Faithful (34 page)

“Cooper, being crazy about each other isn’t enough. If that’s all we’re doing is being crazy for each other, we can get deprogrammed,” I say, trying to lighten the mood so I don’t cry.

“That’s not funny.”

“No, this isn’t funny. It hurts, and I don’t want to go through this again. I don’t think people should try to force change on others. Change has to come from within ourselves— blah, blah, blah. I’m not going to try to get you to accept something you don’t believe in, and I’m not going to settle for what you’re offering. Ultimately, it wouldn’t work, and we’d both end up being miserable.”

Cooper drops his hands at his side, looking stunned. “My family’s record-setting gold medals in divorce happened because people lied to each other. One of the reasons I worked all those hours in the FBI was to escape the insanity of my family, all of their lying and cheating. But my work with the bureau involved a lot of similar people. Do you know how many people looked me in the eye and lied to me?”

I shake my head nervously.

“Hundreds. Thousands. Day after day, I had to talk to liars. When I decided to quit and had the chance to move here, I did it because Carson and everyone I met were decent people. But you were the prize. You were the one I noticed above all else. I value your honesty. You’ve never lied to me.”

“No. I may not have been the nicest person, but aside from sarcastic fibs, I have never lied to you.” My voice falters. I need him to leave so I can barricade myself in the back office and cry alone.

Cooper gives me a solemn nod. “I have to get back to the factory. I left a project unattended,” he says somberly. “When or if you want to talk to me, please do because this is going to be really shitty being near you every day and not being able to be with you.”

Over the next five days, Anita and Tracy are very understanding. After witnessing my tirade during the bridal bouquet toss, they assume I am in relationship fallout mode and keep all conversations on work. I am quiet and overwhelmed with fatigue. I wish Lauren were here to help me get through this; however, she won’t be returning for two more days.

I have managed to become my own worst, wimpy nightmare. I stay late at work to avoid possibly running into Cooper in the parking lot, and I arrive earlier and earlier each day to the point that there’s no point in going home to sleep the four remaining hours. I brown-bag lunch and hide in the workshop, keeping tabs on the comings and goings of Cooper’s bike. I’m developing a nervous tic of hunching and diving from the window every time I hear the roar of a motorcycle.

On Friday, as we work in silence, outside the open front windows, Dylan begins dribbling a basketball on the half court. He’s followed by two other employees, Noelle and Gemma, and then I see Cooper heading out of the factory and making his way over to Dylan. They chat for a moment, and then they start a game against the women.

“How can they play in this heat?” Tracy asks, staring out the window.

I glance up from the beads I’m stringing and notice Dylan and Cooper taking off their T-shirts and tossing them off to the side before getting back in the game.

“That’s how,” Anita replies with a big sigh. “Cooper’s trying to get your attention.”

“I’m well aware of that.”

After twenty minutes of listening to the ball hit the pavement and bang against the backboard, I can’t take it anymore. I put down the necklace I’m working on and decide to take action against Cooper’s little plan. I whip off my T-shirt and head outside. At least I’m wearing my full-coverage, underwire bra today so I don’t have too much on display. As the screen door to the workshop slams behind me, Dylan looks over and breaks out laughing. Cooper is less amused. He stops dribbling and Noelle snatches the ball from his hands as he stares at me.

“Excellent,” Dylan says, unfazed by my attire. “Join the game!”

“Imogene!” Noelle shoots the ball at me, and I take the jump shot. It circles the rim before going in, and Noelle and Gemma cheer.

I’m elated. If I’m going to make a statement and jump around with my breasts bobbing, I better get in some good shots.

“Put your shirt on.” Cooper hasn’t budged. He’s still glaring at me, and unlike the others, he doesn’t find this hilarious at all.

“No. You put your shirt on,” I snap back.

Dylan passes the ball to Cooper and it bounces off his chest as he stalks towards me and gets in my face.

“This isn’t funny, Imogene. Go back inside and put on your goddamn shirt.”

Hands on hips, chest out, I lean forward and look up at his pissed eyes. “No. You started this by banging that ball around. You’re giving us concussions over there.” I nod my head towards the workshop where Anita and Tracy are watching everything from the windows. “If you can take your shirt off and play during your lunch hour, so can I.”

