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Soon we were backing our way through the door, and I don't know how we made it across the dark room, but then we were on the couch, Cooper's sure, steady weight on top of me. My body was burning with desire and lust, and the overwhelming feeling of coming home.
In the years since I left Cooper, I’d been floating aimlessly, doing everything I could to find my footing, trying to find a place to land and now I was here on my parents' old couch, beneath my ex-boyfriend's hard muscular chest, the feeling of his thudding heart beneath my palm and feeling for the first time in ten years that I was safe—and home.
Cooper's hand migrated beneath the cup of my bikini top, palming my wet breast, my nipple pebbling beneath his rough palm. But my realization of just how complete this felt caused panic to surge through me.
I wasn't that twenty-year-old girl in love with the football star trying to figure out how to break it to her best friend that she'd fallen in love with the older brother who’d been declared off limits. I wasn't the woman willing to risk it all because he was my forever.
I was thirty years old, running away from my problems. I was a runaway bride, with more media coverage on me than I ever hoped to get in my lifetime, which was zero.
No matter how badly I wanted to, I couldn't go back, so the realization that Cooper felt like home struck me even harder.
Oh my God. How had I gotten it so wrong all these years?
Just because I’d gotten it wrong didn't mean I needed to mess everything up now. That would be selfish.
With a heavy heart, I pushed at his chest, breaking the kiss and he looked at me, dismayed.
He must've seen in my eyes what I was about to say because he stopped me and said, "Haley, no, please, not again."
I felt the tears slipping from my eyes, hot and wild, down my cheeks. It seemed like no matter what I did, I turned into an ugly crying mess in Cooper's presence.
"I'm sorry, Cooper. I don't want to risk... hurting you again."
His jaw tensed as he straightened and sat up on the couch, looking away from me. I sat up too, fixing my cockeyed bikinitop, and watched him. After a long moment, he looked at me with a solemn expression, pain in his eyes. "It's too late for that, Haley," he said, breaking our gaze, rising from the couch, and walking quietly out the door.
I sobbed into my hands. Why do I keep putting myself in this position, watching Cooper walk away? And why do I have to be the one to break his heart every damn time?
Cooper
Just as soon as the screen door slammed behind me, I was turning on my heel. She may have rejected me again, but there was something Haley Ellis needed to understand more than anything else at that moment.
I walked back into the house without knocking. She was still on the couch, her hand on her face, sobs quietly wracking her body and it took everything in me not to drop to my knees, rip my heart out and offer it up to her. That's not what Haley needed right now. She needed some sense talked into her. When she heard me, she yanked her head up, trying to cover her face, as if I wouldn't see she'd been crying.
"Listen to me. If you don't want me, that's one thing and I'll try to understand, even though I’ll think you're full of shit. But you need to hear one thing from me," I told her, hoping that my voice didn't sound as shaky as I felt. She looked up at me, and I tookthat as my cue to lay it out for her. "I don't want you using this as an excuse to hide away, you hear me? I don't want you using that douchebag ex of yours as an excuse to hide away either... I get the world is scary, but you don’t have to face it alone, regardless of what you think. Step outside, rejoin the world—they will embrace you, I promise... you're too special for them not to."
Her eyes were wide and disbelieving. There was a prolonged silence before she said, "Easy for you to say, Cooper. You haven't known me for over a decade. I'm not the girl I once was—I haven't been her for a long time. To tell you the truth, I don't know who I am anymore. I don't recognize the girl in the mirror. I know you’re trying to help, but you have no idea what I've been through. What it's like to lose everything and how hard it is to make decisions in the face of losing what little you have left."
Even though my heart was still breaking for her, a tendril of anger wrapped itself around my gut. I was the one she left behind. It was my heart she’d broken, and yet here she was talking about being the one who had lost everything. She had no idea what a life-altering catastrophe it was to lose her.
"You're right, I don't know shit, I guess. You got it all figured out, Haley. Just stay in this bungalow, tucked away from the rest of the world for the rest of your life, if that's what makes you happy. But you're being selfish by removing your light from the world. Not making a decision is a decision too," I reminded her, before I turned around and stormed out again.
Sweat was pouring down my back, and I knew I had to stink, but I didn't care. I was in the midst of pulling off the comebacks of all comebacks, and it couldn't be at a better time. We were playing our rivals, and the showdown was so hyped, we werefeatured on national television as the college football Game of the Week.
It was the first game of the season and I’d convinced Haley to come see me play. It had only been a few weeks since we’d left Hanalei to go back to school.
Soon I’d be graduating and was already being scouted by several NFL teams. I would need help navigating the process to ensure I landed with a team who would value me and my contributions. That's where Bo came in. I'd interviewed several agents, but he seemed to know his stuff and have my best interest at heart.
Bo embraced my competitiveness and love of the sport—and that I wasn’t interested in commercial contracts or TV spots. He understood my need for teamwork and consistency in an unpredictable sport.
So after some careful consideration, I signed him as my agent. It felt good knowing I was doing well enough that an agent would take the time to sit on the sidelines watching me when he had dozens of other clients, but I felt even better knowing my girl was out there cheering me on.
If we won the game, I wouldn't hold back my affections when the TV cameras swung to see the star quarterback. I'd swing her up in my arms and kiss her for the entire world to see and let the pieces fall where they may. Tess would be upset at first, but she would come around. She loved us both.
When I scored the game-winning touchdown, I looked out at the crowd and found Haley. She beamed at me and waved, but even from a distance, I could tell she had her sad eyes on. That's what I always called it when she was worried about something. She would start chewing her lip and her eyes would go big like one of those Precious Moments figurines.
When it came time to celebrate on the sideline, Haley wasn't there, so I didn't give my public declaration of love for her likeI'd hoped. Instead, she was waiting outside the locker room, looking tense.
I went to her immediately, ignoring my teammate's claps on the back. "Haley? What's going on? Are you okay?"
