5. Cooper
5
Cooper
“ W hat the fuck Coop?” Theo shouts as he rounds the corner.
“What?” I lash out, continuing to pace the alley next to my shop.
My mind is racing a million miles a minute as I lick the taste of her off my lips. Trying to grapple with the fantasy that is my current reality. Waking up this morning I expected a lot of things but not this.
Not her .
She’s a fairy tale I thought I gave up on a long time ago.
“What are you thinking man? Do you really think this is a good idea? Luna can find you someone else.” He reminds me of what Luna already said and the words grate against my nerves.
“I don’t want anyone else.” The words fit the circumstance but they mean so much more. I don’t want anyone else. I’ve never wanted anyone else. There will never be anyone else. Not in the way I want her .
“You named your fucking shop after her bro. Now she pops up out of the blue and you’re going to have her working here?” Theo has been spending far too much time with Luna if he thinks he is going to rationalize away fate. This isn’t a coincidence. This is destiny. An answered prayer to the gods.
I did name my shop after her. I have the majority of the tattoos covering nearly my entire body dedicated to her. I am a living breathing memorial of everything that used to be.
“I’m not letting her go again.” I growl before heading back toward the front door.
“Cooper!” Theo yells but I don’t stop.
“Go home bro.” I wave him off and I’m certain he is flipping me off behind my back.
Stepping in through the front door I see my first appointment of the day waiting. A tight bodied blonde who bar tends at the pub down the street that I frequent most nights after closing.
“Hey Coop,” She rises to her feet from the couch and wraps her arm around mine before running a manicured finger down my chest. “I’m ready whenever you are. Just tell me where you want me to strip.” She pops the p in her final word on her over inflated glossy lips and it sends a shock of awareness through me. I turn towards the back room and I find Trinia watching us through the doorway.
“I’m sorry Jenna, you are going to have to reschedule. All my appointments are canceled today.” I make an excuse and she pouts.
“Well if you’re not working maybe you want to walk me home?” She suggests as she hangs on my arm. Giving me some of her best fuck me eyes.
I step back and grab her hands, peeling them off me before dropping them at her sides.
“Sorry Jenna. Not going to happen.” I give her a polite smile before stepping behind the counter. Putting as much distance between us as possible.
She huffs, snatches her bag from the sofa and storms out the door. I get up and lock it behind her, flipping the ‘open’ sign to ‘closed’. Pressing my forehead against the cold glass I let it calm me before I walk over to my drawing station.
* * *
The day goes by painfully slow. With no tattoos there is nothing to keep me distracted from the fact that Trinia is here, in my shop, standing only mere feet away from me. For the first time in eight long years.
Every time she speaks my heart skips a beat. The sound of her voice is silk to my ears. I’m so painfully aware of her.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t focus.
I can’t draw.
My hand won’t stop sweating.
I can barely grip a fucking pencil.
Shoving my chair away as I stand it rolls across the room and slams into the tattoo table as I stomp over to the bar cart. I need a fucking drink.
Pouring a finger of whiskey from the decanter my mentor gifted me on opening night of my shop I take a long swig. Swallowing the amber liquid down I relish in the burn as it coats my throat and settles in my stomach.
“Let me know if you have any questions. I’ll be back tomorrow.” I overhear Luna offer as she waves at Trinia and walks towards me. Grabbing my arm, I let her drag me outside. Even though she’s like a woman wrangling a lion at the circus. I could pick her up with one hand but right now her face is saying she’s in boss mode .
Once outside she whips around, concern written all over her face. “Are you going to be able to handle this? I mean the two of you working together.” I look away not knowing how to answer her question.
I don’t know if I can handle this. I don’t know if this is a good idea but I can’t bring myself to will Trinia to leave. I want her here. Near me, in my space.
“You clearly have some sort of rocky history together.” Luna adds when I don’t say anything.
I scoff at her words.
We most certainly have history together and rocky is a nice way to describe it. Luna scowls at me, crossing her arms across her chest. “Coop, I can assign someone else. I can move her to another client, she won’t be fired but…”
“No, I want her. It will be fine. Let’s just give it some time.” I reassure, tossing an arm around her shoulders and guiding her towards her car. Opening the door for her she slides in and I close the door after her. Not letting her say another word.
Waving as her Mercedes drives away, I head back into the shop and lock the door behind me before pulling the blinds down. Flipping on the lights, now that dusk is setting in even though it’s only four in the afternoon, I walk back to the office.
Leaning against the doorway I watch as Trinia works. “I’m almost done if you have things to do. Luna left me a key so you don’t need to stay.” She rambles, without even looking at me.
