Chapter 7 #3
Not many people liked me. Most people I knew, I’d realized over the last few months, were happy to see me with a career as shattered as my thigh bone, and all the pain that involved.
Benji rolled his eyes at me and grabbed my hand. “Come meet Grandma, she says you have pretty eyes.”
I glanced at Cooper, who was definitely blushing this time, the tips of his ears practically glowing crimson.
I shrugged at him and let Benji lead me away.
Mrs. Richards must have been in her mid or late 50s, but aside from the crow’s feet around her eyes and the grey streaks at her temples, I never would have known. She greeted me as though she’d known me for years, accepted the flowers with grace, and introduced me to her husband.
Mr. Richards was grey haired and bearded, as big and broad as Cooper was despite his age—which explained the Big in Big Dick’s—and had the family warm eyes, also surrounded with crow’s feet that made him look almost unbearably kind.
He was weathered, and the hand he offered me to shake seemed to have motor oil permanently soaked into the lines of it, because despite appearances, my hand came away clean.
Not that I would’ve minded a little motor oil. Not for a reception like this.
Once introductions had been made, Mrs. Richards directed me into the kitchen while she excused herself and her husband to clean Benji up before dinner, which she insisted was a two-person job while giving her husband a meaningful look.
I knew a setup when I saw one, but I didn’t plan on fighting it.
I wanted to see Cooper.
That had been true since he’d left earlier today.
I hadn’t stopped thinking about him. His smile, his hands, the complete lack of judgment.
He hadn’t told me this wouldn’t be happening if I stretched or warmed up or took up hot yoga or supplements or keto or any of the other things people who’d seen me in pain had.
He’d just helped. Then he’d asked me to come to dinner.
When I stepped into the kitchen, he was standing over the stove, stirring a pan of what had to be his famous spaghetti sauce and humming to himself.
I stood in the doorway watching him for a moment. The rolled-up sleeves showed off strong forearms, and the worn shirt made him look so touchable my fingertips itched. The whole domestic scene was doing things to me, a warm wave of something I couldn’t quite name rising in my chest.
What I was learning here was that I thought dads were hot. Cooper might not technically have been Benji’s dad, but he was, as far as I could see, in all the ways that really mattered.
Benji was a lucky kid, despite everything.
“Am I early?” I asked as he poured water into a big pot at the sink, approaching the kitchen counter. There was an overhang with stools tucked under it on my side, so I pulled one out and perched on it.
Cooper’s sheepish smile was my new favorite expression on him. “I’m running late,” he said. “Sorry. Benji needed help with a school project and it took longer than I expected, but I didn’t want to—”
“Hey, no explanation necessary,” I said, raising an open hand to stop him. “He comes first.”
Cooper turned to look at me. I couldn’t quite read this expression, but I could see the surprise in it.
“Exactly,” he said, putting the pot on the stove and turning the heat up to full. “You’re not allergic to seafood, are you?”
“Uh. No?”
“Good, because you’re about to learn the secret to this sauce. But I have to make you swear to keep it that way.”
“Cross my heart,” I said. “I’ll never tell another soul.”
“Oh, you can tell anyone you want,” Cooper said, turning away from me to reach into a high cupboard.
The motion stretched his shirt across his back, showing off his broad shoulders.
My stomach swooped again at the memory of him picking me up like I was a bag of feathers.
“Except Benji. He’d never eat it again if he knew. ”
Cooper turned back to me and held out a small jar with a red lid. Anchovies in olive oil.
I raised an eyebrow.
“Trust me,” Cooper said. “They melt into the sauce, you won’t know they’re even there. But if Benji ever found out there was fish in it?” He raised his eyebrows as far as they’d go.
“He doesn’t like fish?”
Cooper laughed. “I know, right? We live so close to the sea you can smell it, but no. He’ll eat more or less anything else, so I can’t complain, but even the smell of fish makes him gag. I figure he might grow out of it, but I don’t think it matters if he doesn’t.”
“It’ll matter if he ends up with a director who insists his only protein should be salmon for the six weeks leading up to a performance.”
