Chapter Twenty-six – Somewhere In Between #2
What had surprised me even more than the nonchalance with which he’d treated my potential relationship was his request to come home early so he could start on a school project that wasn’t due until December, well after the Thanksgiving break.
It might have raised my doubts about whether he was slipping into old habits, but when my mom said she’d stay with him a while and he hadn’t even blinked, any worry disappeared.
Instead of the silence I’d anticipated when walking in the door, I received a sucker punch to the gut.
Luca was far from asleep. He scrambled to his feet, eyes alarmed, while the woman who’d been sitting at his side on the couch simply shot me a look of disdain.
This. This was why he’d come home.
Not for some school project, but for her. For Eden.
She was in my fucking house. With my son. Unsupervised.
All the anger I’d been holding back after arresting a fourteen-year-old kid for crimes a sleazy adult had conned him into committing came tumbling out unchecked.
“What in the hell are you doing here?”
At my tone, Akela sat up from where he’d been lying at Luca’s feet and whined. Eden, on the other hand, didn’t give a rat’s ass if I was angry. She never had.
She simply raised a brow and gave me a scathing smile. “Shouldn’t I be asking you where you’ve been? You’ve left Luca unsupervised for hours. Isn’t that what got him taken away from me? And yet, here you are, doing the same thing.”
“Leaving my teenage son alone for an hour or two is different than leaving him alone for an entire week at twelve years old, and you damn well know it. So, let’s not play this game.”
“Has it only been an hour, though? I mean, you were practically having sex on the hood of your sheriff’s vehicle with the hotel manager at least five hours ago. So clearly, Luca has been alone all evening.”
I ground my teeth together in an effort not to reply. Not to give her what she wanted, which was a reaction to her exaggeration about Luca as well as the kiss I’d shared with Andie. I hated she’d witnessed another one.
“Mom, I told you, Grandma—”
Eden shot Luca a look that did exactly what she wanted, which was to quiet him. It was a look I knew well. One that told him to shut his mouth or bear the weight of her disapproval.
I wouldn’t have her silencing him, so I directed my question to him. “It’s okay, Luc. I’m not mad at you. Just tell me what your mother wanted.”
Again, Eden didn’t allow Luca to answer. “I wanted to see my son. I miss him. Is that a crime, Lawman? Is missing your child a crime now?”
My back and shoulders went tight at the nickname she’d always had the ability to make sound like a derogatory taunt.
“It is a crime when you violate the court order requiring supervision when you’re with him.”
“Dad—”
“Go to your room, Luca. I’ll talk to you once she’s gone.”
His shoulders slumped. The sullen, defiant look that had slowly been leaving him over the last few weeks returned, only adding to my simmering rage. I wasn’t sure how long I could hold it back. How long it would take before it finally boiled over.
Luca had finally been in a good spot, and all it took was a few moments with Eden to set us back months.
I waited for Luca to stomp out of the room with the dog following him and for his bedroom door to slam shut before turning my attention back to my ex-wife.
As always, she seemed completely unbothered by the entire scene.
She looked as if she could be sipping mai tais at the Chateau Marmont with friends.
She’d shed whatever dress she’d worn as a bridesmaid, replacing it with artfully distressed jeans, a white thermal, and a green quilted vest with a beanie over her black hair.
She looked like a commercial for a ski lodge.
“I’m reporting this to the family court, Eden. You can’t just show up.”
“And I’ll be reporting my findings to the judge too. You’ve all but abandoned Luca for your new little sidepiece and your never-ending job.”
“Keep Andie out of this,” I snapped. “And no judge in his right mind is going to agree with the term ‘abandonment’ when my mother was with him all evening and left less than an hour before I walked in the door. So try again. Why are you really here?”
“I miss Luca!”
For two seconds, I thought maybe she really did. But then she kept going, and the truth carved through me with renewed viciousness.
“Everyone keeps asking about him. No one understands why I’m never seen with him anymore.”
She was taking heat for her son’s disappearance from her life. Probably not just from her so-called friends, but from her fans. Before now, Luca had featured heavily in her I’m-such-a-great-mom posts. Now, he’d gone dark.