“Trinia.” I whisper as I step closer to her. Reaching out I touch her because I still can’t believe she is here. That she is really real and standing right in front of me. My hand grazes her hip and she shivers before she freezes.
Placing her hands on the counter she doesn’t move, she doesn’t say a word. She is painfully silent and I beg her in my mind to speak. To say anything. To yell at me, slap me, punch me, do something other than this nothing.
“Say something.” I beg as I pull her hair back, leaning in to kiss her neck like I am under a spell. Before my lips can touch her she whips around and her angry eyes make me retreat a step.
“What do you want me to say Cooper?” She seethes in front of me.
“Anything. Come on baby, just say something.” I beg her and she screws her eyes shut.
“Don’t do this to me Cooper. Don’t stand here and call me baby and act like I owe you a gods damned thing because I don’t!” She shakes as she screams at me. Her voice ricochets through the vaulted ceilings.
“You’re right you don’t but just talk to me. Let’s catch up. Get dinner with me.” I plead, not even bothering to hide the desperation in my voice.
“I have to go home.” She takes a breath, not meeting my eyes.
She is cracking. I know it. I know her. I can make her bend but instead I step forward, cupping her face in my hands as I say, “Then let me walk you.”
She huffs a laugh, leaning into my touch ever so slightly before she reaches for her bag and shoves past me.
I slow my steps to match her stride as we walk in deafening silence before I finally break it, “You still don’t drive, huh?”
“I drove once and nothing good came of it so I don’t waste my time with things that hurt me.” The double meaning behind every single one of her words slices me like a dull knife.
“I didn’t mean…” I go to say but she cuts me off.
“You didn’t mean what Cooper? You didn’t mean to hurt me? You didn’t mean for me to find out. You didn’t mean for me to end up alone in the hospital? What didn’t you mean? To name your fucking shop after me? Or to kiss me after eight fucking years?” Tears well in her eyes and I feel like she’s reached into my chest and ripped my heart out. “What didn’t you mean Coop?” Her tears finally fall as her voice shatters on the side of the road.
8 years ago
Katrinia took her mothers car and drove down early to surprise me on base in North Carolina. I was fresh out of basic training when she walked in on a girl, whose name I don’t even remember, draped over me asleep in my bed and she fucking lost it.
After throwing everything she could get her hands on at my head and scaring the girl away before she even had a chance to find her clothes, Trinia got into the car and left. I tried to go after her but I couldn’t leave the base.
Theo told me two weeks later she crashed the car that day and was in the hospital for days only fifteen miles away. She was fifteen miles away from me and I didn’t even know. I didn’t go to her. She was alone and broken and she didn’t call me. She called Theo and he kept it from me until long after they got home.
We had plans. She was going to go to university and I was going to serve my time in the army after I got passed up for a football scholarship and when we were done we were going to start fresh somewhere.
Start a business and buy a house. Use whatever benefits I could get from the Army to give us the head start we needed, but I fucked up. I was wasted and lonely and hyped up by a bunch of rowdy grunts fresh out of boot-camp when I caught the eye of that girl.
I was so drunk I don’t even remember most of that night or how we even got back from the bar. It was one night. A minuscule blip in time I don’t even remember. A single speck of dirt along the railroad of my life that ultimately derailed the entire train.
One moment is all it takes to make a mistake you’ll regret forever.
“Dorogoy please - ” Slap ! A sharp sting blazes across my face as my head snaps to the side but I don’t turn back to look at her.
“Don’t ever call me that again.” I see her chest rise and fall out of the corner of my eye and I snap.
“Why not!? Huh?” I grab her wrists and push her back against the cedar siding of a bakery that closed at two in the afternoon. It’s freezing out here and no one is around. It’s fucking January and the town is as dead as the ghosts who haunt this place.
We are both breathing so fast, clouds of air fill the space between us before she does the unthinkable. She fucking kisses me. I let go of her wrists and grab a hold of her waist. Pulling her against me before I grind into her against the wall. Her lips are as soft and sweet as I remember and the sound of her whimpers drive me just as wild now as they did all those years ago.
I trail my kisses down her neck and she fists my hair, yanking it back before she slams her lips back into mine. My hands ravage her soft curves, groaning as I palm her breast through her jacket. She throws her head back and I nip her neck before whispering in her ear, “Come home with me dorogoy.”
She stops and her eyes go wide. The hands that were just a second ago gripping my shirt are now pushing me away.
“I.. I.. Dammit! I can’t do this.” She shakes her head like she is coming back to her senses after being possessed. “I can’t do this Coop. Not again. I have to go.”
She walks away from me, and once again I’m left watching her leave. Feeling as helpless as I did the first time she left me without looking back.