Halfway through picking anchovies out of the jar and dropping them into the pan, Cooper turned to look at me, his brows once again communicating his feelings—knit together so they almost touched.
I shrugged. “To cut the few ounces of fat my off-season decadence of having almond milk lattes instead of black coffee caused.”
Cooper wrinkled his nose. The look on his face was so uncomprehending I was reminded again how completely different our worlds were. He was effectively a dance parent now, but he was coming at it from way on the outside.
Something warm bloomed under my ribs as I realized what that would mean for Benji. His career—if he chose to pursue this seriously—wouldn’t have to look anything like mine. Cooper wouldn’t send him to class with the flu, or push him too hard if he hurt himself.
“This hypothetical director is welcome to try,” Cooper said, his face set hard.
I’d never seen an expression like that on it—he’d always been half-smiling, I realized.
He had whatever the opposite of resting bitch face was.
Now, there was a thunderstorm brewing between those expressive brows, and his eyes, which I’d thought were incapable of being anything but bright and inviting, had gone cold and hard as he glared at the pan in front of him.
Protective. Fiercely protective.
The warmth under my ribs unfurled a little further, curling around my heart. I had a vision of Cooper squaring up to Piotr, telling him no, we weren’t doing things his way. Defending Benji.
Defending me?
“You think he could go all the way?” Cooper asked, bringing me back to the kitchen. The look on his face had melted away, back to the kind, warm Cooper I’d gotten to know.
“Benji? Absolutely,” I said. “Do you want to know a secret about ballet? Since you shared your spaghetti sauce one?”
Cooper’s attention turned away from the stove entirely, focusing on me.
“I want any and all wisdom you have to offer,” he said.
“It’s nothing world shattering.” I held my hands up, not wanting to raise his expectations too high. “And it’s not magic. It might even be obvious to you.”
Cooper was still looking at me, stirring the sauce without paying attention to it.
“The secret is that the people who keep showing up, keep practicing, keep working at it are the ones who succeed. You can have natural advantages for sure,” I added.
“You have to be a certain height, it helps if you’ve got a particular build.
But I’ve seen dozens of physically ideal people flame out within six months of serious, career ballet.
The ones who get there are the ones who want it enough to suffer through what it takes.
So… yeah, Benji could go all the way, if he wanted.
He’s got the discipline already. If he decides to stick with it, I could be watching him on opening night with a major company in… a little over a decade, maybe.”
Cooper nodded. He was looking at me now as though he’d never seen me before. As though he was seeing something new.
I hadn’t thought I was baring my soul while I was talking, but the look on Cooper’s face made me feel like I accidentally had.
“So how old were—shit—”
The sound of a pot of water boiling over interrupted him, and he whipped around to turn the heat down, cursing under his breath.
“In front of our guest?” he asked the pot, dumping a whole package of spaghetti into it and throwing in a handful of salt. “C’mon, man, don’t embarrass me like that.”
I laughed as he prodded the noodles with the same wooden spoon he’d been using to stir the sauce, poking them under the water.
“You don’t break yours in half?”
Cooper turned to look at me, scandal written all over his face. “I can’t believe you’d say that to me.”
I laughed again, swinging back on the bar stool while gripping the edge of the counter for balance. Cooper’s shocked look melted into another one of the shy smiles I was collecting from him.
“You teach Benji how to do ballet, I’ll teach you how to make spaghetti. Oh my God, breaking the noodles?”
“I don’t actually break them!” I defended. “I don’t really cook,” I added, realizing as I said it how pathetic it sounded. I was a grown man, around Cooper’s age. What would he think of me?
“Sounds like you’ve had more to worry about than the finer points of making spaghetti,” Cooper said. “How old were you when you started ballet?”
“Five,” I said, looking down at the counter, tracing my finger over a faint scratch in it. “My mom took me to my first lesson when I was five years old. I danced every single day of my life after that, until…”
A lump swelled up in my throat and I couldn’t swallow it down right away. Until the accident was as close as I could get—I hadn’t had to explain it to anyone. They’d all heard about it before I regained consciousness in the hospital post-surgery. I’d never had to tell anyone what actually happened.
