3. Chapter 3
Chapter three
Sutton
S hit. Shit. Shit.
Cars line my driveway and down the street, and music blares through the walls of my house.
People are spread all over the lawn, with beer bottles and red plastic cups scattered around their feet. They stumble and laugh just as I was moments ago.
“What the fuck is this?” Cooper straightens from his slouched drunken state.
“He’s throwing a party.” I huff out a laugh. “Great.”
“Dillon?”
“Yeah. Who else, Sherlock?” Of course he would do this. A little “fuck you” to me from him. Dillon isn’t exactly known for being mature and diplomatic. I’m honestly shocked that I’m surprised by his acting out like this. When I first met him years ago, this kind of recklessness and wild behavior was what drew me to him. He was fun and made me feel alive at times.
A chorus of laughter draws my attention to the side of my house, and my mouth drops open as a group of guys pick at my garden, probably choosing which rose bush to piss on. Nate just planted those and will be so pissed if they die within weeks. But instead of whipping out their dicks as I expected, they laugh and kick over my decorations. “Hey, that’s my gnome. That’s my favorite gnome.”
“Forget the gnome, Sutton. Why is he here?”
I drop my forehead to the window. “Because he lives here.”
A curse leaves his lips as he runs his hands through his hair.
“My sentiment exactly.”
Dillon moved in with me a few months before the wedding. We had waited so long to make our cohabitation official because of his lease and his touring schedule. And his roommates/bandmates needed him there to pay his share until they found something better.
At the time, it seemed like that was never going to happen. Week after week, month after month. They still hadn’t found shit. Until I found it for them. A small three-bedroom house for rent, with a garage for their band’s equipment and a price tag they couldn’t deny.
After that, Dillon packed up what little he owned and moved in. Honestly, that first day he showed up should have been a red flag. He didn’t have boxes or suitcases. Just trash bags full of clothes and albums. I asked about his other things, like furniture or towels, anything else besides clothes and music. And he said, “Oh, that was all my bandmates’.” Everything in that house, in his room, wasn’t even his…
I don’t know why it bothered me so much, but it did. Like, he didn’t even bring a toothbrush. I didn’t get into the specifics on that, but it sounded like the band shared way too much. Maybe even a communal toothbrush. Which makes me want to gag at the thought alone.
“So are one of you going to get out, or what?” the driver asks as the two of us stare out the window, watching the crowd gathering at my house.
“I guess I could go to the honeymoon suite since Dillon isn’t using it. But I think it might be too late to check in… Do you think they’d make an exception for me since I’m clearly a bride? Or maybe since I didn’t actually get married, maybe they’ll feel sorry for me? Or Sheryl’s. Either way, I’m not gonna be staying here.”
“No. Take us to the last stop,” Cooper demands.
I don’t miss the odd looks from the Uber driver at my runaway-bride getup or the sideways glances from the other tenants in Cooper’s building as we stumble into the elevator.
Playing into all of their wondering glances, I lean into Cooper, giggling and running my hands all over his warm chest to the nape of his neck.
When the doors open, Cooper grabs my hand and pulls me out behind him as I wave to our nosy audience.
“Great. Now they’re all going to think I’m a home-wrecker,” he grumbles, tugging me to his door as he fumbles with his keys in his other hand.
“Oh, please. As if anyone would believe you could possibly pull a woman like me.”
A click sounds as he twists the key in the lock, opening the door. “Remind me why I brought you home with me?”
“’Cause I’m an emotionally distressed woman, and you thought I was easy prey?”
Ignoring that last comment, he asks, “You want something to drink?”
I nod, running my fingers over the edge of his couch as I follow behind him. “Whatcha got, Glasses?”
He pinches the bridge of his nose—something he seems to do quite often around me. “I’m not even wearing my glasses right now.”
“So? Still a nerd either way.”
“Red wine or beer?”
“Wine me,” I demand, reaching my hand out as if he already has my glass ready.
Cooper’s forearm is enchanting as he works the corkscrew with gentle pressure. His hands look strong. Not in the same way Dillon’s are. Dil has calluses from playing guitar, but Cooper’s look soft and smooth, like they would glide over my skin perfectly.
I take the glass of dark wine from him greedily and down it, not caring that my head is already swimming from the previous drinks and the sexy thoughts of Cooper running through my mind.
Cooper stands there, staring. Waiting for me to tell him what to do.
The glass clinks as I plop it in the sink. “Can I lie down?”
He sips on his water before responding, “Yeah.” Angling his head in a “this way” gesture, he turns and strolls down the hallway back to what I suspect is his bedroom, and I follow a few steps behind.
His room is everything I expected it to be.
Plain and understated.
So perfect for Cooper.
His walls are a light, millennial gray that matches the gray blanket meticulously folded over his king-size bed. The walls are noticeably bare, and the only furniture adorning the space, other than his bed, is two nightstands and a tall dresser.
I stand quietly in the doorway as Cooper digs through his dresser, finding sweatpants and a T-shirt. He hands the clothes to me before showing me to the bathroom connected to his room.
“Thanks,” I whisper, slipping through the door.
