed its way out of me like it had teeth. My pen falters, my mind racing to catch up as the realization crashes into me with brutal clarity. I didn’t know it back then. But I do now.
Declan.
That was what was different then. That’s what’s different now.
Declan.
The one person I could write a million songs about, each one different, each one gritty and gut-wrenching and passionate. My goddamn fucking muse. The missing piece. The thing I lost when I lost him.
Warmth unfurls in my chest, and I look up, drawn to him like I always have been.
Across the bar, Declan laughs at something Vince says, shoulders loose, his smile real, unguarded. The floor might as well tilt out from under me, because I’ve missed that sound, a note I haven’t heard in years and still know by heart.
Memories slam into me as I shut my eyes. Backstage adrenaline, a dressing room too small for how big my feelings were, set list paper crumpled on the desk, lyrics scrawled across the back, the shock of seeing Declan’s face across the suite like a dream I wasn’t allowed to have.
I’d promised him we’d talk. I’d told him I’d give him my room number because nothing mattered more than catching up. But the moment I walked back into my dressing room once we’d wrapped up, the noise in my head just cleared. For the first time in years.
Lines hit me hard, melodies floated out of me faster than I could write. That spark I hadn’t felt since before the label pushed a ghostwriter on me was back. Hungry and desperate and starving for more.
I didn’t go back to the hotel. I didn’t sleep, didn’t shower, didn’t even look at my damn phone, writing straight through the night. The whole time, just losing myself in the music again, thinking it was some miracle. Never once realizing it was because of him.
He was the reason the words came back that night. He was the reason they disappeared shortly after too, never to return until now. I didn’t ignore him. I didn’t forget him. I was writing him. Every damn line was all for him.
My pulse races, words pouring out of me. Ideas, lines, melodies, each one too fast, too loud, kicking up a notch, thoughts and ideas crashing into my head one after the other. Hours blur, the bar empties, and the lights dim.
“It’s closing time,” Declan says softly, tapping the edge of the table.
I jerk upright, blinking hard. My neck screams in protest, aching from being bent over for so long. A vodka-soda sits beside me, the ice long melted, condensation pooled around the glass.
“Shit. How long was I…?”
He shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter.” His gaze drops to the filled pages. “Did you actually finish something?”
I want to show him. God, I want to show him. But it’s not ready, so I settle for, “Yeah. I think so.”
His eyes linger on the paper, thoughtful, maybe remembering the last time he caught me hiding my secrets in the margins.
“Grace got through to you, huh?”
A tired smile tugs at my mouth. “She’s kinda brilliant.”
Just like her brother. Same spark, same ability to cut straight through the static in my head. Makes me wish I’d met her sooner…wish I’d stayed close enough to watch her grow into this bold, unstoppable mini version of Dec.
“Yeah, she is.” His smirk flashes quickly, then fades. He hesitantly slides into the booth across from me, fidgeting with one of my discarded pages. “I didn’t realize you were struggling like this.”
Huffing a breath, I lean back in my seat. “I didn’t either. Not until…”
“Until?” He prompts when the silence stretches too long.
I stare down at my hands, throat thick with words I don’t want to say. But I owe him honesty—at least some of it.
“I walked out of a photoshoot,” I admit. “Right before I came home, actually. Everything just…snapped. Haven’t spoken to my manager in over two weeks, although Lockie tells me he’s blowing up my phone.”
Declan’s eyebrows pull together. “Why does Lockie have your phone?”
A flush creeps up my neck, and I pick at a cuticle. “Might’ve had a…minor panic attack after I walked out.”
“Coop—” he starts, voice cracking on the nickname before he swallows it down. “I wish…”
He stops himself. The conversation’s getting too real. I think we’ve both hit our vulnerability limit for the day. Still, saying it out loud doesn’t feel weak the way I thought it would. Not with him.
I break the tension first, stretching dramatically. “So, the bar’s doing well. Menu makeover was smart.”
Declan recognizes the escape hatch I’m building, but he lets me take it. “Yeah, people like it, and our chef’s a genius.”
Shaking my head, I grin, looking around the empty bar. “Still can’t believe all this is yours.”
“What can I say? Music’s your baby, this bar’s mine.” He slides out, grabbing my untouched glass. “I’ve got to finish closing up.”
I’m already on my feet. “I’ll help.”
“Really?” he asks skeptically. “You’re not too big and famous to wipe tables?”
“Fuck you.” I toss a napkin at him, aiming for his head. Catching it effortlessly, he rolls his eyes before throwing it straight back. “Hand me the spray stuff.”
He humors me and, suddenly, we’re falling into the easiest rhythm we’ve had in years.