Cooper nodded, letting me off the hook. “Wow.”
I shrugged. “It’s what you do. I bet Benji doesn’t go a day without practice.”
“He doesn’t,” Cooper confirmed. “I’ve never been that committed to anything in my life. I haven’t gotten out of bed every day of my life since I was five. The rest of us must seem… I don’t know. A whole lot less dedicated.”
“I don’t think that,” I said, meeting Cooper’s eyes again. As far as I could tell, he’d uprooted his entire life for Benji’s sake. I’d only been doing what I’d been trained to do since I was too young to make the decision myself. It was easier to keep going along the path I’d been set on.
Cooper had decided for himself, because he loved Benji. That was dedication.
“So you and Amelia… worked? For the same company?”
“Danced for. We don’t call it work,” I said wryly. It was work, but we were all supposed to believe it was a privilege to have it.
And it was. It was a privilege.
Had been.
“But yes,” I continued. “She’s a very accomplished dancer.”
Cooper nodded. “She’s been great with Benji. Took him in mid-term, no issues. But you’re taking over the class now?”
“Just for the competition,” I said. “Since I’m doing the choreography.”
“How long have you been doing that?”
I knew it was just a polite question, but I couldn’t help the ripple of defensiveness it sent running through me. “I choreographed the youth company’s production of The Nutcracker a few years back. Amelia thought it was good.”
Cooper looked away from the sauce he was still breaking up bits of anchovy in, brow raised. “I’m sure it was?”
I glanced down at the counter, tracing a knot in the wood with my fingertip. “Sorry. Choreography is hard to get into. Hard to even get experience in. It’s… it’s what I want to do next,” I admitted. “If I can’t dance anymore.”
Cooper wouldn’t understand what a big admission that was for me. Both wanting to do choreography next, and that I knew I couldn’t dance anymore.
I did know. Accepting it was a different thing altogether.
“Then I hope it works—”
“Coop!” Benji interrupted, tiny voice calling out before he came into view, the pounding of his feet announcing his arrival. He tore past me and crashed into Cooper’s legs, hugging him tight while Cooper laughed and ruffled his hair.
“All clean?” he asked, glancing between the pot of spaghetti, the pan of sauce, and Benji’s face.
Benji nodded eagerly, holding his hands up for inspection. “See?”
He’d also had his clothes changed—the oversized shirt he’d been wearing before had been replaced by a Benji-sized version in an almost identical plaid, worn over another shirt with a ballerina printed on it. They didn’t make shirts with male ballet dancers on them, I supposed.
“Awesome,” Cooper said, beaming down at Benji. “You wanna put in the secret ingredient?” he asked, shooting me a wink.
Benji nodded eagerly.
“How’s your heat tolerance?” Cooper asked me, turning to another cupboard. This one was oriented so that when he reached into it, his t-shirt hiked up over the waistband of his jeans, revealing a thin strip of flesh and that tempting treasure trail again.
My tongue darted out to wet my lips unconsciously as I stared at it, heat trickling south and making me squirm internally. God he was hot. I wanted to get my hands—no, my mouth—on that skin, taste the salt of it, breathe in—
Cooper and Benji were both still looking at me. Waiting for an answer.
“Uh,” I said, scrambling to remember what he’d asked.
He showed me a jar of chili flakes. “Because I’m gonna let Benji add these, and he’s kinda heavy handed.”
I raised an eyebrow at Benji. “Really?”
Benji nodded, beaming up at me.
“First time I made this for him, I set some of the sauce aside before I added them. He caught me,” Cooper said, petting Benji’s hair again. “So now he adds them so he knows we’re all eating the same thing. He hasn’t killed anyone yet.”
“Well, go easy on me, okay?” I said. Benji nodded again as though he was swearing a solemn oath. I trusted him.
Cooper handed him the open chili flakes and picked him up by the waist. “Do your worst,” he said, bouncing Benji in his arms. “And then we can eat.”