“Everyone in the factory can see you.” He moves to block me so no one other than my employees can see me.

“So what? My bra covers more than my bikini. I’m not anymore indecent than you are. You wanted my attention, you got it.”

“I wouldn’t have to try to get your attention if you’d talk to me. Instead, you’ve been cowering in there all the time. I can’t see you before or after work, because you’re hiding from me.”

“You said
when
or
if
I want to talk to call you. Obviously, I don’t want to talk.”

“Then why did you come out here?”

“To play topless basketball because I have absolutely nothing better to do!”

Gemma and Dylan laugh loudly at that.

“Cooper MacKenzie!” Daisy shouts into a bullhorn from the factory door.

Cooper turns around with a grimace.

“Cooper MacKenzie, you are needed in the factory! We’ve got another snake!”

“I see you got the bullhorn I suggested,” I say wryly.

Cooper turns back to me. “This isn’t over.”

“Hey!” Carson yells as he comes our way. “Can I get my management team to get back to work?”

“We’re coming,” Noelle says as she and Gemma follow Carson back to the factory.

Dylan puts his T-shirt back on. “Come on, Cooper. You’re on snake duty.”

Cooper grabs his Blackard Designs T-shirt off the ground and quickly shoves it over my head.

“Hey,” I fumble into the shirt that smells like Cooper and sweat, spitting out some sawdust that’s clinging to the shirt.

“You’re coming with me,” Cooper says as he grabs my wrist and leads me towards the factory door.

“Why? It’s your problem. I hate snakes.” I struggle to get my wrist free, but his stride and grip are too forceful.

“Because I said so.”

When we enter the factory, all the employees are standing on the far side of the room, looking up at the high rafters. On the middle, flat beam, there’s a big, fat snake curled up. Carson is standing directly underneath the beam, looking up as if he can talk the snake into coming down.

“Sorry, but it’s your turn, and you’re the best at walking the beams,” Carson says to Cooper.

Cooper lets go of me. “Don’t leave.”

“Let’s stand over here,” Carson says as he guides me over to where the others are standing. “We wouldn’t want it to drop on our heads.”

“Why are you sending Cooper up there? What if he gets bitten?”

“It’s not poisonous. It’s just a regular, old garden snake.”

“It looks like a boa constrictor.”

“No. We get these fat, lazy snakes all the time. You might have them, too.”

“You’re kidding? Is that why we get to use your building for free?”

Carson smiles. “Watch him. He’s good at this.”

Silly Carson, of course I’m watching Cooper. He’s shirtless. Why would my eyes not be riveted on his gorgeous body? Seriously, even in heartache, I can’t tear my eyes away from the guy.

Cooper leans a metal ladder against the wall and climbs to the top. Then he grabs onto a beam and does a monkey swing and grab routine until he’s hanging from the beam with the snake.

“Careful,” Daisy says, forgetting she still has the bullhorn up to her mouth so her intended whisper booms through the whole warehouse. As everyone, including Cooper, looks at her, Carson gently removes the bullhorn from her grasp.

Cooper lifts his legs up and wraps them around the beam and pulls himself up until he’s upright, squatting on top of the beam. He stands and then begins to walk the narrow strip of wood, one foot in front of the other as he slowly approaches the snake.

“Shouldn’t you have a safety net under him in case he falls?”

“Shh,” Carson dismisses me. “He does this all the time.”

I continue to watch with a morbid fascination. It’s like watching an Olympic gymnast when you’re tense and worried that they’ll take an embarrassing nosedive off the beam.

“Hey, little buddy,” Cooper says to the snake. In a flash, he has a hand at the base of the snake’s head, holding him up before grabbing the squirming middle.

“Yuck,” I mutter.

Dylan and two other guys hold an industrial sized burlap sack open and stand under the beam so Cooper can drop the snake directly into the bag.

“Are you going to kill it?” I ask.

“No. We release them down the hill, but they like us. They keep coming back,” Carson says.

Cooper does his whole beam walking and swinging routine in reverse until he’s climbing down the ladder. Then he approaches me, and I can tell a lot of the steam has gone out of his engine. I’ll have to remember that snake wrangling is a good way to calm down an enraged person.

