Chapter Eleven
Cooper was quick. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him run. Certainly not in his underwear holding a toothbrush, but he beat Ryan to the door.
“What the fuck, man?” Ryan cried.
“You’re not leaving until you hear us out,” Cooper told him.
Ryan stared at him, but pointed to me. “That’s my dad, man!”
“I know that,” Cooper said calmly, still holding the toothbrush like it wielded some magical power. “Please. Just sit and listen.”
Ryan shook his head, but he turned to me, where I stood half-dressed and helpless near the kitchen counter. The fight in him was gone, or the flight, as the case might be, and Cooper walked him to the sofa and sat him down.
Ryan was now pale and looking a little sick. I took a seat beside my son and sighed. “It’s a long story,” I said, rather pathetically.
“Oh, Jesus,” he breathed. “You’re not even denying it!”
Then he started to breathe erratically, like he was going to hyperventilate or throw up. Cooper disappeared into the kitchen and came back with a paper bag. I didn’t even know I had paper bags. “Here, breathe into that,” he instructed. “Put your head between your knees.”
“I’m not on a fucking plane,” he said, but snatched the bag and started to breathe into it.
Cooper kneeled down in front of him, still wearing just his briefs and still holding the toothbrush. “Ry, Tom and I have been seeing each other for about six weeks.”
Ryan lowered the paper bag. “The guy you’ve been seeing, the one you were all so secret-squirrel about, was my dad?”
Cooper nodded. “Yes.”
“Oh, fucking hell,” Ryan squeaked. “The one you said sucked dick like a Dyson?”
Cooper shrugged and shot me a not-even-sorry glance. “I was drunk…”
I fell back on the sofa and groaned, and Ryan put the paper bag back to his mouth and started to breathe into it again.
“Look,” Cooper said. “Ryan, it’s complicated.”
Ryan nodded and spoke into the bag. “Tell me about it.” Then his eyes fell to what Cooper was holding. “You have a toothbrush here?”
“Tom just bought it for me,” he answered with a smile.
Ryan huffed into the paper bag. “You call him Tom?” Then Ryan gaped at me. “He calls you Tom?”
I nodded. “Ryan, we never meant to keep anything from you. I never meant to have secrets, or to go behind your back, but this thing between Cooper and I is… Well, it’s complicated.”
He lowered the bag. “So you keep saying.”
“No one can know,” Cooper said. “We work together, I’m an intern at your father’s firm, and they have these policies…”
Ryan turned slowly to stare at me. “You’d risk your precious fucking career for him?”
“Ryan,” I warned, but it was Cooper who spoke.
“It’s mine, Ryan. It’s my career he’s protecting,” he said quietly. “If we were found out, Tom would get no more than a slap on the wrist, but me? I’d be lucky to get a job cleaning floors.”
Ryan shook his head. “So why the hell do it?”
“Why do you think?” Cooper asked. “Jesus, Ryan.”
“You like him?” Ryan asked, staring at Cooper. “You’re serious about him?”
Cooper looked at me then at the floor. He nodded and whispered, “Yes.”
I smiled, despite the whole unfolding scene. Ryan turned to me, he saw me smile at Cooper, and he rolled his eyes. “And you like him? You want to be with him?”
I was still smiling at Cooper when I answered. “Yes.”
“How very fucking Disney,” Ryan cried, putting the paper bag back to his mouth. He breathed into it a few times, then lowered it. “He’s the same age as me!”
“I know that,” I answered quietly. Ryan was angry, and I guessed well within his rights to be so.
Then he stared at Cooper. “My dad?” he asked. “Dude! If older guys are your thing, then find someone else who’s not my father!”
Cooper gave him a sad smile. He scratched his head and sighed. “Ry, do you remember back when were in the twelfth grade and you had it so bad for that Rebecca chick? And she was such a bitch, and we all hated her, but you wanted her?” Cooper asked, and Ryan stared at him, confused.
It was weird for me to hear Cooper talk like the twenty-two year old he was, and I wondered what he was talking about too, but then he explained. “Well, this is a bit like that,” he said, nodding to himself. “We paid out on you, but when you told me you were serious, I let it go. Regardless of what I thought, I did everything I could to help to help you date her, and you told me it meant a lot, remember that?”
Ryan nodded.
Then he was back to the Cooper I knew. “So, Ryan, you need to let it go,” Cooper said simply and seriously. “You need to grow up and realize this isn’t about you. I’m sorry to put it like that, but that’s just the way it is. What we do, or what goes on between me and your father, ultimately doesn’t concern you.”
