11. Cooper
11
COOPER
T HE DOOR TO the deli flew open, and Hannah rushed inside, her tangle of long black hair sweeping around her from the wind. She brushed it back from her face as she scanned the small restaurant and gave me an apologetic smile.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry.” She leaned down to greet me with an air kiss, then tossed her shopping bags onto an empty chair before taking the one opposite me. “My boss decided she didn’t want the Stuart Weitzman boots, she wanted the Bottega Venetas, so I had to haul ass to their boutique, which is all the way on the Upper East Side, and then on the way back some dickhead decided it would be fun to hold the doors on the five train, which meant security had to get involved, and it was a whole thing.” She paused and took a sip of the water I’d gotten for her then let out a heavy breath. “Anyway, sorry I’m late.”
I chuckled at her frazzled state. “It’s fine. I know how bosses can be.”
“You’re not kidding. I mean, I’m grateful for the job, I just thought being executive assistant to a stylist meant I’d be sitting in on all the fashion, not fetching it.”
“One of these days,” I assured her with a wink, as the waiter came by to take our orders.
“So, speaking of jobs,” she said once we’d placed our pastrami on rye orders, “what’s the sitch with yours? You find one yet?”
I shook my head. “Can’t say I’ve been successful in that department.”
Hannah rested her chin on her hands, and as she looked at me with those doe eyes, it took me back to our college days, when we’d gossip over lunch or between classes. Sometimes it felt like a lifetime since then—others like no time had passed at all.
Today was definitely more the latter.
“If you get desperate, I heard boss lady say they’re looking for someone to take over the social media content. I can put in a good word for you.” She wrinkled her nose when she glanced down at the Colorado Rockies sweater I wore. “Not that I think you’d enjoy posting about clothes all day.”
“No? You trying to say I’m not a great choice for some fashion job?”
“Like I said, call me when you’re desperate.”
I chuckled and took a long sip of my soda. It felt nice to actually be face to face with someone familiar, especially considering I didn’t know anyone else in the city. Hannah had moved here years ago, but we’d kept in touch, and she helped me find a place.
She’d also introduced me to the coffee shop I frequented, since it was near her job, and I wondered if that meant Lachlan worked nearby too.
Though it felt wrong for me to even think about him right now, not when I’d been entertaining someone altogether different in my thoughts.
But I wasn’t going to think about either of them. The last thing I needed to do was have a hard-on for lunch.
“I’ll find something,” I said, picking at the lint on my sleeve. “I’m not worried.”
“Oh? Fall into some money I don’t know about?”
“Nah, just…” I wasn’t sure how much she needed to know, but fuck, I had to tell someone. Otherwise I might damn well lose my mind. “There’s been a lot going on.”
“How’s that? You don’t know enough people in the city for a lot to be going on. No offense.”
“No, you’re right. I…” I ran a hand over my jaw as I blew out a breath. “I need to tell you something, but I swear to God if you judge me or tell anyone else?—”
“Won’t say a word,” she said, crossing her heart. “Tell me all the things, mister. Is it juicy? It sounds juicy.”
“You might say that.”
She squealed and clapped her hands as our sandwiches were delivered, but gestured for me to go on.
Shit, was I really going to do this? Spill my guts about what I’d been up to? I trusted Hannah with my life, and she’d always kept my secrets. But I didn’t want to put her in danger. Maybe I could just skirt around the part where I’d had a gun pointed at my face—since we were eating and all.
I dug into the pocket of my coat and pulled out a certain masked stranger’s glove—the only evidence I had that he existed outside of the fantasies I’d had of him in the past few days. I tossed it on the table between us.
Hannah looked down at the black leather glove then back up to me. “Uh, what exactly am I looking at here?”
I picked up my sandwich. “A version of Cinderella’s slipper.”
“Cinderella’s— Wait, you met someone? Where?” She let out a huff and slumped back in her seat. “You’ve only been here a few weeks.”
Not about to tell her I’d met him in a grungy alley where he’d saved me from having my head blown off, I instead went with a half-truth.
