Enjoy Your Stay (28 page)

“I don’t wanna know the details.”

“I thought it was you, Coop.” My heart pounds within my chest. I’m sick to my stomach because for too long now I’ve been avoiding this moment, avoiding coming clean, and avoiding having to see him hurt this way. And I know that’s selfish. I know it’s wrong, and it’s so much worse that he found out this way, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell him.

“And when did you figure out it wasn’t me?” His voice falters over that last word. My breath catches in my throat, because I can’t answer knowing what it will do to him. Coop shakes his head. “How long, Holly? Did you come with his mouth on you, knowing it wasn’t mine?”

I stumble over to the bed, and sit down hard on the edge. “Yes,” I whisper, and close my eyes against the onslaught of tears.

He sits up, resting against the headboard. He slams his head back against it. “Fuck!”

I flinch, hating that I’m the one to hurt him this way. He might’ve made mistakes in our past, but Coop deserves better than what I could ever give him, though I’m not selfless enough to give him up. “I couldn’t push him away. I’m sorry.”

“Why the fuck not? Huh, Hols? What is he to you that you can’t pull away from him? That’s my baby you’re carrying. I love you! I’d fucking give up everything for you, I have given up everything, to be here, for you, and it’s still not enough.”

“It is enough. That’s what I came here to tell you. You’re enough for me, Cooper.”

He shakes his head. “Bullshit. If I were enough, you wouldn’t be running to him every chance you get. You wouldn’t let him eat you out, or finger-fuck you in the kitchen while I’m asleep in the next room.”

I reach out and touch his hand, but he shrugs me off, gets up from the bed and begins pacing the tiny room.

“I’m an arsehole,” I say. “I’m a fucking horrible person. I’m a bitch. I don’t deserve you— ”

“You’re right, you don’t fucking deserve me,” he yells. “You know what you deserve, Holly?” I shake my head, afraid to speak for fear I’ll just anger him more. “Him. Jackson Rowe. You both fucking deserve one another.”

“I don’t want him. I want you.”

“Would you just …” Coop pinches the bridge of his nose and exhales loudly. “Just stop talking, Holly. You’re only digging the hole deeper. Just be honest for once, with me, yourself … with him.”

“Okay fine, you know what? I do want him. I want him so fucking much it hurts, but I don’t wanna hurt any more, and that’s all Jackson’s ever good at: hurting. Does that make you feel better, Coop? To hear me say it out loud?”

“Better?” He shakes his head. “No. Not even fucking close, not even a little bit, but at least we’re finally getting somewhere.”

“I want to try this with you,” I whisper.

Coop throws his head back, and runs his hands down over his face. “Why?” he asks, without looking at me.

“Because I want us to be a real family.”

“We can’t do that with him around.” He lets out a shaky breath. “I want you to move to Sydney with me.”

For a moment I just stare at him. All the promises we made to one another once upon a time, all the pain and heartache, and all the love that we once had between us is reflected there in his eyes.

“I love you, Holly. I wanna give our baby a real home. Just the three of us.”

I swallow the lump in my throat, and push back the sting of fresh tears. “Okay.”

Coop narrows his eyes, searching my face. “Okay? Okay you’ll move to Sydney with me?”

“Yes, I’ll move to Sydney with you.”

His responding smile is so wide I’m sure I can see every one of his perfect rock-star teeth. “You’re really serious?”

“Yes,” I whisper.

Cooper takes a few short strides towards me, catches my hand up in his calloused one and kneels down, wedging himself between my legs. He cups my face in his hands. “You have no idea how happy you just made me.”

I smile as he places a chaste kiss to my lips, but inside my heart is cracking open. So why say yes? Why agree to move over seven hundred kilometres away from my home, from my family, from Jack? Because my heart told me to stay, and I’ve never had anything good come from listening to that motherfucker. I’m also finally discovering that my life is no longer just about me. The most important thing in my life is the baby I’m about to bring into the world, and the best thing for him is that we become a family, so even though my heart is breaking, I kiss Cooper back. I shut down the part of me that tells me to stop, silence the voice in my head that says this is wrong.

He climbs onto the bed and pulls me down beside him. For a long time we lay there, talking about what our future might hold, and then when I can’t keep my eyes open any longer he tucks my back into his front, his hand cradling my stomach and he hums to me Otis Redding’s
I’ve Been Loving You Too Long,
a song he always sang to me because I loved when his smooth voice would become gravely over all the right notes and I could practically feel my ovaries exploding. Before I can fall asleep he whispers, “I’m gonna make you happy, baby. You’ll see.”

“I know,” I whisper back. “I know you will.”

And I want so badly to believe it. I want it to be true, even though I know it’s a lie. I know Coop will try with everything within his power to make it happen, and if it were anyone else it might be true, but for me, there’s only one man who can make me feel that way, and right now his heart is probably just as shattered as mine.

T
HE NEXT
morning, it feels like I’ve gone three rounds in the ring with a jackhammer. I wake up on the floor of the tool shed, with the remains of Snickers’ kennel serving as a pillow.
Damn dog
, I think as I shove the broken boards away from me and slowly sit up. I stagger to my feet and immediately fall back down on my arse again, taking half of the contents of the workbench with me.

“Fuck,” I yell, when a jar of nails rolls off the end and smacks me in the head.

I sit and bury my sore head in my hands. My heart slams against my chest when I think about what I did last night. I fucking hated the idea of hurting Holly like that, and yeah, there might have been a hundred other ways I could drive the point home without having Sheri-Lyn ride me like a rodeo cowgirl in our lounge room, but I couldn’t think of a more obvious message that that to say this shit between us is through. I knew it would just drive her further into his arms, but that was kinda the point, wasn’t it? She might not be happy for right now, but someday, she’ll thank me for it.