Ryan stared at him. “If you’re gonna lecture me, can you at least put on some freakin’ clothes?” Then Ryan looked at me. “I fucking hate it when he gets all I’m-tellin’-ya-how-it-is like that. He was like it when we were in high school. He’s still fucking like it. He should have been a cop, or a teacher, or a lawyer.”
I smiled. “He’s fairly straightforward, yes.”
Cooper smiled, and the air between the three of us seemed to relax. He stood up and groaned loudly. “You’d think I’d be used to being on my knees by now.”
Ryan but the bag back to his face and breathed into it with a groan. “Coop, don’t.”
Cooper walked toward the hall. “I’m gay. There will always be dick jokes.”
Ryan looked at me like it was my fault. I held my hands up. “No dick jokes from me.”
“I should think not,” Ryan said. Then my son leaned back on the sofa, let his hand holding the paper bag fall to his thigh and sighed. He took a few deep breaths. “Does Mom know?”
“No, of course not,” I told him. “No one knows. Well, Jennifer knows, and now you do.”
“And you really like him?”
I nodded. “I never expected it, and I never went looking. We started working together and it just kind of evolved.” I looked around to make sure Cooper was still out of the room. “We’re not even sure if it’s going anywhere, we really don’t know if it can go any further. It just is what it is at the moment. It was never supposed to get serious, with work and all…”
“You weren’t kidding when you said it was complicated.”
I snorted. “No. And Cooper’s right. We need this to stay quiet.”
Ryan nodded. “Who the fuck would I tell?” he asked rhetorically. “They’d all think I was bullshitting them anyway.”
“How about I finish making that coffee?”
Ryan nodded. “Good idea.” Then he added, “How about you put a shirt on while you’re at it?”
“Deal,” I said, and as I walked to the hall, Cooper walked out. I whispered, “Be nice.”
I got to the door of my room when I heard Cooper say, “Hey, douchenozzle, help me get lunch ready.”
I took a deep breath and walked into my robe to get a shirt.
* * * *
Ryan left later that afternoon, and I thought he was okay with it. We’d had lunch and Cooper and him had been acting like old times before he’d left, so I presumed he was okay.
He’d said he was okay with it. He’d said he wouldn’t tell anyone, but he’d said he’d need some time and asked us to refrain from displays of affection in front of him so he didn’t completely freak the fuck out.
His words, not mine. But I agreed wholeheartedly. I had really only gotten my relationship with Ryan back after the split with his mother, so all things considered, he’d taken the news pretty well.
But things between Cooper and I were different after that. Someone outside of us, outside of Jennifer, knew about us. It made it more…real.
We’d admitted, while not to each other, but to Ryan, that we liked each other, and that we were serious about this. And that made it more real.
And of course it was the last week of Cooper’s internship, which also made it more real. We were on a deadline, of sorts. One way or another, something would change and now we’d admitted feelings it made something already complicated even more complicated.
It was never supposed to be complicated. It was never supposed to be anything. I certainly was never supposed to be involved with a man I worked with, a man half my age. I was never supposed to have feelings for him, or to enjoy every moment I spent with him.
And as the days drew closer, as the final week wound down, it was the whopping big elephant in the room I was never supposed to deal with.
Cooper seemed to pretend it wasn’t an issue, so I did too, despite how much it worried me. The bottom line was, if I told the Board I wanted him to stay at Brackett and Golding, then we couldn’t be together. If I told them I didn’t want him to work at the firm then he’d never forgive me. Sure, it wasn’t my pending decision, but my opinion held water in the firm. If I told them he was as good as I thought he was, they’d want to keep him for sure. It wasn’t fair on him, because he was good, and he deserved to work at the best architectural firm in New York.
And like a light bulb popping up over my head, I picked up my phone. “Jennifer, can you get Louisa Arlington’s number?”
* * * *
The meeting on Friday afternoon to decide the fate of the interns was awful. I sat there with my head turned, looking out of the window, unable to bear looking at Cooper.
When his name wasn’t called as one of the interns offered employment, he stood for a moment, then professionally thanked the other partners for their time and experience before he walked out.
I didn’t watch him leave. I couldn’t. I felt nauseated, and after I’d sat in my office wondering what the fuck I’d just done, I told Jennifer I wasn’t feeling well and I left.
She was concerned about me, probably just as confused by my actions as Cooper. She knew I liked him. She saw how happy he made me, and she’d just seen me throw it away.
I couldn’t bear to look at her either.
