23. Renée
23
RENéE
I landed in Jacksonville, then rented a car and drove to the small town of Suwannee Grove, nestled somewhere between Jax and the I-75 exchange.
The entire place was enchanting and so lovely with the river winding lazily through the town. Spanish moss hung from trees like lacy veils. Kudzu covered pine trees and made the entire area a vivid green.
None of the houses looked the same, except for the newer areas I drove through. All the while, my gaze busily drank in all that I saw. Cooper Thorne had grown up here. Ran these streets. He’d dated and learned how to play baseball here. His family and friends lived in these neighborhoods.
It was too much, and I started to get overwhelmed the closer my phone’s GPS brought me to his apartment.
I pulled into the long drive that led to two single rows of buildings set off from all the other houses in the area. It reminded me of a place where someone had planned to build more apartments but had either run out of money or decided they like the aesthetic of the lake view more than ruining the environment.
I parked the rental car in a space and got out. I looked up at the numbers on the units. Cooper’s was 206. An end unit, on the top. An outside staircase led to a landing. I walked up and knocked on the door, waiting nervously as the sounds of insects buzzed in the air from the water to my right.
Movement from inside had me holding my breath in anticipation. Then, he opened the door, and my hormones and body went haywire.
God, he was beautiful. I swallowed down my nervousness as we stared at each other. “Hello,” I said because he didn’t look as if he could speak as well.
Cooper shook himself and opened the door wider. “Come on in.”
I stepped over the threshold and smiled. The entire space was so him. Minimalist in the extreme. No extras. What was there was there. Nothing extraneous or flashy. Just pure Cooper.
A thought struck me that he’d hate my house. Would probably find it big and garish. It was the first chink of worry that pinched through my protective emotional armor.
“Would you like to have a seat? Are your thirsty, hungry?”
I nodded. “I could use some water.”
“One water coming up.”
As I watched him move around the kitchen, I noticed he seemed a bit flustered, too. Like he hadn’t been expecting me to actually go through with the visit.
“I’m sorry, I intruded on your time. You probably wanted to leave Bali behind you.”
He turned and looked over his shoulder at me. His eyes gave away nothing. “What makes you say that?”
“I don’t know.”
He crossed the room to me and handed me the water. I thanked him then took a sip. It was good and cold.
After taking a sip, I looked up at him. “You are going to think I’m making a mountain out of this, but I wanted to see your face when I ask you a few questions.”
“To see if I’m lying?”
I frowned. “I’m not sure I’d know. You give nothing away.”
He laughed. “Not true. My face gives everything away. The reason you’re saying that is because I did recognize you from the first moment I came up onto the deck. The bargain was that you wanted a weekend without names. I figured that meant you didn’t want anyone to recognize you, including me.”
“Well, that answers one of the questions.”
He sat next to me on the sofa and turned so his body was angled to me. “What’s the others?”
“Tell me about the umpire.”
For a moment his eyes widened and then he looked away. “All right, I didn’t expect you to ask me about that, but I understand why you are. I have no excuse other than letting my temper and the heat of the moment rule my common sense.” He shook his head in either pity for himself or the other guy. “He’d been ragging on me the entire game. Saying shit every time he got close. I’d been playing horrible, and it kept getting worse the longer the game went on. I’d finally reached my limit and punched him.” He lifted his shoulders. “No excuse. And it ruined my career. So, I’m living with the humiliation and consequences of my actions every day of my life. A classic case of fucked around and found out.”
I reached out and covered his hand with mine. He looked down at them. Then he turned his over and gripped mine.
“You asked for a boon from the weekend. To get connections to help you in your career. Do you want me to call on people in the league that I know?”
Sadness filled his eyes, and his gaze met mine briefly before he stood and walked to the other end of the living room to look out the bay window that faced the lake. “No. If I do this, I need to do so on my own. Make amends and get a second chance because I stepped up and earned it. Not because of some weekend I spent with a billionaire.”
My heart tripped and I fell a little bit more in love with him. “What changed your mind?”
He turned back to me again, his eyes filled with a storm front of emotions. “You. Just you.”
I couldn’t be sure who moved first. The next thing I knew we were standing in the middle of his living room kissing as if our next breath depended on it.
I gripped his face so tightly that my hands ached. When I realized what I did, I gentled my touch and wound my arms around his neck.
He pulled his mouth away. “Fuck, Renée, I want you so damn much.” He rested his forehead on mine. His breath came hard and fast.
I nodded. “I know. Me, too.”
His moan turned into a pained laugh. “Want to go check out my bedroom ceiling?”
“Oh, yes.”