I lowered my voice and held my arm out to her. “I need you to let me hold you, okay? Can you do that for me? I need to wrap my arms around you, and have you cry into me. Forget everything that has happened between us. Forget everything else in the world. Right now I just need to be the wall you lean up against to keep you from falling tonight.”
A small breath escaped my lips as her fingers intertwined with mine. Relief filled me, watching her move closer to me. I couldn’t give her space anymore. My arms wrapped around her small frame and I held on. She cried into me as she proceeded to break down even more. “Slow down your breaths, Andrea…Slow.” The tears started to form in my eyes and I blinked them away before she would notice. Knowing that she was hurting in such a major way broke everything inside of me. I never felt so helpless in my life.
I held on to her for a long time after that. I didn’t care how long we had to stand there; I was prepared to hold her for the rest of my life if she needed me to.
“I CAN SLEEP on the couch,” she offered. I shook my head; she needed rest.
“No, of course not. You stay here. I’ll grab one of the guest rooms.”
“Are you sure?”
“Andrea.” I smirked and nudged her to the bed. It was nice to see she had calmed down a bit. “If you need anything, I’ll be two rooms down.”
“I’ll be all right.”
I stood in the doorway, eyes on her. There was nothing I wanted to do more than protect her from any harm. But that night I did all I could. I shut off the light and walked out of the room. “Coop.” At the sound of my name I was standing in the doorway, turning her light on once more. I waited for her to continue speaking as she rubbed her fingers over her tired eyes. “I’ll be better tomorrow,” she promised.
Leaning against the door frame, I shook my head. “No you won’t. But that’s okay…I’ll wait.”
She sighed, shifting around the bed sheets. “For how long?”
I could tell she thought she had run me off, but I wasn’t going anywhere. “I’m here, Andrea. I’m here. And I’m not going to rush you. And I’m not even asking anything of you. But I’m here whenever you need me to be. How long will I wait? Take forever and multiple it by infinity. And then I’ll wait some more.”
Seeing her small smile appear made me grin. I nodded, told her to try to get some rest, and disappeared down the hallway to try to find a few hours of rest for myself.
Chapter Seventeen
MY SENSES WERE awakening to the smell of coffee lingering under my nose. The morning sun was dancing through the blinds and touching my cheeks. I rolled over in the bed, taking in the delicious aroma. My eyes stayed closed for awhile; they were so heavy—so tired.
I ran my hands through my hair, sat up in my bed, and looked at my surroundings. On the nightstand next to me was a tray with eggs, bacon, and a bagel. In a small vase were a few beautiful flowers. Pinks, yellows, whites. I assumed Cooper picked them from the front of the house. A sigh fell from me; even after last night he still picked me flowers.
As I picked up the cup of coffee, I breathed in the strong flavors before I sipped. He even added cream and sugar. The perfect amount. The coffee was still steaming hot, so it couldn’t have been that long ago since Cooper delivered it.
I gobbled a piece of bacon down, and that’s when I noticed a note sitting on the tray, under the vase.
My lips curved as I saw him call me by my middle name—one of the little known facts I’d shared with him the night prior.
Part of me was sad I’d missed him, but then again I didn’t want to face him after my breakdown last night. I didn’t know what had happened; perhaps it was the wine or maybe the unconventional confession of love. Possibly it was both. All I knew was that I was pretty freaking embarrassed.
What would I do while I waited for Cooper?
DANCE.
I stretched on the tennis court in his backyard. The sun was covered by thin clouds, and would reintroduce itself to me every time the clouds traveled on to their next location. Placing my iPhone on the ground, I turned on my favorite music station. The tweeting birds added their own soundtrack to the moment, making it that much more special.
My heart was still aching for Derrick each day. But Cooper made the aching less intense. Cooper made me feel like I was floating. He made me feel alive. And since he wasn’t here right now, I would turn to the next thing that made me feel good no matter what. Dance.
Rumi once said, “Dance, when you’re broken open. Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you’re perfectly free.”
I wasn’t free from Derrick’s hold on my soul yet. But I would dance anyway. The music started to blare from my small speakers and I moved across the tennis court. It was my stage and I, the dancer. I would spin, I would leap, and I would feel. Feel the excitement of losing myself in the dance. It was my drug and I was ready to overdose on it. I would twirl until the world appeared dizzy. I would bend my body and make love to the movement. My breath would be in total control. I was the instructor and my legs were the students. They would move when I commanded them to. They would fly when I needed them to.
I danced for hours. I danced as the sun grew tired. And then I danced some more.
I thought I heard the click of his camera before it happened—I didn’t stop moving. I kept going. As I spun I could see him inching closer, snapping away at me. I posed for him. I leaped. I explored the space.
I let go.
I let go because I was sure he would catch me.
His sexy smile was hidden behind the camera, but I knew it was there. I finally brought myself to a halt. My legs were exhausted, so I allowed them to lie down on the tennis court. I lay down on my back as the sweat dripped down my face. It’d been so long since I allowed myself to stop and remember something I loved to do.