“Well, that’s the thing—we haven’t technically ‘met.’”
“I’m confused. If you haven’t met, how do you have his glove? Oh my God , were you watching some hot guy who happened to drop his glove? That’s so… Serendipity of you.”
“Actually, it’s more like a superhero film.”
She snorted. “Oh, I’m sorry, was that a little too romcom for you?”
“No.” I pointed to the glove. “The guy didn’t only wear gloves, but a mask too. So he definitely fits my superhero vibe more than your romcom.”
“A mask?” Hannah dropped her half-eaten sandwich onto the plate and leaned across the table. “What do you mean he was wearing a mask? Did you go to some kinky sex party without me?”
“Not exactly. But I did have some kinky sex.”
“Shut the hell up.”
“Okay, but then you won’t get all those juicy details you were asking about.”
Hannah pursed her lips, running her eyes over me, then her mouth curved into a devilish grin. “Well, we can’t have that, can we? Spill.”
Okay, where to start? Where to start…
She didn’t know about the drug dealer situation, so it wasn’t like I could tell her my hero had followed me home after I botched a deal and snuck in my window. So how did I fudge that little detail?
“I was at home one night, researching my story, when I glanced out the window and…”
“And…?”
“Remember you said you wouldn’t judge me.” She nodded, and I continued, “And I saw someone watching me.”
There. That wasn’t a complete lie.
She swallowed her bite, and then cleared her throat. “Someone was watching you?”
“Mhmm.”
“Like a…stalker?”
I’d never thought of him that way. But she didn’t know the other part of the story, so of course it sounded like he was a stalker.
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“Then what would you say?”
“Hot, masked stranger?”
“That you don’t know.”
“Right.”
“So let me get this straight in my head. One night, you were sitting at your desk working and you looked out the window, saw some masked guy on your fire escape watching you, and decided, he looks like someone I want to sleep with ?”
“I did mention he was hot, right?”
“He was wearing a mask—how could you tell?”
Did she have to be thinking so logically? Logic had no room in this conversation. “Hey, you said you wouldn’t judge.”
“That was before I knew you were risking your life for sex.”
“ Kinky sex,” I corrected her.
“You’re crazy. You know that, right?”
“Probably. But it’s not like we just jumped straight into bed. The first night I saw him, he was going to run but I stopped him. I was so…intrigued that I invited him in.” I shrugged. “So I guess I was the one who made a move.”
“On a stalker?”
“How about we rename him as the sexy masked man?”
She sighed and shook her head. “I don’t know. What if he turns out to be some lunatic?”
He could, I guess. It wasn’t like I hadn’t thought it once or twice myself. But I knew something Hannah didn’t—he’d saved me. So why would he do that if he was just going to turn around and hurt me later?
“I don’t think that’s going to happen—like I said, I invited him in. Plus, if he was going to hurt me, don’t you think he would’ve done that when I was pinned to the bed under him?”
She gasped. “ Cooper . You didn’t…”
“I told you, hot, kinky sex. And tell me, how is it any different from hooking up after swiping right?”
“Because he didn’t find you online,” she said. “He found you by peering through your window .”
I chuckled and nodded. “I know, and call me crazy, but I found it…sexy.”
“You’re crazy.”
Yes, I was. But I also wasn’t lying. Seeing my hot vigilante standing out on my fire escape after dreaming about him had been one of the most surreal moments of my life. Also one of the hottest, and crazy or not, I was happy I’d had the courage to ask him to come back, because wow , what a night that had been.
“So, you had hot sex with some stranger in a mask and now all that remains—because your dignity left this deli when you admitted to all of this—is his glove?”
“So much for being supportive and nonjudgmental.”
“I can judge you and still be supportive. I just don’t want you to wind up in some alley no longer breathing.”
I grimaced. That comment was a little too close for comfort, but not in the way she thought.
“Hey, I’m sorry.” Hannah reached over and squeezed my hand. “I didn’t mean that to sound so harsh.”
“I know?—”
“It’s just, I worry about you, and your parents would kill me if anything happened to their baby.”