I went home and threw myself onto the sofa and buried my face in my hands. Not long after, the intercom buzzed and Lionel’s voice said, “I tried to stop him, but Mr. Jones is on his way up. Should I call the police?”
I got up and pressed the button. “No, it’s fine.”
“He’s quite upset, sir.”
I nodded, though Lionel couldn’t see. “I know.”
Then there was banging on the door. “Tom, open the door. I know you’re in there.”
I walked slowly to the door, unlocked it and let it swing open. Cooper walked inside and started yelling. “So is that it? What was I, just some summer fuck? Was that all I ever was?”
“Absolutely not,” I said quickly.
“Was any of what you said to Ryan the other day true?” he asked. He was clearly upset, and very angry. “You told him you liked me. Was that a fucking lie too?”
“No,” I told him.
“Then why did you tell them not to hire me?”
“I told you it wasn’t my final decision, Cooper.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it. Whatever the almighty Thomas Elkin wants, he gets.”
I shook my head. “That’s not true.”
“Bull. Shit,” he said through clenched teeth.
“So was the only reason you were so interested in me was because you thought I could get you a job?”
“What?” he cried. “No, fucking hell, Tom, no! Every single fucking thing I’ve said to you is the truth. I didn’t expect you to get me a job because of us. If any interns got offered a job, I would have expected a shot because I’m fucking good at what I do. They hired Anna, and I’m better than her.”
“You are!” I said. “You’re the best!”
“So put me on the ground floor,” he said. “I’ll work my way up. I’ll be someone’s fucking assistant, I don’t care.”
“You’re too good to be an assistant. You’ve got too much talent to be in anyone’s shadow, particularly mine. You need to prove that you can do it on your own and not because of who you’re with.”
“You’re not hiring me because I’m too talented?” He threw his hands up. “Jesus Christ! What kind of fucked-up logic is that?”
“The logic that keeps us together!” I yelled back at him. “If you stay at Brackett and Golding we can’t be together. Not permanently, not ever. We could hide it for two or three months when you were working with me as an intern, but on a permanent basis…it just wouldn’t work.” Then I stared at him. “I don’t want to hide anymore. I want more than that.”
He shook his head, not believing a word I was saying.
So I told him, “I’ve lined up an interview at Arlington Initiative for you. They have the same reputation as us. I’ve specifically called in this favor, telling Louisa Arlington you’re the best I’ve seen. I told her you have ten times the talent I had at your age and I sent over some of your work. She wants to meet you. Tuesday morning, ten o’clock. I’ve worked with her. She’ll give you more than what I could.”
“You what?”
I nodded. “You should work for the best.”
“I want to work for you!”
“You’ll go further with someone else!”
Cooper shook his head. “Why? Cut the crap and tell me the real reason why?”
“Because I want you to move in with me,” I told him. “I want you to live with me, to be with me. I want to be with you and we can’t do that if we work together.”
He stared at me with his mouth open.
“If you work at Brackett and Golding you won’t be taken seriously. Your work will be discredited because of me, because if we’re together they’ll assume you only got the job, got promoted, got whatever, because of me. Can’t you see that?”
He shook his head. “And who the fuck lets you decide?” he yelled at me. “What makes you think I wouldn’t choose the job over you?”
I stared at him. “What?”
“You’re so sure we we’re going to be together, you’re so fucking certain that we’ll be together so you decide I can’t work there,” he spat out. “What if I wanted the job and not you? If we’re not together, then I can work there, yes?”
I couldn’t speak. My heart was hammering. Breaking. I nodded, and my voice croaked. “I guess.”
He walked up to me. His jaw was clenched and he pointed his finger into my chest. “You don’t make that decision for me.” He backed off, then paced around my apartment, picking up his things and putting them in his satchel. “And you don’t ask me to move in with you like that. You don’t ask someone to be with you in the middle of an argument, Tom.” He shoved a shirt into his bag.
I looked at him packing his things. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to my apartment,” he said. “I need some time without you telling me what to do, without you telling me how to live my fucking life.”
“I didn’t mean to,” I said weakly. “That’s not what I meant. I had about two minutes to make a decision. I didn’t have time to find you, to speak to you, so I rang Louisa. I thought I was doing the right thing, for you, for us…”
“Without asking me,” he said simply. “Without any consideration for what I want.”
“Cooper, please.”
But without another word, he picked up his satchel, turned and walked out of the door.
After the yelling, after all the things he’d said, the silence he left behind was the hardest thing to deal with.