Chapter 28
Mae
“Is Naomi okay?” I ask him, half-asleep yet awake enough to know something is very wrong.
“Did I wake you up?” he asks.
“That doesn’t matter, Coop. Is she okay? Are you okay?” I ask him again.
There’s a pause, and I almost think the phone call dropped.
“Yes, Naomi is safe, but I don’t know,” he rasps. I can hear the exhaustion in his voice, and I wish I could hug him.
“What can I do?”
He chuckles dryly, and tears prick my eyes. I hate this. I hate that I can hear the pain of regret in his voice. My instant reaction is to help, to comfort, but that would also mean I’m past the shallow end and I’ll have to start swimming.
“I don’t know,” he says.
“I know I have no ground to stand on when I say this, but … you shouldn’t beat yourself up. You thought this was best for Naomi.”
He takes a long breath and doesn’t answer.
“It’s hard not to. Did I mess her up with her screwed-up mother?” he asks.
The answer is maybe, but that doesn’t help at the moment.
“You did what you thought was right. You were giving your sister another chance. That means something.”
“A lot of good it did,” he sighs.
“She’s safe in her bed, unharmed. Focus on that.”
“You’re right, stubborn. See, that’s the perfect name for you. You’re stubborn even with good things.”
I smile to myself and draw shapes on my sheets. The nickname annoys me, yet I have to admit it’s fitting.
“What would be even more helpful is you lying here next to me, telling me I’m not a screw-up father,” he says.
I smile to myself, imagining being next to him, but the last thing Naomi needs is to have her world shaken up again by finding her father with a woman she barely knows.
So video chatting is the closest we can get.
“Answer the video,” I tell him.
He pops up on my screen, and I take in his tired face with a small smile and heavy eyes.
“You’re not a screw up father, Cooper Hayes.”
“Would you tell me if I was?” he asks.
“I wouldn’t be talking to you if you were.”
“Fair.”
“Can you lie here with me for a minute?” he asks.
“Sure.”
He props the phone up next to him as if I’m laying beside him.
I wish I was.
“I had a good time tonight, well, before all of this,” he says.
I smile. “I did, too. Thank you for coming over.”
“I’m sorry I ran out on you,” he says.
“There’s nothing to apologize for.”
“I’ll make it up to you,” he says.
I look away, unable to meet his eyes. “You don’t need to make it up to me, Cooper. You did nothing wrong.”
“Mae,” he says, his voice tired and gravely and sending shivers down my spine. I wonder what it would feel like for him to say that in my ear.
“I want to make it up to you, or at least I’ll use it as an excuse to be with you,” he says.
I nibble on my bottom lip, and he gives me a sleepy grin as his eyes drop closed and a small snore bubbles from his lips.
Normally, I would say watching someone sleep via video is weird. But this doesn’t feel that way. It feels like a foregone conclusion, and I have no choice but to face my feelings and confront my future with Cooper in it.
He’s giving me every reason to dream about a future in Paxton despite my commitment to my parents. But if this flower shop fails, what’s the point? I should go back to Colorado and be there for my mom. Right?
I plug my phone in and leave the video call going, and fall asleep to Cooper softly snoring next to me.