She was right, of course. My parents were already worried about my moving to the big city. If anything were to happen to me, it would crush them.
I was such an idiot. I should’ve just told Hannah about Lachlan, the safe coffee shop guy I’d connected with. Why had I decided to confess this dangerous little story?
Because you wanted to see if you were crazy for having done it in the first place—and shocker, moron, you were.
“Look, I’m okay. It was one moment of madness.” Unfortunately . But after days staring at my open window, I’d finally given up on his ever coming back. “We’ll chalk it up to the one risky thing I’ve ever done in my life. Hell, if it wasn’t for that”—I pointed to the glove—“I might think I’d hallucinated the whole thing.”
“Are you sure you didn’t?”
I shook my head. “My body definitely went through something that night, so no, I don’t think so.”
Hannah picked up the glove and examined it. “You don’t think your hero will come back for this?”
I shrugged. “Maybe if it’d been his mask. But no, I think that will be the last I see of him.”
“Maybe that’s for the best.” She handed the glove back to me, and I stuffed it into my pocket, nodding my agreement.
“Maybe.”
As if she could sense my disappointment, she picked up the other half of her sandwich and said, “But that is a very juicy story.”
I grinned. “Told you.”
AN HOUR OR so later, we parted ways at the deli, Hannah rushing back to work while I did a little window-shopping before heading home. It’d been great to catch up with her, even though she probably thought I needed therapy now.
Oh well, it wasn’t like she hadn’t told me some crazy shit back in college. I guess it was just odd for her that the shoe was on the other foot. I’d always been so conscientious, so studious back in the day, and while that hadn’t changed all that much, I wasn’t usually the kind of guy to open my window to masked strangers and invite them in for sex.
I stopped outside of my apartment building, stared up the fire escape that zigzagged its way up the front, and wondered why my vigilante hadn’t returned.
Had I done something wrong that night? I’d done everything he asked of me. Made sure not to look at him. But still he hadn’t come back.
Maybe one night was all he wanted. Or maybe he didn’t enjoy himself?
No. That wasn’t true. I knew he’d enjoyed himself. I’d felt his body tense inside mine, heard his sexy roar of satisfaction, so that definitely wasn’t the reason. Maybe he was already taken, which was why he didn’t want me looking for him? Or at him?
I had no idea, but as I trudged up the stairs to my floor, I couldn’t help feeling upset about it all. I wanted to see him again. I wanted to know who he was. But knowing that would never likely happen had turned my mood to shit.
When I reached the door to my apartment, I was shocked to see it slightly ajar, and my disappointment turned to annoyance. If Ms. Edith was in there doing a spot check, I just might lose my fucking cool. I was a good tenant, damn it, and I didn’t need her treating me like I was some kind of degenerate.
But as I pushed open the door to my apartment, my feet froze.
My place had been tossed.
Every single thing I owned had been turned upside down. Bedding was on the floor; the tiny kitchen was in shambles. Drawers were pulled out and turned over, utensils all over the ground. The fridge door was left wide, and my desk was a complete mess.
My heart hammered as I stared at the destruction in front of me, and suddenly I had a flash of the man I’d spent all of lunch talking about. A vision of him in his trench coat, mask, and gloves, crouched on my fire escape.
Did he do this?
I didn’t think so.He’d had plenty of opportunities to hurt me or take things while I wasn’t looking, and never had. So why would he come back here and trash the place?
My mind started to race, but nothing made any sense until my eyes landed on my backpack across the room and?—
Shit.
I raced over to it and unzipped it, locating the back of the logo that I’d carefully plucked the threads from, slipped the key card I’d found the other night inside of, and sewn back into place. It was still there.
I let out a sigh of relief. Thank God. And just as I was about to call the police, I paused.
If I called the cops, they were going to ask questions. Questions I wasn’t sure I wanted to answer. Questions I wasn’t sure I could.
And then I remembered—Lachlan. Coffee shop guy.Didn’t his card say he was in the business of security?
I fished out his business card, the one with his personal number, and finally did the thing I’d been too intimidated to do after our first encounter.
I called him.