Chapter 14

Cooper

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I drop the shopping bags on the counter and shake my head in disbelief when I realize what I’m doing. I went to a bar where a sure thing was waiting for me, like she does every Thursday, in her almost publicly indecent hot pants and little tube top causing rises all along the bar. I chatted her up, ordered us each a drink. She giggled, gave me that ‘I’m ready’ look, and then I left. Without her.

To go to the grocery store and buy food to cook dinner for a girl who is about as far from a sure thing as they get. In fact, she’s so far on the other end that she’s a surely not. She’s off limits.

So here I am, looking at two bags of nice groceries from one of those overpriced supermarkets where everything is organic-this or fair-trade-that, preparing to spend too much time and too much effort romancing a chick who’s too much trouble to even consider.

I tell myself that I’m not actually romancing this chick. I don’t do that. I learned my lesson years ago.

I’d been a tough kid, growing up in a tough world with poor chances of ever breaking out of my small, unpromising existence. I was the son of a teen mom with the dad long out of the picture before I was born—hell, probably before she even started showing. I grew up living in a trailer, hearing my own mom’s moans when she brought back strange men with potbellies and cigarette breath in the middle of the night. I grew tall on Spam sandwiches with white bread, because wheat bread and meat that didn’t come out of a can weren’t part of the food stamp program. Instead of being on a fancy soccer team with cleats and pristine white uniforms, I kicked around empty beer cans outside, bare-footed, with my friends. By the time I was in high school, I wasn’t too interested in books or learning or anything but girls and fighting. I took bets on myself in fights in order to earn a quick buck, so I could take out more girls.

But I lived in a pretty small town and word got around fast. By the time I was sixteen, no one in their right mind, even the stoners, would bet against me in a fight. I never lost, even then. I needed something else, because I damn well knew that I liked girls and I knew that the prettier the girl, the more likely that she’d at least expect dinner. Don’t get me wrong. I never had a problem getting girls to want me through looks and charm alone, but I didn’t want to commit to one girl for a regular bang. I’d rather spend the money than spend the time, or waste the opportunity to get with other chicks. So I knew I needed a job.

I started working mowing lawns for rich people the summer before junior year of high school. One of those yards that I mowed belonged to a top officer in the marines. The same top officer who, when I was twelve, was at a career fair that the government put on in our neighborhood—if you can call the sad collection of trailer homes that. I stopped by partly out of precocious curiosity and more out of a hope for free food, around lunchtime. His wife and daughter came to bring him lunch. His wife was a manicured wife, one of those perfect status symbols with the head-to-toe designer mom-wear and little quilted, paisley handbag. The daughter was the single most beautiful person I had ever seen in my life. I forgot all about my pursuit of a free lunch and focused, instead, on getting closer to my new crush. Just as I was heading over to introduce myself to her, her mother said, “Sarah, let’s go.” And just like that, they disappeared out of my life in a cloud of dust stirred up the wheels of their shiny, blue car.

Until one especially hot day that summer when, after finishing mowing the backyard of that ritzy ranch house, Sarah came out of the house with a glass of ice cold lemonade.

“I thought you might be thirsty,” she said, handing me the glass with a smile. She had grown up well. She was just the right kind of petite with just the right amount of curve, not one of those twigs with hipbones you hurt yourself on and thighs that don’t beg to be grabbed. She was sexy, but also so beautiful that you almost didn’t want to fuck her. You just wanted to hold her, instead, and then make slow love to her.

By the end of the summer, we were pretty hot and heavy. Every other thought I had was about Sarah. I started checking books out of the public library, a place I’d never stepped foot in before, in academic subjects. I wanted to better myself for her, so that I could offer her the kind of future that she deserved. There was no doubt in my mind that this was the girl I was going to marry.

But her dad didn’t agree. To him, I was just a piece of white trash from a trailer home. Good enough to recruit to the lowest ranks of his battery but not good enough for his daughter by a long shot. Getting good grades and jumping to the front of my classes didn’t impress him. Learning strategic thinking and college-level mathematics wasn’t enough, either.

I knew what I had to do and I did it.

Once I’d joined the military, I worked my way up through the ranks really quickly. Life in service was the kind of hard that you can’t even imagine if you haven’t done it. Countless times, I wanted to quit. I was exhausted, stressed, and on the brink of a broken spirit. But the memory of Sarah’s smile was always with me and kept me going. I excelled at hand-to-hand combat and my physical skills paired with my ability to predict my opponent’s every move made me unmatchable. I made it to Navy SEAL in the shortest time on record, since before I was even born. The day I graduated, I proposed to Sarah. She said yes. It was the happiest moment in my life.

