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He had a workout space in a spare bedroom, too, but his house didn’t feel like home yet, either. Hell, he felt more under siege there than anywhere else in Laughlin. Because he had an enemy right next door.
When he’d gone over to apologize to Siena a couple nights ago, she’d answered the door with a gun aimed at his chest, and he’d just totally fucking had it. In retrospect, it probably hadn’t been his sanest move to invite her to shoot him, but in that moment, still drowning in the muck after the meet with Harridan, he honestly hadn’t cared.
That reaction had shocked her, and he’d seen something soften in her eyes. Then she’d agreed to a truce, and he’d thought, for about a half second, she might smile. For that half second, he’d thought maybe she’d warm up a little. Instead, she’d slammed the door in his face.
Cooper was good at reading people. He always had been, anyway. He was good at reading people and, consequently, good at charming them. It was a point of pride, and he considered it one of his chief assets as a Bull. But holy shit, he was not on his game here in Laughlin.
Siena was the worst example—he simply couldnotread her accurately, so he kept making missteps. All he wanted was a neighborly relationship, and he couldn’t figure out how not to set her off. The chick wasmadeof landmines.
But she wasn’t the only example. He’d almost caused a problem right out the gate, while they were recruiting patches, because he’d been so floored to discover that Reed was gay. Everybody thought he was an asshole because he’d reacted at first like it was a problem. But he honestly didn’t care who fucked who, and it hadn’t changed his feelings about Reed.
The biggest factor in his reaction had been hissurprise—he hadn’t seen it at all. Nothing about the way Reed looked, or acted, or spoke, or anything else had suggested to Cooper that the man was gay, and that had thrown him—not Reed’s orientation, but how he’d missed it.
He just felt out of step everywhere he turned these days. He hadn’t felt like this since he was a kid, and he utterly fucking despised it.
Just like when he was a kid, the dojo was a place where he could leave all his bullshit at the door. Then, as a bullied, small, unhappy kid, he’d felt safe in his dojo. Now, as a grown man, dangerous in his own right, he felt centered here. Hopefully, just as kid Cooper had eventually been able to carry that sense of safety with him out the door, he’d eventually be able to hold his center now.
He’d been at the bag a few minutes when he heard Dave talking up front. Thinking he was talking to him, Cooper stopped and looked toward the front, but he couldn’t see the desk from here, and Dave wasn’t in view.
He was halfway up there, intending to see if he was needed for something, when he heard another voice. Oh. Some inconsiderate ass had come in right at closing.
Cooper turned around to go back to the bag. Then the inconsiderate ass said something else, and he really heard the voice and the words it said.
“There’s nothing cheaper?”
“Sorry, no.”
“Can you ... can you recommend a cheaper place?”
That was Siena. And she was upset. He didn’t know her well, but virtually all their interactions had either started with or resulted in her being upset, so he knew the sound. Her normally pleasant voice got thin and a little rough at the edges, like a rubber band stretched almost to the breaking point.
Maybe he’d picked up one or two reads on her after all.
Dave’s laugh at her question was so full of snark it sounded like a fart. “Are you serious?”
Cooper turned around again and headed to the front. Really, he should have been heading as far in the opposite direction as he possibly could, but for some reason, his feet had decided to gotowardthe chick made of landmines.
Siena and Dave stood on opposite sides of the bar thing that served as Tri-State’s front desk. Dave’s arms were crossed in the way they were when he was talking to an irritating parent or student. Siena held Tri-State’s brochure. She wore a long black raincoat over her waitress getup, full hair and makeup and artificial cleavage.
The forecast had included a chance for some rain, and Cooper, who usually hated rain, had been looking forward to seeing what passed for wet weather in this dust bowl. But the full measure of the ‘weather’ today had amounted to about five clouds altogether.
That brochure in her hand was shaking. In fact, her whole posture was one of defeat.
“I know I’m asking you for a rec for your competition. I came here first because someone I work with said you were great. But I can’t afford these rates, so since you can’t help me by teaching me self-defense, I’m asking you to help me by giving me an idea where else I could go for lessons.”
“I understand what you’re asking, honey. I just don’t see why you think you’re entitled to my help to find you a cheaper class.”
“Not entitled. I’masking.” With a last glance at the brochure in her hand, Siena straightened her back and leveled her shoulders. The shakes stopped and her expression hardened. She’d armed her landmines. “You know what?” she sneered as she crumpled the brochure in her fist. “Fuck you.”
“Not likely, honey. Hot and crazy ain’t my kink.”
“Don’t. Fucking. Call. Me. Honey,” Siena snarled. Then she threw the wadded brochure in Dave’s face.
Dave knocked the paper ball away before it made contact, but Cooper saw the dangerous change in his expression. “Okay,bitch, get the fuck out of my business.”
Being familiar with Siena’s propensity to be armed, and her extreme readiness to pull her weapon, not to mention her hair-trigger for feeling threatened, Cooper felt his spine tighten. He was sure she had one of her pink pistols in that enormous bag hooked over her shoulder. Dave was good in hand-to-hand combat, and he could likely disarm her before she could aim, except that there was a desk between them, and that cheap hunk of grey laminate tipped the scales in her favor.
Cooper honestly did not know if making his presence known would be water or gasoline on the spark of trouble between those two, but he couldn’t very well just stand there and do nothing.
