6. Chapter 6
Chapter six
Cooper
I t’s official, Sutton has lost her damn mind.
I always thought the woman was crazy. But this is next level.
It’s one thing to pretend for a few minutes in front of the dickwad. But to pretend to be her live-in boyfriend? That’s straight insanity.
Even if it weren’t, it’d be a horrible idea.
We are like oil and water.
Every time we’re near each other, we do nothing but fight. No one would ever believe it.
Well, Dillon the Douche did. But he isn’t exactly the brightest bulb in the box.
Yeah, Sutton and I have this sexual tension between us that feels electric at times, but that isn’t enough to build a fake relationship on, is it?
After Dillon stormed out and Sutton laid out her crazy idea, I needed a drink and space to think.
I got one of those things as I hopped into my truck, followed by a silent Sutton, and drove us to the closest bar I could find.
There’s something about sticky floors and cracked vinyl that always brings me peace. Or maybe it’s the alcohol that always accompanies these types of environments.
I order myself a beer and a stupidly sour lemon drop for Sutton. Grabbing our drinks, I turn and find her sitting in a booth near the back of the bar.
Soft rock filters through the speakers as I slide into the seat across from her and silently pass her the yellow concoction. Her brown eyes sparkle at the sight of her favorite drink.
Her golden-blond locks fall in front of her face as she leans forward to capture the tiny straw between her lips.
I take a large gulp of my beer, letting the cool liquid and flavor fill my senses before I plop my bottle back down and gawk at her. “You’re crazy.”
“Crazy smart,” she sasses back at me with big puppy-dog eyes.
I shake my head at her hopeful stare. “It would never work.”
“It would. Please, Cooper, please.”
“What’s in it for me?”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you mean, what do I mean?” I ask incredulously. “What do I get out of pretending to be your boyfriend?”
“Besides a clear conscience that you helped me get rid of a loser from my life?”
“Yeah,” I scoff. “Besides that?”
“I don’t know. Street cred?”
“ Street cred ?”
“Yeah, you get to claim you bagged a hottie like me. That will definitely throw you in a higher league of women.”
I stare her down, an unamused expression coloring my face, and she crumbles. “Please, Cooper. Anything. I’ll do anything.”
And just like that, it hits me.
“Okay, I pretend to be your live-in lover until Dillon moves out. But I need you to convince my coworkers and bosses that we are madly in love.”
It’s perfect. I can use Sutton to solidify the web of lies I created at work. The heaviness that’s been sitting on my chest, thinking about how to explain why my girlfriend missed yet another party, finally lifts. Sutton’s proposition might be the answer to all my prayers.
“Cooper, be for real. You want me to try to convince people who already know you that I could fall in love with you?” She laughs. “They’ll never fall for it.”
“Not with that shitty attitude, they won’t.”
“I’m sorry. Us fucking is one thing, but love?” she wheezes. “No one will buy it.”
“Then I guess you’re shit out of luck, Sut.” Twisting my body, I move to slide out of the booth.
Sutton grabs my hand. Her laughter gone. “I’ll do it.”
I quirk an eyebrow at her. “You’ll do it?”
“Yes.”
“You know that means you’ll have to be nice to me, right?”
“Psh. We will have a love filled with teasing. It’s our foreplay.”
“Is it?”
“In the act, yes.”
“So it’s a deal?”
She sticks her hand out for us to shake on it.
This is a horrible idea… Logically, I know there’s a huge chance this will all blow up in our faces. But my insides are vibrating with excitement at the chance to sell my lie as well as have an excuse to be near her.
I place mine in hers and squeeze. “It’s a deal.”
Sutton practically squeals with enthusiasm as she bounces in front of me. “Thank you, thank you, thank you, Cooper. You won’t regret this. I am going to be the best fake out-of-your-league girlfriend you’ve ever had.”
“You are going to be the only fake girlfriend I’ve ever had.”
She eyes me with disbelief. “I highly doubt that.”
When I don’t budge, she flashes me that beautiful smile. “Come on, grumpy pants, you are a total nerd.”
“Your point?”
“That you have most likely been this way your entire life. Am I correct?”
“Yes.” I grit my teeth together.
“So it’s safe to say you probably made up a fake girlfriend or two in high school, because I refuse to believe you have always been this hot.”
My face lights up. “You think I’m hot?”
“You have a certain appeal,” she says before taking a sip of her drink. “I mean, I don’t see it, but I know your nonsexual life partner Nate does, and he obviously isn’t an idiot when it comes to looks. Just look at that smokeshow of a ginger goddess he gets to call his wife.”