Then I went on tour. We wrote all the time, with her sending me emails three or four times a day, just to tell me how much she loved me and how much she couldn’t wait to marry me. I came home for a week-and-a-half, during which we made all the wedding arrangements and I paid the deposits on the location—a nice venue, with catering and everything else that she wanted. It was more money than I’d ever spent on anything, but my military salary was high and my girl would get everything and anything that she wanted. My next tour was just a quick one, nothing too crazy compared to what I had handled before, and we were going to get married as soon as I got back.

I was out in an armed vehicle with my best bud, John, on a reconnaissance mission. It wasn’t anything exciting, but I was happy to be there. John was like a brother to me. We were smiling, talking about John’s new baby girl waiting for him at home with his wife, but still focused on keeping an eye out. We knew what we were doing.

I was the one driving. The roadside bomb took out the whole left half of the vehicle. When I woke up in the base hospital days later, they told me that John had died immediately in the explosion. When I became a SEAL, I swore an oath to protect my men. I was driving the vehicle when John died, and I felt like I single-handedly killed my brother. I felt like the scum of the earth that I survived and John died. I didn’t know what I would say to his wife. To his daughter, when she was old enough to understand. I didn’t deserve to live on.

I developed mild PTSD, but I had always been a fighter and I would bounce back. The psychologist on base said the prognosis was much better than expected and physically, I’d heal, too. It would just take some time.

Then another guy in my team brought me my computer. I checked my email, knowing Sarah must be worried sick about me. I wanted to write her a reassuring email. But then I saw an email already in my inbox from her. Just a single email, even though I hadn’t checked it for days and I knew she must have gotten some sort of notification from the Navy when I was brought back to the hospital in critical condition.

But she was my Sarah. Maybe they had told her not to send any more emails, since I wouldn’t be able to communicate, and maybe they thought a flood of emails would stress me out further. I opened the email.

She was leaving me.

In the email, she sent me her ‘condolences for my loss,’ wished me a ‘speedy and full recovery,’ and explained that she was not ‘up to the task’ of dealing with someone with PTSD. She ‘hoped there would be no hard feelings,’ but she didn’t want to see me, ever again.

Just like that. In a fucking email.

I was in physical rehabilitation programs for a while, then I applied to go on tour again. My application was rejected. I had to choose a new career path in the military. Something with a desk job, not in the field. Since I’d had PTSD, even though it was just a mild form, I was too much of a liability for them to send me out on a mission again. They explained that this could actually mean a payday step-up. With my experience, any branch would be happy to have me and there were many lucrative positions available for someone like me. Hearing that made me feel like a complete dirt-bag. I’d taken an oath to protect my comrades and I couldn’t do it. Now they wanted me to sit in an office and make a lot of money while other people risked their lives and I just sat there typing away on a keyboard in my A/C with my swivel chair.

I couldn’t do it.

Vlad was the only thing that saved me from self-destruction after Sarah was through with me.

No, I’m not romancing Branna. I’m just being a good guy. She had a huge interview today and a nice dinner would be a great effort. Besides, a relaxed, happy girl is more likely to let her guard down and let me figure out what her story is than a stressed, hungry one. And last of all, she cleaned the whole fucking apartment yesterday and made it gleam like some Maple Street penthouse, for fuck’s sake. I’m just returning the favor with a gesture of roommate goodwill.

Yeah, right.

Roommate goodwill is great and all, but I don’t think there are many roommates out there, good will or not, who would sacrifice a sure lay with a smokin’ chick to make dinner for their roommate pal. No guy is that nice.

So what the fuck am I doing?

I shake my head and stare at the grocery bags. Ah, well. Too late now. I’m not getting laid anymore and a man has to eat.

I’m making pretty much the only thing I know how to make, my ma’s lasagna with rolls from the store and a salad on the side, when Branna stumbles in, mid-yawn.

“Oh, hi” she says, stretching as she slides her backpack off her shoulders and holds it by the top strap. “Whatever you’re making, it smells amazing.”

“Thanks. I’m just whipping up some dinner,” I say, “It should be ready in about fifteen minutes. Care to join me? There’s plenty to share.”

“Really? That would be great, I’m starving!” Branna tucks some hair behind her ear. “I’ll just take a quick shower and then I’ll help set the table.”

“So I take it the interview went well?” I ask.

