Eden

“Are we going to talk about it?” Colleen asks me as we sip on Perrier in the Delta club lounge at JFK airport. We board in about half an hour for a direct flight to Shannon, Ireland. We could have gone direct from LA to London, then from there to Shannon, but the flights were full at this late date and this was our only option.

“Talk about what?” I ask as I flip through a magazine that someone had left behind.

“Why you just suddenly show back up in LA and won’t say a word about Coop?” she says dryly. “You could have flown directly to Ireland from Georgia, you know.”

“Nothing to talk about,” I mutter.

“Talk anyway,” she insists, and I look up to find her waiting patiently.

With a sigh, I close the magazine and set it down. “I have no clue what happened. One minute, we’re having sex on the kitchen floor, and the next, he’s telling me it’s over.”

“Okay, first…TMI on the sex,” Colleen says dramatically. “But that doesn’t sound like Coop to just kick you to the curb like that.”

“It wasn’t exactly like that, but it felt like that,” I grumble.

“Explain,” she demands.

“I told him I had to leave for a week to film in Ireland, but that I’d be back for a few weeks before regular filming in London. He was angry about it. Said that we were in the same place that we were in when we first broke up. My life was somewhere else, while his would always be in Newberry. He said we wouldn’t work.”

“And did you try to argue with him?”

“I tried to talk about compromise,” I tell her dejectedly. “But he wasn’t interested. I mean…things were going so damn well, and then, just boom, he’s like, ‘Don’t come back.’ ”

And I took him at his word. While Coop went upstairs to get a shower, I turned off the oven and stove and grabbed my purse. I walked out the door, got into my rental car, and drove to the airport. I didn’t look back.

Coop did text me when I was a good twenty miles outside of Newberry.

Where the hell are you?

I didn’t respond.

He kept texting.

It wasn’t until I was boarding my flight to LA that I finally answered him. I went ahead and left. You said we reached our expiration date.

His response was immediate. I didn’t mean for you to leave right then.

I didn’t respond. There was no sense.

When I arrived in LA, there was a barrage of texts from Coop that kept requesting, then begging, that I call him. He said he was extremely worried about me leaving so upset, but I wasn’t swayed. He could stay worried for all I cared.

I was in Los Angeles only one day to pack my stuff for Ireland. That’s where I’m headed now and I’m moving on with my life.

“Coop said don’t come back?” Collen asks—jolting me out of my memories—not quite believing he could be so harsh.

“He said there was no sense in continuing when it wasn’t going to work for the long term,” I clarify.

“What an ass,” Colleen mutters.

“I wholeheartedly agree,” I quip. “But I can’t regret that time with him. He taught me something valuable.”

“What’s that?”

“That this life I’m leading doesn’t make me happy,” I tell her honestly.

“You mean acting? You want to quit?” she asks incredulously.

“No,” I assure her quickly. “But I don’t think I want to keep the pace I’m keeping. Scale it back. Maybe try some Broadway. Maybe producing or something.”

“Sky’s the limit for you,” Colleen observes. “You’re hot right now.”

“I don’t want to be hot right now,” I say tiredly. “I want to be me. I want to do something I love, and I do love acting. But I don’t want it to be my whole life. Along with modeling, it’s consumed me for fourteen years, and I need more than that.”

“You need a Coop,” Colleen muses, then looks down to her phone that chimes with a text. She’s glued to that thing constantly.

“Not Coop,” I say rigidly. If that man had cared about me at all, he would have talked about things more. He would have tried.

He wouldn’t have given up.

I was willing to make big changes to my career to accommodate him in my life. He wasn’t willing to do anything.

I don’t need a Coop, but I do want something more for myself.

“I don’t know,” Colleen says thoughtfully as she looks back up. “I think he was the real deal. You could see it. I know I wasn’t around him long when you brought him out here to LA, but he seems genuine.”

“Oh, no doubt about that,” I say as I pick the magazine back up and start flipping through it again. I look at the pictures vaguely and mutter, “Coop’s the real deal. He’s just not my real deal.”

“I bet he was just scared,” Colleen says as she manages to text and talk at the same time. A true multitasker. “You explained your history with Coop to me, and I’m thinking he’s just scared. Doesn’t want the same type of pain again. And he’s a man. He can’t see the forest for the trees, you know? Give him time—”

“He gets nothing from me,” I say petulantly as I look at a fashion spread for Gucci. “He blew his chance.”

“You sure about that?” Colleen asks.

I look at her and roll my eyes. “What part of him saying we reached our expiration date didn’t you understand? That was harsh, and I didn’t deserve that.”

