Chapter 10
Hayden
“Truth is only a hard pill to swallow if you’re lying to yourself.”
~ Nora O’Sullivan
“Where do you want these?” Coop asked as he lifted the metal panels.
He and Bryson had volunteered their Sunday in order to help me install the kennels and I had to admit, it was amazing how much more got accomplished with the extra hands.
“Back corner,” I directed them.
I’d always hated accepting help from people, but this was too big a project for me to take on myself. My dad and Hudson had been helping all week and my boss, Sawyer, had been around to offer up some extra manpower and materials. The space was coming along faster than I could’ve ever imagined it. All that was left really was the kennels and the training course.
With all three of us working the kennels were up in record time.
“It’s really coming together,” Cooper observed after double checking his last bolt.
“It is.” I nodded. “Thanks for coming by and helping out. I really appreciate it.”
“Don’t thank us. Beer us,” Coop demanded.
“Done.” I crossed to the fully stocked fridge and grabbed three bottles.
As I handed them out, Coop turned to Bryson. “So how’s Jade’s dating thing going?”
I knew he’d brought it up just to mess with me. Coop was about as subtle as a bull in a china shop.
Bryson took a long swig of his beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before answering. “I don’t know. I mean, she said she was doing it for the free advertising, but I kind of get the feeling that she’s taking it seriously, too. Who knows? She’s never been one to settle down but she seems different now.”
I tried my best to appear nonchalant.
“I don’t know, she started her business and all of her friends are settling down, so maybe she’s just in a different place.” Bryson shrugged. “She’s more…serious.”
Was she? I glanced down at the floor and realized then that I had no idea if her behavior was any different than it had been before I’d come back. Intellectually, I’d known that I’d missed over a decade of her life but emotionally I felt like I still knew her. The truth was, I didn’t.
From Instagram I knew she loved coffee, reality TV, sunsets, spin class, and that brownie sundaes were still her go-to dessert. But, I didn’t know if she still listened to Madonna every morning in the shower or if she still watched one Christmas movie a day from November 1st through New Year’s Eve. And I didn’t know what she thought about…anything.
We used to talk all the time. For hours. She never held anything in. Her mind was so funny. The connections her brain would make were endlessly fascinating. She could start with a blister she’d gotten from her new tennis shoes and five minutes later launch into an article she’d read about children in Sudan having to spend eight hours a day walking to get clean water.
“It’s weird, for a while there I thought that you two were going to get together,” Bryson said.
I lifted my head expecting him to be looking at me but instead he was talking to Cooper.
Coop’s lips tilted in a cat-that-ate-the-canary grin. “We tried. It didn’t work.”
“What?” Both Bryson and I spoke at the same time.
Coop continued, “We hung out but it didn’t go anywhere.”
“Seriously?” Bryson’s jaw dropped and he looked just as shocked by the news as I was.
“When?” My posture stiffened.
“Senior Prom,” he added as casually as if he’d just said that he bought new socks.
A ringtone went off and Bryson pulled his phone out of his pocket. “It’s Shelly, I’m going to take this outside.” He headed for the door as he brought the phone to his ear, “Did everything with the new distributor go smoothly?”
Once he was gone, I stepped closer to Cooper. “I asked you to watch out for her not fuck her.”
Coop didn’t seem at all phased by my anger. He shrugged, lifted his bottle to his lips and took a swig. “What do you care? You said nothing ever happened between you two.”
I inhaled a deep breath through my nose and tried to calm down. A voice in the back of my head was telling me to shut up and that it was none of my business, but I didn’t listen. I knew that I was being an asshole, but I didn’t care.
Coop put the man in womanizer. He didn’t take relationships seriously. He’d never committed to anything in his life. Thinking of him treating Jade like one of his revolving door hookups made me want to hurt someone. Namely him.
“Did you hurt her?”
“Did you?” One of his eyebrows rose.
“If you hurt her I…”
His smile widened and I saw a look of challenge in his eyes that I’d never seen before. “What? What are you going to do if I hurt her?”
I wanted to sock him. To kick his ass. But after a year of therapy I knew that the person I was really mad at was myself. That didn’t change the fact that I still wanted to punch that shit-eating grin off his face.
We stood, chest to chest, less than a foot away from each other, neither of us backing down. I was one hundred percent in the wrong. I owed Coop an apology. Whatever happened between him and Jade was none of my business. I knew this on a rational level, I just couldn’t get my brain to tell my heart. These were all things that I knew on a rational level. Too bad I wasn’t dealing with logic right now.
“Hey, I gotta take off. The distributor is giving Shelly…” Bryson’s voice tapered off. “What’s goin’ on? You two having a staring or a pissing contest?”
“Neither.” Coop took a step back. “I’m rollin’ with you.”
Not surprising, given that I’d just been such an ass.
Bryson’s forehead wrinkled as he looked between us with uncertainty before patting me on the shoulder. “Sorry to bail on you, man.”
“No worries. Thanks for your help today. Both of you.” I made a point to look at Coop. “It means a lot.”
“Of course man, anything you need you know we got you.” Bryson grabbed his tool box and headed out to his truck.
Coop started to follow behind but turned before he’d even made it two steps. His voice was quiet as he spoke, “I didn’t hurt her. But you did. I know, ‘nothing happened’ between you two, but when you left, she was wrecked. It took her years, seriously years, to get back to herself.”
If I hadn’t felt like total shit before, I sure as hell did now.
Unable to form words to express what I was feeling, I nodded.
“She loves you, man. She might not want to admit it, but she does. And you love her. I don’t know what went down, but I think it’s about damn time you fix it.”
“Yeah.” I took my hat off and ran my hands through my hair in frustration. “I’ve been thinking the same thing.”
Coop smiled again, this time with more amusement than arrogance.
“What?” I asked just before Bryson honked his horn.
Coop grinned as he walked out and shouted a parting, “This is going to be fun to watch.”
At least someone was getting some enjoyment out of my pain.