Declan restocks behind the bar while I work the floor, giving me a list of the nightly routine for locking up.
I keep the conversation light at first, safe stuff I know he won’t flinch at.
He tells me stories about Grace, how she’s convinced she’ll be the next Natalie Spooner, how she trash-talks kids twice her size.
With every story, I swear I fall a little more in love with the kid.
“You’re lucky to have a sibling,” I say, wiping down the last table. “I wish I had one.”
Declan snorts. “Dude, she’s a menace. Do you know how many people mistake her for my kid whenever we’re out together?”
I run my gaze, slow and deliberate, down his body.
“It’s the flannel,” I tease, biting my lower lip. “Totally gives sexy daddy vibes.”
He chokes on nothing. “I— What?”
“Or maybe…” I tilt my head and pretend to think about it. “Sexy lumberjack vibes? Can’t decide.”
His head snaps up.
The shift is instant, like the air has been sucked out of the room, the easy-going atmosphere twisting into something else, something thick and electric and teasing. Declan goes still, frozen mid-reach across the bar top, those brown eyes darkening, slow, molten, hungry.
My mouth goes dry, and I know I should stop talking. But I don’t.
It might be because he’s finally letting me close again, or maybe it’s the way he’s looking at me right now, but the space between us tightens, stretched thin across the bar. Testing the waters feels reckless, dangerous even, but I’m aching to see if that pull is still there.
So I push. Just a little. Just enough to see if the world will tilt the way it used to.
“Either way,” I murmur, tongue peeking out, sweeping slowly across my lips. “I’d still let you bend me over and have your way with me.”
His lips part as his gaze drops to my mouth. Heat pulses between us, alive, electric after all these years, terrifying in a way that thrills me. I take one step forward, followed by another, his fingers flexing around the crate he’s holding. But Declan moves first, clearing his throat, voice rough.
“I need to take this to the storeroom,” he blurts, already rounding the bar. “Can you put the cups in the kitchen?”
“Sure,” I say, barely keeping it together.
I grab the tray of dirty mugs, hands shaking.
The hallway feels too narrow, too warm, making it unbearably hot on my already overheated skin.
The faint hum of the refrigeration units vibrates through the walls as I shove into the kitchen and drop the tray by the dishwasher.
Flipping the lights off, I turn too fast, desperate to get back to where Declan is, to see if the electricity between us is still there, and… collide straight into him.
His hands latch onto my hips, steadying me. My palms land on his chest, fingers curling into his shirt. His heartbeat thunders under my hands, wild and so fucking real I can feel it match the frantic beat of my own.
“Dec,” I whisper.
Declan swallows, his gaze back on my lips again. My pulse ricochets through every limb, time slowing down as I wait. He doesn’t move, doesn’t step back. His breath mixes with mine, and every part of me screams finally.
I remember how much I loved this, the feeling of being slightly smaller than him. The way his strength made me feel both vulnerable and protected, like he could destroy me and take care of me all at once.
The world narrows, his hands gripping my hips, his chest beneath my palms, feeling the faint tremor in his exhale. So he still won’t initiate touch? Fine. I can do that for both of us.
I lean up on instinct, and his body sways closer on reflex.
Just a breath.
Just—
“Cooper?”
The Scottish snap of my name shatters the moment.
I jerk back, but Declan is faster, mask slamming down, expression shuttering so quickly it feels like I imagined the whole thing. Lockie stands in the doorway, arms crossed, eyebrows raised with pure unadulterated amusement.
“Am I interrupting something?”
“No,” Declan says flatly at the same time as I groan, “Yes.”
Lockie looks between us, at the distance too obvious not to notice. “Right.”
Declan steps around me, barely looking at me, and it feels like whiplash. He beelines to my table, shoving my notebook into my bag like he needs something—anything—to do with his hands.
“What are you—”
“Lockie’s waiting.” His tone is flat, dejected, as he hands my bag to my bodyguard instead of me.
“Declan?” I try again, stepping toward him.
He doesn’t stop, doesn’t turn, doesn’t let me in.
“Goodnight,” he says, final and cold, disappearing into his office and shutting the door softly behind him.
Lockie watches me for a second, sympathy buried under amusement.
“Well…that was more entertaining than the Royal Ontario Museum.”
I shove past him. “Fuck you.”
“I don’t think it’s me you’re wanting to—”
“Lockie.”
With a snort, he tosses my bag into the SUV. “Just saying.”
Dropping into the passenger seat, I press my forehead to the cool glass, groaning. He was right there. We were right there. One breath from kissing, from reconnecting, and now I’m alone with the ache of it.
All thanks to my cock-blocking bodyguard.