“How is it you can insult and compliment me at the same time.”
She beams again. “It’s a gift.”
I rub at my temple. “How is this going to work, anyway.”
“Easy, you will pack a bag tonight and play house for a couple of days until Dillon hightails it back to the heavily smoke-ridden garage he climbed out of.”
“I meant logically. Like, where am I sleeping? And will we have to hold hands and kiss?”
“Are you asking if we are going to have sex?”
Amber liquid flies across the table onto Sutton’s face and hair as I choke on my beer. “Oh shit,” I say, wiping the alcohol from my mouth. “I’m sorry, Sut. I—”
“Got a little excited about the thought of blowing something else all over me? I get it,” she says, grabbing a napkin to clean her face off.
“Damn it, Sutton, you can’t keep making comments like that.”
“Why not? Besides, you’re the one who brought up sex, not me.”
“No, I sure as shit didn’t, miss pervy.”
“I’m not the perv. You’re the perv.”
“So mature, Sutton. What’s next? ‘I’m rubber, you’re glue—’”
“You wish you could rub your glue on me.”
“See?” I toss my hands up. “This will never work. You can’t stop your stupid taunts for a minute to have a conversation about me doing you a favor.”
“Oh, so now screwing me would be a favor. As if I am below you.”
“Stop putting words in my mouth and listen to me, you infuriating woman.”
Her eyes widen, but she shuts her mouth.
“I meant, how much of a show are we going to be putting on? And are we sleeping, sleeping, as in eyes closed, brains shut off, in the same bed?”
Her shoulders heave in annoyed defeat. “Yes. To make it convincing, I need you to sleep in my room with me. If you don’t, he is going to weasel his way into the bedroom, probably while I am sleeping, and I don’t feel like waking up to his dick poking me in the back.”
“We are getting a lock installed on your door tonight. I don’t care if I am there or not. That little shit isn’t coming near you, awake or asleep. Understood?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
I groan, frustrated that her smart-ass mouth has my dick twitching and she couldn’t care less. Not wanting to give her comment any attention, I continue on. “Okay, what about outside of your bedroom? Do you think we will need to put on a show?”
She shrugs. “Honestly, he thought something was going on this entire time, and we clearly act like we hate each other, so we should be good to be normal.”
“You sure?”
“Eh, maybe you could sit close to me on the couch while we binge SVU at night. Play up the occasional pet name. But other than that, I think we should be good.”
“SVU?”
“Mariska is a national treasure, and you know it.”
I nod. “I would never say anything negative about her holiness, Olivia Benson.”
“You know SVU?”
“Oh, my dear simple-minded friend.” I pat her hand. “You are looking at the owner of all twenty-five seasons on DVD and digitally.”
“Shut up.” She leans forward. “How did I not know this about you?”
“Um, because you never ask me anything. You only make fun of me.”
She bounces a little in her seat again. “Oh my God, I think I’m actually excited for our sleepover.”
After our drinks, we stop by my house to water my plants and grab some clothes, toiletries, and other essentials before heading back to Sutton’s for the night. I hadn’t thought much about our arrangement other than the overnight items I would need to bring with me to go straight to work in the morning.
But the moment we step into her house again, it all becomes real.
Sutton walks ahead of me, beckoning with her hand for me to follow. “This way, my lover.”
“Lover?”
She shushes me with a cutting glare, placing her finger over her lips while ducking her head into the guest room, then the bathroom down the hall, before pulling me into her bedroom and shutting the door behind us.
“Yes, lover. We want Dillon to believe this charade, don’t we?”
I laugh. “And you think calling me lover is going to get the job done? Come on, Sutton, I thought you were crazier than this.”
She rears back, her brow crinkling with confusion. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that the woman who once dressed as a man to spy on her best friend should know better ways to fool an idiot like Dillon than the word lover.”
She rolls her eyes. “Whatever. Are you going to wear that to bed?” she asks, gesturing to my jeans and tennis shoes before climbing into the bed and pulling the covers up to her chin.
I shake my head, ridding myself of the inappropriate and inconvenient thoughts of her barely there pajamas.
Toeing off my shoes, I strip out of my jeans and pull my shirt over my head, leaving myself in a pair of black boxer briefs, which now feel entirely too thin to be sleeping next to her in.
Darkness covers the room as I turn off the bedside lamp and slide under the blankets, lying on my back beside her.
Sutton rolls onto her side and faces me, tucking her hands under her head.
“Do you think we can pull it off?”
Ignoring her question, I stare up at the ceiling. Glow in the dark stars dot the entire space, giving the room a slight green gleam. “What’s with the childlike ceiling aesthetic?”