“You haven’t brought him back to LA in months. When Anika told me she was in a bind, I knew it was the perfect chance to see him again.”
“You needed a new photo for your socials, and it’ll kill Luca when he realizes that’s all you wanted.”
“You always think the worst of me.”
A car door shut outside. My gut, already clenched tight, seized further. I hadn’t heard Andie’s SUV pull in, and any anticipation I might have felt at her walking in my door was stolen from me. Things were only going to get uglier.
“Unlike you,” I snapped, “I tell the truth as I see it.”
I’d barely gotten the words out when the front door eased open, and Andie stepped inside. Her eyes widened, taking in Eden, still sitting like she didn’t have a care in the world, on my couch, and me across the coffee table from her, probably looking like I was ready to shoot her.
“Oh, my God. She’s living here?” Eden finally stood, and her eyes flashed with another look I knew well. Triumph. As if she’d just pulled the trump card out of the deck. “You have another woman living with my son and didn’t even clear it with me?”
Andie’s hand dropped off the door handle, and she looked ready to run.
“Don’t you dare walk out,” I demanded and immediately wished I could take it back as Andie froze in her spot.
She didn’t need some angry asshole commanding her to do anything.
She’d had enough of that in her lifetime.
So, I swallowed back my annoyance and softened my tone. “Please stay. Eden was just leaving.”
Eden grabbed her bag from the arm of the couch and threw it over her shoulder. “We’re not done with this conversation, Cooper. You can’t just bring some tramp into my son’s life and expect me to sit back and take it.”
A noise escaped my chest that was a combination of a growl and a bark. Eden didn’t care, but Andie’s eyes grew wide.
Eden strode toward the door, her stride determined, purposefully knocking into Andie as she went by.
“Better get your kicks while you can. He never chooses the woman he supposedly loves over anything else. Not his job. Not his cop partner. Not his parents. Not even his stupid woodworking. And he definitely won’t choose you over his son, so once I get the judge to see things my way, he’ll drop you to keep whatever hold he can on Luca. ”
And with that, she sauntered out. The only sign she was upset was the way she banged the door shut with enough force to shake the entire house.
Andie’s eyes were still wide as she took me in. My body was rigid with the effort it took not to punch something.
As we stared at each other, I wondered how long it would be before Andie turned and walked out.
She’d already been retreating before I’d gotten her back in the boat with me, and having Eden come at her was just another reason for her to leave.
I couldn’t blame her. She didn’t need my baggage piling up on top of hers.
I’d told her I’d help her, not add more problems to the enormous ones she already carried.
I wasn’t sure how long we stood like that, watching each other, waiting for the other to make the first move, but it felt like a lifetime went by in those seconds. I saw every vision I’d had of a life together spiraling away.
And I was helpless to stop it, because I was afraid to speak. To move. I didn’t want the overwhelming emotions raging through me to scare her.
Surprise seared through the anger when, instead of heading for the door, Andie dropped her purse and came to me. She wrapped her arms around me, pressed her body up against mine in that way that made us feel like puzzle pieces notching together, and squeezed tightly.
For another few heartbeats, my body remained stiff, unable to unlock itself, no matter how hard I tried, regardless of the way her scent and her warmth bled into me.
“She’s wrong, Cooper.” Andie lifted her face, resting her chin on my chest and staring up at me as I searched her eyes for understanding.
“The only person I’ve seen you put last is yourself.
The tenderness, the care, the love you give everyone else all but radiates from you.
She was striking out, trying to hurt you and take away what you’ve claimed as yours. ”
I couldn’t reply. My voice was still stuck in my throat.
Andie lifted onto her toes and placed a gentle kiss on my lips. “Because that’s what I am, Cooper. I’m yours.”
Finally, my body unlocked itself. My arms banded Andie’s waist, and I pulled her impossibly closer.
I ran a hand over her hair and kissed her as if she were the oxygen I needed to breathe.
As if she were the lifeforce keeping my heart beating.
And with each press of my lips, with each glide of my tongue, I tried to embed the truth into her—she and Luca were all that mattered.
They were the top of my priority list in equal spots, not at the bottom like Eden had spewed.
And maybe that was what pissed my ex off the most, the idea of someone other than her actually earning the spot she’d so easily rejected.