Carson and everyone else leave to go back to work, but Cooper stands in front of me as though he’s waiting for me to say something.

“I give. Why did I have to see this?” I ask.

Cooper shrugs. “It was an excuse to get you to talk to me.”

“Nice job. Fine work there with Mr. Slithers. I have to get back to work.”

“Wait a sec.” He reaches into a bin, pulls out a clean company T-shirt, and slips it on. “I’ll walk you back.”

“I’ll walk myself. Really, Cooper, I don’t have anything to say, and I don’t want to have another argument.”

“You might have snakes.”

That shuts me up. He casually puts his arm on my shoulders, and I don’t hesitate to let him walk me back to the workshop.

Anita and Tracy act uninterested as I walk in with Cooper. He does a slow, careful walk around, checking behind and on top of shelves while I stand in the middle of the room, waiting for him to finish.

“No snakes,” he says calmly.

“Good. Thanks.”

“I want to ask you something,” he says. “Walk me to the door?”

“Sure.” I follow him, glancing at Anita and Tracy who both raise their eyebrows.

Cooper steps outside the threshold and closes the screen door gently behind me.

“I have to go out of town for a while,” he says with some trepidation. “I have to hang with my family, and I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, but—”

“Something bad?” I ask softly, instinctively putting my hand on his arm.

His expression is wistful, giving me a powerful urge to hold him. He nods. “It’s not good. And maybe you’re not ready to talk to me, but I was hoping that, if things are really bad for me there … I could call you, have someone I like to talk to.”

“Yes.” I put my hand back at my side. I think of asking him to divulge the issue; however, it may open the door for more heartache if I let myself get sucked into his family’s problems. “Yes, you can call me if you need a friend to talk to.”

“Okay, thanks.” He steps off the threshold and pauses. “You can call me anytime, too.”

“Got it.”

Cooper forces a weak smile.

“Good luck.” I wonder what other worthless things I can say as he turns and leaves.

I hug Cooper’s T-shirt around me, his lingering scent sending a riot of emotions that floor me as I watch his back disappear through the factory door.

Twenty-Six

He doesn’t call.

For fifteen days, I sleep, work, and think of Cooper. Not once do I fall for the temptation to send him an innocent
‘How are you doing?’
text, either.

Lauren and Leo keep the atmosphere in the house upbeat with all their discussions about the baby nursery and names they cannot agree on. They don’t pry into my miserable condition, and I assume Leo already got the details from Cooper and informed Lauren … and the rest of the town. Lauren treats me with care and more sympathy than usual from either her unpredictable pregnancy hormones or from sensing that I’m more fragile than I let on.

I set the table for the lunch we’re having with Carson, Jess, Dylan, and Emma and help Leo put out his famous lasagna. It’s only famous because he always manages to dry it out and burn the top of it. I also help Lauren with side dishes and make three loaves of garlic bread, each saturated with a stick of butter.

“Are you going to eat that whole thing?” Jess points to the basket of bread sitting next to me at the table.

“Probably. If it had bacon on it, I’d marry it.” I pick up a slice and rip a big piece off with my teeth, but the butter isn’t as enjoyable as it should be. I pass the basket to Jess and continue to chew and swallow to look like a participant, though, while everyone else chats about work, Archie’s new girlfriend, and anything else that I tune out.

When Carson’s phone vibrates next to my water glass, I pick it up and hand it to him, noticing the display shows that it’s an incoming call from Cooper.

“I’ll take it outside,” Carson says to the table and leaves to step out on the porch.

Seeing Cooper’s name is enough to make my heart race. The blood is pumping through me, and surely this is my heart actually breaking, or the garlic bread is sending me into cardiac arrest.

I want to scream and tell everyone to shut up so I can hear what Carson is saying to Cooper. Instead, I put my silverware down and rest my head in my hands.

“Are you okay?” Dylan asks, putting his hand on my back.

“No, she’s not.” Jess comes around the table and places her hands on my shoulders.

Carson returns and I look up from my hands to search his expression for any clue about Cooper.

“Cooper is going to be out next week,” he says to Leo. “This is it.”