It was the heat rising off of him that lulled me. That’s why I wasn’t struggling. Why I felt so safe. His skin was a long length of soothing heat, even through his clothes. How warm would he be completely naked?
And then had to catch myself because he had started talking. I’d asked him to tell me something about himself and he hadn’t refused. My breath hitched in anticipation. His face was deadly serious.”
“Well.” His tongue flicked out, wetting his lips. ”I already told you I was moving out."
"You did."
He glanced at me. "What is it with you?"
"What?"
"You have this thing you do where you don't push. Like ever. I feel like I could tell you I murdered a man in cold blood and you'd just nod
I nodded. Then grinned.
He looked pissed for a moment, then wrinkled his nose. "Okay, so how about this? My dad's a fucking cheater who's been running around on my mom since I can remember."
I blinked. That was more than I was expecting. "Really?"
He glanced at me again. "Only Liam knows," he went on. "Liam and you." His voice took on a bitter, sarcastic edge. "It would ruin Fred Grant's good name.” He spat the words like they weren't his own. "You know, if the rest of town knew what he was. So we hide it."
"You protect him?"
"I wouldn't call it that. I'd call it maintaining the status quo."
I thought about how hard Cooper had fought Liam leaving, how he'd tried to convince him that wasn't how it was supposed to work. Cooper had always seemed hell-bent on keeping things the same. He was always bringing up old memories - both the good ones and the very very bad - and comparing then to now. How much of that was from having to cover for his father? Trying to force the past to match the present must be exhausting.
“That makes sense,” I whispered.
He was rigid underneath me. Tension sang in his muscles, and the tone of his voice shifted. He was withdrawing even as we were finally connecting. The pain his father had caused him was bearing down on him like a freight train. I wanted to step in front of it before it hit him. “Jake pulled a pan of boiling water onto himself when he was two,” I blurted.
I squeezed my eyes shut so I didn’t have to see his face. I was close enough to hear him swallow and knew he was trying to piece together what that meant. “His hand?” he finally asked.
I nodded, with my eyes still shut. “When I was supposed to be watching him.”
I opened my eyes. Cooper was watching me carefully, but he hadn’t pulled away like I’d feared.
I held my breath. Maybe it had drawn is attention from his dad. If it had, it was worth it. I waited.
“What happened?” he asked.
I could breathe again. “I was boiling water for mac and cheese. You know, the kind that comes in a box? He loves that stuff, though I can’t stand to even smell it anymore. I was tired. Really, really tired from being up with him the night before so my mom could sleep and then having to go to school the next day… so even though I should have known better than to turn my back on him with something on the stove, I did it anyway. I thought he was playing with his trucks in the living room, but…” My cheeks heated. “You saw how small our place is.” The words were coming out in a rush now, and I wondered if this was the first time I’d told the whole story from start to finish. “It’s not like he had that far to go, and he was basically running as soon as he could walk.” I let out a long exhale. “I was at the sink, moving dishes around so I could put the colander in there, and he just rushed right up and grabbed the handle of the pot and pulled it down.”
Cooper sucked air in through his teeth. I nodded. “His whole side was burned, but it was his fingers that got it the worst. The skin grafts never really healed the way they should have, so he can’t bend them all the way. He gets teased at school.” My throat went tight and I closed my eyes against the horrible truth of it. “He can’t play sports like his friends and he’ll have issues his whole entire life because of one moment when I wasn’t paying attention the way I should have.”
It was too much to say this to his face. I was safer with my eyes shut… but not knowing what he was thinking, whether his expression was one of pity or disgust, was even worse. I opened them again. “It’ll never happen again, though.” My voice caught. “I swore that—”
My words died in my throat when I saw how Cooper was looking at me. “What?”
He brushed his hand along the side of my cheek. And then slowly and deliberately, he pressed his lips to mine.
It was the last thing I expected him to do. I opened my mouth to protest, but that protest died when his tongue slipped against mine, and the feeling was that of honey poured into my veins. Time slowed down, the better to savor the taste of his lips as he searched, tentatively at first, then taking command, kissing me until I was warm and breathless and convinced I was melting.
When he sighed and pulled back, I let out an involuntary groan of protest the made him smile and swipe his thumb over my lips. “Thank you,” he murmured, in a low voice I could feel rumbling up from his chest.
“For what?” I was dizzy with him, dizzy from him, dizzy near him.
“Telling me something. So I can finally get to know you.”
“You’ve always known me.” But I understood what he was saying. Somehow we’d known each other our entire lives without ever really knowing each other at all.
“I’ve known you were there.” He reached up and brushed a curl back from my forehead, then traced the curve of my brow, brushing lightly over the scar that was forming over it. I shivered under his touch, wanting less and more at the same time. “But I didn’t know you at all. What else did I miss out on, Willa?”
He didn’t give me a chance to answer. How could I with his lips on my neck, trailing a feathery line down to my shoulder?
A whooshing sound exactly like the rush of blood in my head hit my ears. Cooper dragged his eyes across my face and to the window that was now streaked with rain. “I guess we’ll have to postpone that wading trip.”
A shiver ran down my body. “I guess so,” I whispered, and he caught my lips again.