“Yeah!” Her face lights up with a huge, beautiful smile. “I got the job!” I can see her visibly try to reign in her excitement and adjust that grin to a modest smile. She shrugs, suddenly casual about it. “It’s a job.”

“A job?” I raise an eyebrow. “You sure look more excited than that.” I’m fighting not to think of her in the shower and how much I’d like to be with her in there. Though then we’d need more than fifteen minutes before dinner....

“Maybe a little,” she admits, smiling and biting that plump lip. Damn, that girl can bite a lip. “Being an assistant isn’t all that, I know, but I’ll show them. I’ll work so hard that they have to promote me and just wait — I’ll be tatting up half of Southie in a few years.” She pauses and looks down. “I know what you’re thinking, it sounds far-fetched...”

I reach out and tilt up her chin. “I believe you.” We look at each other for a long minute. Then she shifts on her feet a little awkwardly and really adorably. “Okay, well, I’m going to go shower now...”

“Have fun,” I say. I can’t keep the wicked gleam out of my eye and the cute blush that spreads across her face makes it so worth it.

I enjoy the view a little too much for my own good as she leaves the room. Damn, those toned legs meet that perfectly curvy ass in the most ridiculously sexy way. If only those cutoffs weren’t in the way. Paired with that drive and that bright spirit? I barely know this girl and I already know that I’ve never met anyone like her.

By the time she’s out of the shower, dressed—unfortunately—and back in the kitchen to set the table, I’m pulling the lasagna out of the oven. It actually looks pretty good.

She sets the table in silence, though I catch her stealing glances at me now and then. The air is charged and, by the rate at which she’s blushing, I know she feels it, too.

If she weren’t my roommate, I would throw caution to the wind and forget about how bad an idea it would be to get involved with a girl who’s as much of a mystery, and intentionally so, as this one. My big head is clearly not the one in charge of my desires at the moment, and all I want is to pick her up by her pretty little waist, throw her down on the table that she’s in the middle of setting, pull down her cutoffs to reveal that perfect ass, and give her the proper fucking I’ve been wanting to since I first saw her.

Instead, I eat dinner with her. We eat in near silence for a few minutes, interrupted only by her saying thanks and raving about how good the lasagna is. It’s nice to see a girl with an appetite, for once. She’s slim, but not a twig, and she likes enjoying her food. Unlike the girls I usually eat with, she doesn’t poke around at her food or try to act like salad is the only thing she sees on the table. She takes a healthy serving of both the salad and lasagna and eats freely and unselfconsciously. She’s a woman who knows how to enjoy herself.

That’s not a good train of thought to go down, though, and I know it. So though we’re eating in companionable, perfectly comfortable silence, I finally break it. Mostly to drown out my own thoughts and keep them from going places they shouldn’t, like under her clothes.

We chat about her work. She tells me about her coworkers and her favorite artwork from the day. It lights up her face with energy and ambition in an incredibly appealing way. She asks me about my fighting, teasing that she has heard about me from co-workers. The raised eyebrow and sassy smile she gives me turn me on.

It’s getting to be a somewhat uncomfortable dinner for me, since I’m not getting the release that every look and smile and move of hers makes me need more and more, but it’s also so enjoyable that I make myself deal with the growing discomfort from my increasingly tight pants. Branna gives it right back to me; I haven’t been challenged like this since the early days with Sarah. Branna’s laugh is like music. I can’t help but smile when I hear it and I find myself wanting to make her do it again and again.

There’s something about this girl.

After dessert—slices of a shared chocolate cake that I picked up from the bakery aisle of the grocery store because women like chocolate—Branna and I clear the table. She gets started washing the dishes while I wipe down the table, and I pause for a moment to admire her beautiful figure. She’s humming a little to herself, under her breath, and gently swaying her head from side to side, her shiny hair swishing across her back.

I bring the sponge back up to the sink just as she’s turning to put a plate in the drying rack. She gives a little ‘oh’ of surprise and almost stumbles. Reflexively, I reach out to steady her.

And then she’s mere inches from me, my hands on her arms, holding her up. She smells lightly of something sweet and floral and delicious. She looks up at me, eyes wide and beautiful, rimmed by dark lashes and set in her perfect face. Her lips are slightly parted and I look at them just a moment too long. It’s hard to pull my look away and we get even closer for a moment, as our bodies take control and draw us together.

Then it’s like a switch flicks in her brain or she has suddenly remembered something. She breaks away from me, drops the plate in the drying rack, and runs out of the kitchen. I hear her door slam shut behind her.

I can’t figure this girl out. Worse, I care.