“No you didn’t,” I hear Coop say from behind me, and I let out a sharp cry of surprise as I spin around in my seat. And there stands Coop, looking tired and frazzled and leveling a death stare past me to Colleen.

“You’re on my shit list,” he says to her.

My mouth drops open and I look to Colleen, who’s smirking, and then back to Coop. I’m so confused.

“What the fuck is going on here?” I hiss at Coop. “Why are you here?”

“I’m here,” he grits out, “because your business manager made me chase you here.”

“Huh?” I ask stupidly.

Colleen snickers, but I don’t look back at her. Coop on the other hand is glaring at her so fiercely I’m pretty sure he’d strangle her if given the chance.

Finally, he walks around the long couch I’ve been sitting on and comes to sit next to me. Colleen sits across from me in a chair, separated by a low coffee table. This would be a good time for her to give us privacy, but she remains firmly planted in her seat, smiling at us.

Coop grunts and turns to me. “I followed you to Los Angeles. Unfortunately, you got the last flight out that night, and so I was about nine hours behind you. I’d managed to get Colleen’s phone number through some magic Missy worked since you wouldn’t respond to me and I told her I was coming out there.”

His last words were accusatory and accurate. I wouldn’t respond to him and so he had to chase me.

“So you flew to LA?” I ask, stupefied.

Coop turns his head and glares at Colleen again. “Yes, and she knew I was coming. She didn’t bother to tell me you were flying right out to New York until your flight was about to take off. So I had to chase you from LA to New York.”

I turn to look at Colleen and I give her my best disapproving look, but really…I don’t care. Coop kind of deserved it. “Colleen, that was very, very rude.”

“I know,” she says, proud of herself. “But I figured he needed to chase you for a while. It’s his fault you ran.”

With a sigh, I turn back to Coop. “Why are you here, by the way? Surely you didn’t buy a ticket to Ireland just to come in here and talk to me?”

Coop shakes his head, and that beautiful dark hair shimmers. I want to touch it, but I remain steadfast in my anger at him, so I don’t move. “I can’t afford a ticket to Ireland. Got wiped out flying back and forth across the States over the last twenty-four hours. But I only needed to buy a ticket to get past security. I went ahead and got a return one to Atlanta.”

“So you’re here to talk?” I say.

He shakes his head again as he reaches out and takes my chin in his hand. “I’m here to get you back.”

“Get me back?” I whisper, my eyebrows knitted together. This is not the conversation we had night before last.

“Eden,” Coop says with a patient smile. “I came down from that shower, saw you were gone, and I knew immediately I’d made a mistake. Fuck, I knew it while I was in the shower. No, wait, not true. I knew it as I was saying the words that were pushing you away. Knew it was all a mistake from the start. I pushed you away from me because I was a fucking coward and was afraid to try to make it work.”

“Oh, that’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard,” Colleen coos from across the table. Coop releases his hold on my chin and we both turn to look at her.

“Colleen,” I say gently. “Think you could give us some privacy?”

“Hell no,” she says crossing her arms over her chest in defiance. “I want to listen to this.”

I sigh and turn back to Coop, but he’s looking at his watch. His eyes come back up to mine and they’re both frustrated and apologetic. “Doesn’t matter. My flight’s boarding now and I’ve got to go.”

He stands up and I stand up too. “Wait. You can’t just run in here, say those things, and run back out again.”

“I do in fact have to run,” Coop says with a grin. “The doors will be closing soon.”

“Coop,” I say in exasperation. “I have no clue what to even say to you.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” he says softly, and steps toward me. His hand wraps around the back of my neck and he peers down at me earnestly. “Come back to Newberry after you finish filming in Ireland. I’ve got it all worked out and I’ll explain it then.”

“But—”

He cuts me off with a hard kiss that has my head spinning. But then his lips are gone and so is he as he heads out of the lounge.

“Coop,” I call out, still thoroughly confused as to what in the hell is going on. “You know you could have just texted that to me…that you wanted to work it out and you’d had some things figured out.”

He shakes his head, gives me a beautiful smile, and calls back, “You never would have taken me seriously without me flying all over the place to catch you.”

I smile back at him, completely charmed in this moment.

Damn him.

Coop winks at me and then he’s gone.

I sit back down slowly and turn to Colleen. I give her a stern look. “I can’t believe you made him chase me back and forth across the country.”

Her gaze back to me is impassive, unapologetic. I have no clue what she’s thinking.

But then she snickers, and so do I, and then we are both doubled over with laughter.