When I arrived at the chapel earlier and put my gown on, I asked my mother to place my clothes and things in her car to drop off at the hotel later. In the flurry of not having the night I had planned, I completely forgot about my shit and let my mom leave with everything, including my phone and a change of clothes.
Normally, I would’ve taken every opportunity to snoop in someone’s bathroom, especially Cooper’s. I would have crossed my fingers and hoped to find a prescription for Viagra and a box of extra-small condoms next to a tube of hemorrhoid cream. But not tonight.
Tonight, any petty thoughts of making fun of Cooper are missing.
Instead, my head is swimming with thoughts of how I barely managed to escape the worst mistake of my life.
While pulling out the remaining pins from my hair, I sneak a glance in the mirror. My perfect wedding dress still looks pristine. It wasn’t marred by the day like I was. Hell, if it weren’t for the glassiness and sadness in my eyes, I’d look like a blushing bride with my flushed cheeks.
Silk and lace slide over my skin as I pull off my wedding dress and leave it in a pile on the floor, then slip into the huge clothes Cooper loaned me. I’m practically drowning in his shirt and the pants. Yeah, those aren’t going to work. I skip the pants, leaving on the shirt that falls to my knees and nothing else.
When I open the door, Cooper is sitting on the bed, waiting for me with a glass of water and two pills. His gaze falls to my bare legs, and he frowns.
Rude .
“Why no pants?”
“Why no regular-people-sized clothes?”
His warm hands graze mine, sending an electric pulse through me as I take the water and pills from him.
“My clothes are fine. I can’t help that you are miniature.”
“Lies. I am, like, five foot five. That’s average.”
“Sure it is.”
I glare at him over the water before I swallow the pills and drain the glass, hating how sweet he can be at the same time as being an ass. Setting the empty glass down on the nightstand, I climb into the bed, burrowing myself in the middle of Cooper’s massive bed. The subtle familiar scent of bergamot fills my nose.
“Where are you going to sleep?” I ask while fluffing the pillow behind my head.
“The couch is calling my name.” He walks to the door, then hesitates for a moment before he looks back, opening his mouth like he wants to say something but doesn’t. Instead, he just flicks off the lights.
“Goodnight, Cooper,” I whisper as my heavy eyes close and exhaustion pulls me under.
The light from the window glares into my eyes, burning away the last bit of peaceful sleep I was holding on to. I roll, twisting the blankets over my head to block out the annoying brightness. A thrumming pain spears into my forehead with the movement, and I still.
Nope .
No more of that.
Fuck hangovers and their stupid symptoms.
I’m not moving another inch. Take that, consequences of my actions.
I’m seconds away from drifting back off when a loud clanging noise jolts me up, and the pain sears through my head again.
Cooper .
Slowly, I crawl out of the cocoon of blankets I’ve wrapped myself up in while sleeping, then shuffle down the hall to where the intoxicating smell of food is wafting from. It also happens to be the same place the head-splitting noise is coming from. Once in the kitchen, I find Cooper standing in front of the stove, hunched over and holding his head.
Sans glasses and hair unruly, Cooper is the picture of perfection, even when he looks like he’s about to keel over.
I push that thought away, not needing my head to be clouded with thoughts of Cooper’s hotness when I just dumped my fiancé at our wedding yesterday.
“You couldn’t have waited to get up until a more humane time, could you, old geyser?” I groan, sliding onto one of the bar stools and lying my head on the island’s cool stone.
He takes a deep breath, then exhales loudly. “It’s two in the afternoon.”
“Well… You could get some better curtains.”
“And you could sign the marriage license like a normal person.”
I glare at him, wishing his head would explode. “Remember that time you tried to kiss me?”
“Remember that time you did kiss me?” he shoots back. God, did I ever. It was the first night I had met him. I was beyond drunk on expensive baby-shower champagne, and he was the most attractive thing I had ever seen. It didn’t help that he played white knight to me while our best friends went home together. I made my move the moment he pulled up in front of my house, practically eating his face. He had to pry me off him.
Like pulled away and pushed me at the same time to get me off him.
So naturally, I did the logical thing and scurried away as fast as I could, like a kid caught stealing an extra piece of cake.
I was humiliated.
Scratch that.
I’m still humiliated.
And I’ve been pretending it never happened ever since.
“Making up stories now? That’s pretty pathetic. Almost childlike. Did you learn that move from some of your students before you abandoned them to become a finance bro?”
His nostrils flare and I know my hit landed. Turning back to the stove, he picks up the spatula, pushing food onto the two plates sitting on the counter beside him.
“Remind me why I let you stay with me?”
“’Cause the elderly always pity youths like me. Taking us under their wings and trying to mold and nurture us into well-rounded adults.” I smile, taking the plate of greasy bacon and runny eggs from him.
“How many times do I have to tell you I’m only thirty-one, not eighty-one, so can you cut the shit?”
“Practically the same thing.”
He sighs and sits beside me, shoving forkful after forkful of food into his mouth until his plate is empty.
I know why I’m being a grumpy bitch, but why the hell is he?
Normally, I poke, he pokes.
I jab, he jabs.
We do this dance back and forth until one of us, aka me, is crowned victor. But today he just gave up. Hardly a fun fight.