Chapter 38
Eva
It was well after midnight before I could finally breathe.
Well after midnight when I’d relayed everything I knew, everything I thought, everything I still wasn’t entirely sure about but didn’t want to hide anything else.
My dress was long discarded, replaced with a pair of sweatpants and a jumper, my hair thrown on top of my head.
Andy and Arna dropped us home, leaving soon after but Seb and Marls stayed.
And I was glad for that. Cooper deserved to see there were so many people who genuinely loved him.
People who were on his side and I wasn’t sure how he was going to react when I told him the terrible things I suspected his father had been involved with.
I explained how the numbers never added up.
The missing barrels. That one specific label.
And then I explained how it was always Grant logging those items. The ones which I could never quite get to add up.
I explained how he'd been dismissive when I tried speaking to him. How he’d tried to confuse me with distillery terminology because he couldn’t convince me of his garbage, and it was then I started to put things together.
When Sebastian asked what that had to do with Marcus, I explained how Xavier had to come help me at Golden Spades.
And once we had our suspicions, he followed Grant.
Turns out Grant uses Marcus’ gym to store stolen product.
I showed them his message confirming he’d seen Grant at the distillery again tonight loading barrels into a truck.
An order that hadn’t been in any sales reports I’d checked over the past four months.
I went on to detail the last few weeks of vigilante detective work, culminating with the moment I overheard Preston on the phone tonight. The moment when everything unexpectedly came together.
Sebastian cut in with a dry smile. “Damn. It seems like her eavesdropping skills have saved us more than once.”
“They haven’t always been great,” I sighed, remembering conversations I’d heard which possibly weren’t for me.
Conversations which I may have blown out of proportion or misinterpreted.
But tonight, that wasn’t what had happened.
Tonight, it was as my brother boldly claimed, a saviour. Although it wasn’t without casualty.
“Guess that explains that bottle of whiskey which tasted the same. I bet they’ve been undercutting you with your own product.” Seb said and Cooper watched him, his brain processing.
“And that was when I knew,” I said, needing to get it all out.
“I was confident it had all been a ruse and Marcus and Grant were involved but it wasn’t until tonight that I realised Preston was too.
” I stared at Seb to avoid looking directly at Cooper as I told him his father knew everything.
I just didn’t have all the proof. Cooper watched me silently.
He hadn’t asked any questions, nor had he interrupted, and I was desperate to hear his thoughts.
Desperate to comfort him and talk through it all but more than anything, I really just wanted to know if he was okay.
I was tired of watching him fight so hard against people who didn’t warrant his loyalty. And even now, he sat still through all of it, face unreadable. Silent.
Sebastian and Marls exchanged a glance, then stood. “We’ll call first thing in the morning,” Seb said, pulling me into a quick, tight embrace. He then shook Coop’s hand, murmuring he was there for whatever he needed before they quietly left.
And then it was just us.
I turned to him, heart in my throat, and still, he didn’t move, didn’t speak.
“I’m sorry,” I said, stepping towards where he sat on the lounge.
“I’m sorry you’ve had so many people in your life who didn’t fight for you.
Who made you believe you didn’t deserve their honesty and their time.
People who lied to you. Took from you.” He looked at me, still guarded, but I knew he was listening.
Knew by the way his face softened, by the way he exhaled deep and long.
“But I’m not them,” I whispered. “I will fight for you. And I will always be honest with you. Which means... I have one more thing to tell you. Something I should have told you years ago.”
His eyes finally met mine, and in them was a glimmer of hope - fragile but real. The first spark of emotion I’d seen in him since we came inside, and I opened the floodgates.
“We were supposed to fool everyone, but I think I fooled myself most of all.” I said with a self-deprecating laugh.
“Part of me has always loved you, Cooper. Since I was a little girl. You were always the one. Saving me from being alone, from being sad, from people who tried to hurt me. And for a long time, it made me feel helpless. Like a burden. I loathed that I was the younger sister who needed saving all the time. But then I realised… you didn’t do it just because you had to.
You did it because you wanted to. It’s who you are. It’s in your blood to protect.”