Still, I didn’t expect it to hurt so fucking bad once the deed was done, and when she walked into the kitchen as I was trying to drown my sorrows in a stolen bottle of expensive whiskey, I lost the very last shred of decency I had left. I shoulda kept my mouth shut. I shoulda let that little fuckrag believe he’d won. I shoulda been able to walk away, give her this one shot at happiness. But I’m a selfish bastard.

I don’t know where Holly and I go from here, but I know one thing’s for sure: every day I spend unable to touch her, hold her, or make love to her is going to tear me apart.

Fuck me; I’m a sorry son of a bitch.

I sit for a good minute, trying to get the hangover from hell to cooperate and not fuck me over again, and then I slowly rise and stumble my arse out into the brightness of late morning. It’s about forty degrees in the shade already, and I smell like a fucking brewery. I stumble into the house, and see Holly and Ana sitting at the table over a cup of coffee. Their conversation comes to a pretty abrupt end when they see me. I probably look like shit. I certainly fucking feel it.

“Mornin’ ladies,” I mutter, knowing full well that one of them is going to ream me out any minute now. I grab a can of Coke from the fridge, and guzzle half that sucker in one go. “Jesus, you two are fucking sombre this morning. Who died?”

Holly doesn’t say anything; she just sits back in her chair and folds her arms over her chest. I glance between the two of them, and notice they both have tears in their eyes.

“No one died, Jack,” Ana says through a croaky throat. “Holly’s moving to Sydney with Coop.”

I crush the Coke can in my hand, pouring liquid out all over my dirty jeans and feet. I toss the thing in the sink, and then turn to face them. “Really?”

“We’re driving back today,” she says, but she won’t look at me. Why the fuck isn’t she looking at me while she feeds me this horse-shit?

“I’m gonna let you two talk this out,” Ana says as she gets up from the table.

“We got nothin’ to talk out, Ana.”

“I think you both know that’s not true.” Ana spears me with a look that’d make even the baddest motherfucker cower. She gives Holly an encouraging smile and leaves us to ‘talk’. What she doesn’t know is that words fail us at every turn.

I lean back against the counter, and drive my hands through my hair. I’m so fucking angry, I could take this place apart with my bare hands. I wanna yell, and scream. I want to fucking shake her, and tell her she’s making the biggest mistake of her life.

“Would you say something, please?” Holly whispers.

“Got nothin’ to say, sweetheart.” That’s not true. There are a million things to say
. Don’t go. Stay. If you think you’re going to be happy with him, you’re wrong.
I know what she wants me to say, but I can’t. It doesn’t matter anymore anyway.

“That’s it? That’s all you have?”

“What do you want from me, Hols?”

“I don’t know, Jack. Maybe a little more than
see ya, have a nice life
.”

“This what you really want? Or what the rock star wants?” I bite out.

“It’s what I want,” she says, and then lowers her gaze and runs her hands over her belly “It’s what’s best for the baby.”

“Bull-fucking-shit,” I say, and lean over the table in front of her. “This is you taking the easy way out. This is you running away.”

“What exactly am I running away from, Jack?”

“Life. Responsibility,” I say, and she opens her mouth to cut me off, but I won’t allow it. “From me.”

“You said yourself you didn’t want this.” She waves her hand over her belly. “You said you couldn’t do this, it didn’t make a difference how you felt about us because you couldn’t handle it.”

“Would it matter if I could handle it? Would you still have stayed here, knowing what he can offer you?”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Come on, Hols, you’re smarter than that. He can provide you with things I can’t. Isn’t that what every woman wants? A rock star, with pockets full of cash.”

“This has never been about money, and you know it. This is about family, and it’s about the baby that I’m carrying that you can’t deal with.”

“Right. Family,” I scoff. “You know what’s funny? Is that he’s asking you to move away from yours.” This is not what I’d planned when I made the decision to push her away. I didn’t sign up for her moving across the state, and never being able to see her again. I’m so fucking furious I wanna punch my fist through a wall. No. Through that fucker’s head. “Where the fuck is he?”

“Why? So you can go and fuck my life up even further?”

“He’s right here,” Cooper says from the doorway, startling the both of us. Holly’s cheeks flame and she drops her gaze from mine.

“This your idea? Taking her away from the only family she has?”

“I’m her family now. Me and my baby are her family,” Coop says with a snide smile.

“How long exactly have you been back in her life? How long you known about that kid? Up until two months ago, you had no idea that baby existed. You know why? Because she didn’t want to tell you. She didn’t want you in their lives.” I step closer, just itching to put my fist through this fucker’s face. “So you can feed all that bullshit to yourself if it helps you sleep at night after you’ve fucked her in your bed, and she’s spent the entire time imagining it was me, but no one else here buys it. You’re not a fucking family. You’re an afterthought.”

“Jack!” Holly says, and steps in front of me. She shoves hard at my chest, knocking me back a few paces. “You are not going to screw this up for me again. I’m moving to Sydney because I want to. I’m sorry that hurts you, but it’s the truth.”

“Nah, that doesn’t hurt me, darlin’. We had a good run, Hols, but personally, I’d rather just get fucked without the headache,” I say, and hate myself for the way her face crumples and the tears that spring up in her eyes, but I dig the grave deeper because she’s leaving with that cock-sucking wanker, and she’s fucking tearing my heart out of my chest, and making feel this shit without her. “Good luck with the baby. Fucking glad that’s another headache I don’t have to deal with.”