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He smiled, hoping it struck the right note. “I think I have to be. You set the bar pretty low.”
Something beneath the surface of her face seemed to move, and Cooper understood her defeat just before she turned to the door and dropped her head to it. She didn’t speak, or cry, or make any sound at all. Until her shoulders swelled with an inhale and then shuddered as she let it out, he wasn’t sure she was even breathing.
The scene went still for a long time, Siena leaning on her forehead on the door as if it were the only thing keeping her upright, and Cooper standing at her side, afraid to touch her, lest he trigger a landmine.
Finally, he had to do something. She hadn’t moved at all. So he brushed his fingers over her hand, which hung slack between them. When she didn’t react, he wrapped his hand around her wrist. When that drew no reaction as well, he pulled gently and stepped closer, so a mere inch or two remained between them.
She turned with his pull and moved her head to rest on his chest, which was exactly the result Cooper was going for. He wrapped his arms around her. Her tension was a subtle tremor all through her; he felt it gradually ease off until she was truly resting.
Without thinking about it or quite realizing he meant to do it, he kissed the top of her head. Her hair smelled of shampoo, something fruity, flowery. Feminine.
“I’m so tired,” she muttered into his shirt.
“I know.” He held her for another minute, then said, “C’mere,” and stepped carefully back, taking hold of her hand.
He led her to the sofa; she came meekly, as if she were sleepwalking and he was gathering her back to bed. She let him move her like a posable doll, sitting on the sofa when he pushed her carefully down to do it, turning with him as he picked up her legs and put them on the cushions. He slipped her sneakers off her feet.
Oh. Her feet were bare inside the sneakers, and he now had one in his hand. It was a very pretty foot. Slender, with a high arch and long toes tipped in red polish. Cooper didn’t have a fetish, he felt no urge to suck her toes or anything like that, but he could appreciate an attractive, feminine foot.
He set it next to its mate on the sofa and put her shoes on the floor.
Not until he said, “One sec,” did she seem to understand that he’d taken over.
“What are you doing? Why am I on the sofa?”
“You’re going to sleep. I’m going to get you a pillow and a blanket.” He’d thought about putting her in his bed, but figured she’d read way too much into it and several landmines would explode and blow his legs off or something.
“I can’t—”
“You can. You told me you had the day off.”
“But—”
“No buts. I’m going to be working on your car anyway, so there’s nowhere you could go if you wanted to.”
She didn’t offer more resistance. In fact, her eyes closed again and she rested on the arm of the sofa. She hadn’t actually consented to sleeping on his sofa, but he considered her resting there to be sufficient body language to that effect.
Hoping he wouldn’t return and find her in a Weaver stance, pointing a pink pistol at his face, Cooper went back to his bedroom, grabbed a pillow and his comforter, and returned to the front of the house.
No stance, no gun. She seemed to be sleeping. He went to the sofa and lifted her head gently so he could push the pillow under.
As he fluffed the comforter and laid it over her, she muttered, “Is this clean?”
Cooper laughed. Riding him even while semi-conscious. In the current moment, it was kind of cute. “I’m messy, not disgusting. I keep my bedding clean.”
She didn’t answer; she was all the way under again.
He tucked the comforter over her shoulders, then picked up the pizza box and bottles from the coffee table and took them to the trash.
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~oOo~
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Her car really wasa piece of shit; replacing the fuel pump was like putting a band-aid on a slit throat, but the job itself wasn’t much trouble. As long as he was elbows-deep in her engine, he cleaned up a few bits, cleaned off the spark plugs, checked the oil—which could have used a change but wasn’t sludge—and generally did what he could, not having the proper parts for most of it, to get the car in better order. When he was finished under the hood and she hadn’t come out yet, he went ahead and washed the car, too.
The morning had rounded into afternoon by the time he pulled his hose and bucket of soapy water over. The day had warmed to what in Tulsa would feel like late spring, so he took off his flannel, tied it around his waist, and started washing her car in a beater. The sun felt good.