I took a breath, forcing those tears to stay away.
“Maybe love isn’t something you find. Maybe it’s something you realise. Something you had within your grasp only you were too scared to ask the right questions.”
A tear slipped down my cheek and I didn’t bother brushing it away.
“I know this will surprise you, but I’ve asked a lot of questions in this life, and the answers always come back to you. And it’s okay if you don’t feel the same. Really. But I need to get it out. To tell you that I’m in love with you.”
He kept watching me, silent, his eyes burning through me and I shrugged with a soft smile. “That’s me done. I need you to say something now, please.”
His knuckles still stained with blood rested on the lounge beside him, his body having deflated in front of me as I spoke. As I professed by love.
“Five, Two, Two, Two, Five,” he said, his head coming up in a slow, measured movement.
“52225 Reserve. Transcendence.” His gaze was sharp and searching.
“That was one of my first labels, Evy. And the numbers were there the entire time, hidden in plain sight. Even in your absence, my love for you was always there.”
I couldn’t move. My thoughts clicked into motion, as the truth behind those five digits crystallised.
“Five - twenty-two, twenty-five,” I whispered, intentionally separating each until I was left with the meaning. “Evy?”
He nodded, barely smiling, just enough to let me know I was right. And I couldn’t believe it. All this time, he’d been thinking of me too. While I’d been sending him annual birthday treats, he’d been declaring his love through a whiskey which sat on shelves everywhere. Loving me too.
“I used to force myself to wait up for you. To long for the end of the night when your brother fell asleep and you’d sneak downstairs,” he huffed a small laugh, and I took a step towards him. Needing to be closer.
“It’s funny, because, at the time, I craved your friendship. I craved how I could be honest with you without recourse. Without judgement or mockery. And you’d ask questions no one else would ever dare. And I loved you then,” he said, as if it were the easiest admission to make.
“But the love was different. And then on one of the last times I saw you for a while, I started to realise things had changed. And I felt guilty. To Seb because he was my mate and I was breaking bro code, you know? But also, to you because I was meant to be your protector. Someone you could always count on. Not someone who was thinking of you like that. But it didn’t matter how guilty I felt, or how much I tried to ignore it, because my love wasn’t just attached to you.
It was attached to what you brought out in me. ”
I was mesmerised, hanging on every single word, terrified if I interrupted, he would stop saying the things I’d longed to hear him say for more than half of my life.
Without realising, I was standing less than a metre from him and when he held his hand out for me to take, I slipped my hand in his and sat down like we used to do all those years ago.
“It took me a long time to recognise what I felt. Too long. And I’m sorry that I missed it when it mattered. But I see it now. And I’m not scared to tell you.” Shifting, he turned to face me on the lounge, our legs just touching, and the rest of the world faded to nothing.
“I’ve never been fluent in emotion, but somehow, you always made it seem not just acceptable, but right to feel the way I did.
You made me feel things other than anger and sadness.
When I’m with you, I don’t want to fight.
I don’t want to allow myself to succumb to those feelings.
Because you give me hope. You always have and you never laughed at my dreams or the things I wanted, and mostly, you never let me hide.
You and your questions and those knowing eyes of yours.
” I swiped the tears from my face with the hand not still holding his, my head slightly shaking because I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“And that was why I named one of my very first whiskeys 52225 Reserve. Transcendence. Because loving you and feeling your love gave me the strength to rise above the noise in my head, Evy.”
He exhaled, averting his gaze as he looked down at his bloodied hands.
“You love me?” I asked, unable to allow another second to go by without asking a question. Asking the question.
“I never wanted perfect,” he said, leaning over to press a kiss on my jaw, “just real.” His hands moved, until he pulled me onto his lap before nuzzling into my neck.
“And since the day you walked into my office, you’ve been the realest thing in my world.
” Pressing his forehead to mine, his hands gripped my waist firmly.
“You fought for me,” he whispered, and I brushed my hands through his hair, lifting his head in the process until we were eye to eye.
“Don’t look away,” I begged, needing this connection. Needing him to know I was here.