He lay down next to me, shoulder to shoulder. Turning to him, I felt the butterflies return. “How’s your mom?”
“She had another good day. I think you helped make her better yesterday.”
I bit my lower lip. He made me feel the best kind of nerves. “I think you’re making me better.”
Instant comfort. I glanced down at our hands; he held mine and we both lay silent with our heads turned up to the sky. I was surprised at how he wasn’t extremely freaked out by me. Why didn’t he go running after last night?
“Thanks for breakfast.”
“Anytime.”
I smiled. Because I knew he meant that.
Chapter Eighteen
THE SUN WAS shining brightly, but the winter breeze made coats necessary. I sat across from Iris outside the coffee shop, wishing I could be anywhere but there. We were wearing sunglasses, smiling at each other as the paparazzi stood back and took our photos. The trip to South Carolina had come to an end, and instead of sitting across from Andrea, I was stuck with my wife.
Iris was about six months pregnant, sporting heels that looked to be cutting off all blood flow to her feet. How could she be so damn stupid?
Through a grin I whispered, “You’re a bitch.” And she grinned and took my hand into hers.
“When are you coming home?” she softly asked. I wanted to pull my hand away and walk off, never to see her again, but what she had on me was big.
“Why were you talking about revealing information about Ken?” Turning to my father’s past to get back to me was as low as one could get. I asked her what I had done that was so dirty that she would turn to these crazy measures.
“You left me.” Her tone was so sincere and filled with sorrow that I almost felt sorry for the woman sitting in front of me. Almost. She saw the paparazzi and knew we wouldn’t be able to hold the real conversation we needed to have, so she offered walking to our apartment—her apartment—so we could figure out where to go from here.
As we walked, Iris made sure to have me wrap my arms around her waist. Andrea was floating through my mind. I secretly wished she were the one my arms were wrapped around. I wished she were the one taking me home.
Right as we stepped into the apartment, I released my hold on her and started to holler. “What the hell are you trying to do to me, Iris?!”
“You left me, Cooper. You walked away and didn’t look back. What was I suppose to do? You wouldn’t talk to me.” She cried as she took off her high heels and her jacket. “Tom doesn’t want anything to do with the child. He’s expecting his own with his wife…”
Tom Reed. The man who got my wife pregnant was ready to deny his own child to keep a lie going on for his wife. What a piece of shit. But there was one main issue I had to know. “What does that have to do with me?”
I wasn’t the one who cheated. I wasn’t the one who got knocked up by Tom. I wasn’t the one who took our vows and threw them into a closet at the rehearsal dinner of our last episode of The Davidson’s Weddings.
Iris walked over to me and placed her hands in mine. She led my hands to her stomach, making me raise an eyebrow. “We can raise her together.”
Her. It was a girl. I would be lying if I said for a split moment I didn’t consider it. That poor baby girl had walked into a crazy life, and it wasn’t her fault. She deserved a dad. Not a father who would deny her existence for the rest of his life. She deserved a mom. Not a mother who wanted to lie about who her real father was. She deserved to have someone treat her like a princess. She deserved to be a princess. She deserved a dad.
But that wasn’t me.
“You’ve lost your mind.” I pushed her hands away from me and shook my head in disappointment. She was desperate. I could see it in her face.
“I’ll give you a month. If you don’t come back to me, I will expose everything. Your stay in the mental hospital. You breaking glass frames in your house. You leaving your pregnant wife. You leaving your mom to film a reality show…”
“Go to hell!” I hissed. She’d crossed the line. She had no right to bring my mom into this topic.
“I’m already there, Cooper!” she cried into the air.
“You cheated on me, Iris! You cheated. Not me!” What was wrong with this creature I used to love? I didn’t know the person standing before me, and she was f**king making me sick.
Iris disappeared into the kitchen and returned with an envelope. She handed it to me. “Well, that’s not what these photos say.” She crossed her arms and rested them on her growing belly, “Those are just copies. I have more.”
I opened the envelope and ran my hand over my mouth, sighing. Shit. I scanned the pictures and looked back to Iris. “You had me followed?”
“Hell yes I had you followed, Cooper. Who is she?”
Unbelievable. I stared at the different photos of Andrea and me in my hands and I didn’t know what to think. It was all there, from the moment we first walked out of the strip club, to our café meeting, to the hotel hallway when I tried to give her taxi money. Even photos of us going to the airport.
“I can’t believe you right now.”
“Me?! I can’t believe you stooped so low to go for prostitutes!” she yelled as my hand formed a fist and slammed against the wall; the veins were popping out of my neck. How dare she.
“Dammit, she’s not a prostitute!”
Iris’s brown eyes softened from her anger. As if she had any right to be angry with me. She let out a small chuckle and a giggling fit happened. “Don’t tell me you like her. Holy crap, you like a prostitute.”
The blood was boiling inside me and I knew I had to leave before I did or said something I would regret. The memories of the last time I stood in this apartment were floating back to my mind. It was cursed. This f**king place had to be cursed.
“I’ll give you until New Years. To come back to me. Or I go to the tabloids,” Iris said before I left.