What I kept coming back to was how well Leo knew me. How he understood me and what I needed—and how he put that above his own needs. I knew there were things he wanted to say to me, but he held back because he didn’t want me to feel pressure to make a certain decision.
Even when I was breaking his heart, he stayed strong and steady. For me.
What you need is someone who allows you to take risks but is a safe landing place.
I wasn’t a stranger to taking risks, and yet, when it came to admitting how I felt, I couldn’t do it. It felt too intimidating, too out of my control. Too much on the line.
But maybe that was nothing compared to how miserable I’d been the last week.
I missed Leo more than I thought I would—and he was still here. What was I going to feel when he left?
I cleared the empty beer glasses from the bar, giving them a quick rinse before placing them in a bin to take back to the dishwasher. As I finished up, Cooper walked up to the bar, brows raised as he looked at me, not saying anything.
“What?” I said, not in the mood to deal with him—or anyone, for that matter. Let’s just say I hadn’t been the most pleasant over the last few days and had been giving Wes a run for his money on grumpiness levels.
Cooper pulled out a stool to sit and leaned his pool cue against the bar. “That’s quite the greeting,” he said after a long pause.
“Cooper,” I deadpanned. “If you’re going to give me shit, can you save it for another time?” I nodded toward the pool tables. “Don’t you have a game to get back to?”
My brother shook his head. “Nope,” he said, popping the P. “Just finished. And I smoked ’em, as per usual.”
“Great,” I muttered. I looked around to see if anyone around the bar needed a drink or refill, but they were all wrapped up in their conversations. When I turned back toward my brother, he was still sitting there, watching me carefully. “What?” I repeated, more exasperated this time.
“How long are you going to do this?”
“Can you stop being cryptic for one fucking second?” I gritted. I’d been able to hold it in all week—but I was seconds away from snapping. “Doing what?” I raised my arms, letting them hit against my thighs.
“Being miserable. Not going after what you want. Holding back.” He paused. “Do you want me to keep going?”
My jaw clenched, and I glared at him. No, I didn’t want him to keep going.
“Why are you holding back, Eliza? You care about him. Is that the end of the world?”
An unexpected wave of emotion came over me, and I placed my palms on the bar top to steady myself.
Because itdidfeel like the end of the world. The emotions I’d been holding in all week were threatening to come to the surface. Except it wasn’t frustration or fear—it was an unbearable sadness. A grief over what I was giving up.
A few minutes passed without either of us saying anything.
“It kind of does feel like that,” I admitted, my voice barely cutting through the music playing over the speakers.
“It’ll feel worse when he’s not here, and you’re wondering what if.”
I looked at my brother, so much understanding in his gaze that I hadn’t ever noticed before, whether that was because I hadn’t looked hard enough or hadn’t understood.
Missing someone who you knew was alive and doing well but no longer in your life was its own form of heavy, sinking grief.
“Does it feel like that for you?” I asked quietly, knowing very well we normally didn’t go there.
Cooper leaned his forearms on the bar and clasped his hands together. “It did. Still does.” He paused. “And that’s exactly why I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I did.”
“Do you wish Jade had stayed?”
He shook his head no.
“Do you wish you’d gone with her?”
It took Cooper a couple beats, but this time, he nodded slowly.