She lifts her shoulders in a halfhearted shrug. “It’s something I’ve done in every bedroom I’ve had since I was a kid.”
“Do you like space?”
“Not particularly.”
“Are you scared of the dark?”
“No.”
“Then why?” It seems like such a weird choice for her girly French provincial room.
“Nostalgia, maybe. It’s something constant in my life. A reminder that the stars always shine. Even from millions of miles away, they are the same and different at the same time. They are a moment captured in time. My ceiling is a bit of my childhood captured for me to enjoy forever.”
“That was entirely confusing and logical at the same time.”
“Sometimes the youths can teach their elders.”
Dragging my hand through my hair, I blow out a puff of air. “Just when I thought you were being normal, you hit me with an old joke.”
“I can’t stop, Cooper. It’s ingrained in me, just like the gray hairs sprouting from your scalp.”
Instinctively, I touch my hair, wanting to cover the exact streak she’s referring to.
“Stop,” she whispers. “It’s kind of hot.”
Eyeing her suspiciously, I weigh her words.
Sutton giggles. “I’m serious, you are going to be a silver fox someday.”
“Are you saying that I’m a fox right now?”
“Don’t let it get to that prematurely graying head of yours,” she says sleepily. “Goodnight, lover .”
“Night, Sut.”
I’ve learned two things after one night of sharing a bed with Sutton Hale.
One, the woman is the biggest blanket hog I have ever met. I don’t think I have ever frozen that much. And that’s saying something. I once had to share a singular throw blanket with Nate while sleeping on a concrete floor at a house party in the middle of winter.
And two, Sutton has a case of somniloquy.
Yep. The woman is a big, fat sleep talker.
Not that I could actually take advantage of her sleep musings last night while I was shivering and shaking, freezing my balls off in her tundra of a bedroom.
I had just fallen asleep when Sutton’s alarm went off, startling my tired self awake from my two blissful minutes of sleep.
Sutton stretches out, not caring that I’m beside her, punching me in the jaw as she does.
Okay, maybe she forgot in her sleepy state, but it felt intentional to me.
I groan in pain, slapping my hand to my now-throbbing jaw as she slips her scantily clad ass out of bed with a small “oops” before padding into the bathroom, closing the door behind her.
The sound of the shower and Creed spills through the cracks of the door, followed by what can only be described as the screeching that a cat makes when it’s cornered in an alley, ready to fight to the death over a piece of thrown-out chicken.
Sweet baby Jesus, Sutton can’t hold a single note of the ’90s rock tune she’s attempting to assault my ears with.
I pull a pillow over my head, hoping to block out the poison that is close to making my poor ears bleed.
Twenty minutes.
Twenty painful minutes, and she still isn’t done.
No, she’s getting louder, a feat I didn’t even think was possible. But Sutton lives to amaze me.
But the longer I wait, the more the need to pee pounds at my bladder.
I heave myself out of bed, needing to answer nature’s call before it answers me, aka before I piss myself.
Down the hall, I try the guest-bathroom door handle, turning it without luck. I turn it again and rest my head on the door right as it opens. Catching myself on the frame, I come face-to-face with Dillon.
“Cooper.”
“Dillon.” I glare back. “You done in there?”
“Oh, do you need in here while Sutton takes her hour-long morning shower?”
“Yeah,” I let out a relieved breath. “I tried to wait her out, but—”
“She’s taking forever?”
I huff a laugh. “So can I?” I attempt to step forward, only for Dillon to step in front of me.
“Ooh,” he hisses through his teeth. “I’m actually not done.”
“Seriously?”
He tilts his head and gives me a smile that has chills dancing across my skin. “Seriously.” And then he shuts the door in my face.
That feels right.
That’s the douche I’ve come to know.
I make my way back to Sutton’s room and bang on the bathroom door.
“Hurry up, Sutton. I’m about to piss myself,” I yell through the door.
“No can do, Cooper-roo,” she shouts back.
Fuck it, I’m going in.
I place my hand on the knob and almost sob when it turns and the door opens.
Steam rolls out as I cover the side of my face closest to the shower and walk to the toilet, no longer caring about the weirdness that is me peeing while Sutton is in the room. I’m sure as hell not going to think about the fact that Sutton is less than five feet away from me, naked and dripping wet.
No, no, no .
I will not let the ridiculously infuriating temptress that is Sutton fill my mind with her folly.
I will stay strong.
And by strong, I mean I will continue to avoid looking in the shower’s direction and will definitely not think about how the woman I agreed to fake date is currently sudsing up her body in the same vicinity as me.
Stop it .
