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65
Cara Knox plopped down on one of the two matching leather sofas in Cooper Madison’s den. After Clarence dropped her off back at the Westcott Hotel, she and Coop had a late lunch as she shared the events of her day. Coop did not tell her about the possible trade to the Cleveland Indians because he wasn’t sure if it would even happen.
No sense in talking about it yet...
“What are you watching?” Cara asked, her hair still wet from the shower she took after the late lunch. She would be heading out to meet Lucy soon but wanted a few more minutes with Coop before she left.
Coop, who was already seated in his leather recliner with his feet up and a Barq’s root beer in his hand, sat up and took notice of the beautiful young lady with the wet hair sitting across from him.
“Well, now I’m watching you…” he said with a wry smile.
“Oh, right… me and my wet hair? Nice try ‘Coopernova’,” Cara responded.
“Coopernova? I kinda like that.”
“You would...”
“Why do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Every time I compliment you I feel like you try and deflect by making a joke.”
“Deflect? Somebody’s been watching ‘Dr. Phil’ while I’ve been gone.”
“See! That’s what I’m talking about,” Coop said as he sat up to emphasize his point.
“I told you before, I don’t do well with compliments. I never have, and to be honest, I’ve never been with anyone who gave them to me as much as you do. Well, at least nobody who gave them to me when they weren’t drunk off their ass trying to get laid,” Cara responded.
“Do you want me to stop complimenting you?” Coop asked.
“I didn’t say that…”
“Good, because I wasn’t gonna anyway,” Coop laughed.
“I wish I could tell you that I’ll get better at it, but I don’t like to make promises I’m not sure I can keep.”
“I just want you to be you, whatever that is, because I’m definitely not going to stop being me.”
“I would never want you to do that,” Cara said.
“And I would never want you to fake anything with me. I told you before I’ve had enough people in my life who I never could tell if they were genuine or not.”
“Well, I promise I will always be genuine with you. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you later…” Cara responded.
“Warn me about what?” Coop asked.
“That I’m not perfect!”
“Nobody’s perfect…”
“I know, but I just feel like when you say all the nice things you do that you’re putting me on a pedestal that I know I will fall off of… You barely know me, and I barely know you, and what freaks me out the most is that once you realize I’m not the perfect girl that you have in your head you’ll break my heart...” Cara said, her words coming out as fast as the tears that were welling up in her eyes.
“You think I don’t have those same fears? You’ve only seen a side of me that is a HELL of a lot more normal than the guy who had been holed up here in for months. You don’t know the guy who didn’t leave his bedroom for days at a time because he felt like there wasn’t a reason to even try. The guy who drank himself to sleep every night and numbed himself with pills all day just so he wouldn’t feel the pain that was absolutely destroying him. The pain that made everyone feel so sorry for him, but the same pain that all those people also wanted him to hurry up and move past so he could go back to being the guy that THEY needed him to be!”
Coop stood up from his chair and whipped the empty can of root beer across the room before continuing his rant.
“You want to talk about not being perfect? Do you know that if my best friend Cash wouldn’t have hopped on an airplane in June and showed up at this apartment I’d probably be, well, I’d rather not say…”