Pee, you need to pee.
I lift the lid quickly, banging it on the back of the porcelain.
“What the—Cooper,” Sutton yelps. “Get out.”
“No can do,” I tell her with my back facing her, pulling down the front of my underwear and letting go. Sweet relief fills me as I empty my bladder. Seriously, there is nothing like that first morning urination. I could bask in the elation of this moment forever if Sutton’s shrill voice didn’t ring out, interrupting me.
“Oh my God, you perv. Are you peeing? You are, aren’t you? Ew. Why, Cooper, why?” she whines.
“Maybe if someone hadn’t been taking an hour-long shower”—I pull my shorts back up—“I wouldn’t have had to barge in on you to relieve myself.”
“Gross. Don’t say relieve.”
“Now who’s the perv, thinking about me relieving myself while you’re in the shower,” I tsk. “Naughty, naughty.”
“As if I would ever—” Her words are cut off with a shriek that most definitely woke the neighborhood dogs as I flush the toilet.
Chuckling to myself, I move to the sink and quickly wash my hands, averting my gaze from the mirror directly in front of me with its fogged-up reflection of Sutton’s naked body behind me.
I try my best not to look, but… I’m only human. A human man. And that pretty much means my dick will take over all logic at some point.
Some could argue it isn’t my fault that my gaze trails up to the mirror for a second—more like a millisecond—to see the sensual outline of her curves; it’s my biology’s fault.
Yep. I blame science.
That pesky subject tried to screw me over years ago while growing up, and here it is, striking again, trying to make my life a living hell of hormones.
I walk out of the bathroom and immediately focus on getting ready for work. Right as I finish buttoning my crisp white shirt, the bathroom door bursts open to reveal Sutton wrapped in a large, fluffy pale-purple robe with a matching towel twisted on her head. Her skin is flushed red from the shower.
“Well, well, well. If it isn’t the shower peeper.”
“Don’t you mean pee-er?”
She cocks her head to the side, causing her towel to slip slightly. She catches it with her hand, righting it but keeping her head to the side as she narrows her gaze on me. “No, I don’t think I do, Tom?”
“Tom?” I ask, genuinely confused by the name. Did all that hot water fry her brain? “Should I call 911 and report a possible stroke?”
“Yeah, sure, do that. I would love to tell them all about how I caught you creeping into my bathroom with your hand in your pants while I was showering.”
“I didn’t see anything,” I growl defensively.
She shrugs a single shoulder, walking to her closet before looking over her shoulder. “Sure you didn’t.”
I grab my tie off the bench in front of her bed, and for a brief moment, I think of all the things I could do with this tie.
Like strangle her to shut her up.
Or gag her and bind her to the bed.
Get it together, Cooper.
Now is not the time to think about this. No, now is the time to finish getting ready for work and then hopefully leave early. The thought of hanging out here before work has my skin crawling, but I will do it if Dillon is still here. There is zero chance I’m leaving Sutton alone with that creep after yesterday. I don’t care if she doesn’t think he would get violent. I’m not going to chance it.
So, unfortunately for me, I’ll be sticking around until either Sutton leaves for the day or the guitar-strumming douche disappears.
Passing Sutton, I grab my bag of toiletries and head into the bathroom to finish getting ready. I make quick work of washing my face and brushing my teeth.
As I’m swishing water in my mouth, Sutton joins me at the sink, bending to retrieve her blow dryer from the cabinet. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. It has a hairbrush-like extension attached to it that she drags through her wet strands.
I stand by in fascination as she makes quick work of her long locks and then moves on to her makeup.
Our eyes meet in the mirror, and Sutton quirks an eyebrow as she pauses her movements. “Do you always watch women shower and put their makeup on?”
“Nope, you’re the first.”
She glances down as her lips lift in a small grin. “I don’t know whether to be flattered or concerned.”
“Don’t limit yourself to one emotion. Why choose when you could be both.”
She snorts, her hands fidgeting with two lipsticks. “Which should I wear?” She holds up two almost identical shades of red. I pull both from her and examine the label at the bottom, reading the names of the shades.
“Maneater or Blood of Thy Enemy.”
She gives me a single nod. “Which should I wear today?”
“Maneater seems fitting.”
She smirks before swiping the color over her plush lips, rubbing them together before leaving me standing alone in the bathroom.
Grabbing one of the tubes she discarded, I remove the cap and twist the base to have the color appear just as she had done.
I lift the red shade to the mirror and hesitate for a split second. Sutton will probably hate this, but there’s always the chance it could make her smile. And as much as she drives me crazy, I love nothing more than making that woman smile.