Chapter forty-one
Cooper
T he moment Cooper walked into the house and saw her, the flight time calculations, the extra fees for the short-notice flight and first-priority boarding, the nearly five-hour drive to Atlanta, and the five hour flight to LA had all been worth it. Having her in his arms, wrapped tightly like she might fly away otherwise, settled his body in a way nothing else had been able to since her brief call during his drive.
“I’m okay,” she’d breathed into the phone, and he’d sobbed like a baby because the thought of something happening to her had made him feel like every organ in his body was shutting down.
“I’m here now,” he whispered into her hair over and over until he felt her body shaking with sobs. “I’m here. I’ve got you. I’ve got you, sunflower.” Cooper nodded at Landon, who had an odd expression on his face. He noticed her family, who had clearly been woken up by his entrance, and tried to smile at them as he carried her into the study so they could have some privacy.
Cooper set her down, leaning her against the empty desk and scanning her body from head to toe to make sure she was really okay.
“Coop,” she hiccupped, wiping at her face. “I’m okay, I promise. I pepper sprayed him and ran downstairs where the officers were. I’m okay. I just finally feel safe now that you’re here.” Maya pulled him up and wrapped her arms around his middle. “Safe enough to finally let out the emotions I didn’t know I was holding in until now.”
She continued crying softly, her warm tears seeping into his sweatshirt.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here. I’m so sorry.”
There were a million and one things he wanted to say to her, but they were stuck in his throat, pushing hard against whatever was lodged there. His eyes watered as he realized how different this situation could’ve been if she hadn’t called the police early enough or hadn’t thought to grab the pepper spray.
His smart girl.
Cooper tightened his arms around her, rubbing her hair to comfort himself as much as it was to comfort her.
“You don’t need to apologize. There was nothing anybody could’ve done. ”
Cooper pulled away, feeling the anger in his chest shift. He’d been so furious when she’d called, all at himself. He’d been worried something like this would happen from the moment he’d learned she was living here alone all those months ago, and he should’ve done something.
“Maya, I understand if you don’t want to move to Charleston. That’s fine. But I’m paying for a security system or a rabid dog or something because I can’t do this. I can’t be across the country not knowing whether you’re okay or not at any given moment.” He cupped her face, wiping at the tears that remained under her eyes and on her cheeks.
“You are the most important person in my life, sunflower. I need you to know that. I need you to see that there is nothing in this world that matters more to me than you being safe. So something has to change here because I…”
Words failed him once again.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “And I’m sorry I hung up on you.”
He moved his right hand to grip her chin so she looked into his eyes, his left hand slipping to her waist. “Don’t you apologize. You did everything right.”
Maya opened her mouth, and he shook his head. “Listen to me, sweetheart. The only reason I’m upset is that I wasn’t here. I am not even remotely upset with you, okay? You didn’t do anything wrong. I love you so fucking much, and the thought of anything happening to you made me crazy. Fuck, babe, after you hung up, I found a direct out of Atlanta and drove so fast, I made it there over half an hour earlier than my phone said I would. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the moment I realized it, but I do. I love you, and I don’t give a fuck that we live across the country from each other, I want to be with you.”
Maya’s bottom lip was wobbling, and he ran his thumb over it to steady it.
“And I want to live with you, Coop. I really do. But even if I didn’t have the charity and my family here, I don’t think I’d be okay moving in with you until I can pay you back for everything. If I can just give you back the starting money you put into the charity, I won’t feel like I owe you, you know? I won’t feel like there’s something hanging over us. I want to pull my weight.”
Cooper stepped away, hands dropping from Maya, one of them bracing himself on the wall. He swallowed over the fire in his mouth before he asked, “I need to ask you some questions, and I need you to think real hard before answering. Did you agree to date me because of some strange, clouded view that you owe me something? Do you feel obligated to be with me because I helped with On the Line?”
She was already shaking her head. “No! That’s not what I’m saying. Of course not. I just want to feel like I’m pulling my weight. I’ve done everything on my own for so long that not doing the charity by myself was hard for me, so I told myself I’d find a way to pay you back. But that was entirely separate from us. I love you, Cooper. I meant it when I said it on the phone. I called you and wanted to tell you, wanted that to maybe be the last thing I ever did, because I meant it. I love you so much, and our relationship is completely separate from all of that.”
“Okay, good. I thought so. So now, ask yourself this—if it’s separate, why does it impact you coming with me to Charleston?”
“I—I—”
“Have I ever made you feel unwanted?”
She shook her head.
“Have I ever made you feel like you’re a burden to me? Not you overthinking but anything that I’ve actually done .”
Maya paused for a second before shaking her head once more, more vigorously. “No,” she whispered.
“And I never will. I’m sorry that’s how people have made you feel, but I’m not them. You have never, ever been a burden to me. Everything I have done has been because I care about you. The reason I want you with me during the season is because I love you so much that the thought of us being apart that long makes me want to quit football just so I can be with you. I want to be able to hold you after a crazy win or a tough loss. I want to fall into bed, dead tired, bruised beyond belief, and know you’re right there with me.”
The words fell out of him easily. He’d been thinking it through the entire trip here. She’d shown him that she was the one person who didn’t care about anything but him, even as others, like his own family, were still learning. Maya had never wavered in that.
And now he would do the same for her .
Cooper ran his hand through his hair once, twice, a third time. “I need you to stop seeing everything so transactionally .”
Maya sat on the desk, crossing her arms over her chest. “I don’t know how not to see it that way. I mean, look at what’s happening here. Look at all these people who left their lives to be here for me. Even Colton and Lucia are on a flight here right now, and all I can think about is how I’ve disrupted everyone’s life.”
All of Cooper’s frustrations fell away at that admission. Right now, all he saw in her was the twelve-year-old girl who had lost her mother and needed someone to step in, and when they didn’t, she’d felt she had to do life on her own. That people around her were temporary, and that she needed to be invisible so her problems didn’t become the problems of others.
Cooper gently removed her crossed arms to clasp her hands. “Sunflower, that’s what people do when they care. They show up. I’m sorry your dad is a piece of shit and he didn’t show up for you after your mom passed away, and I’m sorry he didn’t let anybody else show up for you either. But you have us now, and you’re gonna have to get used to people caring about you. Because that’s what love is, and that’s what every single person in this house feels for you.”
He bent down so his face was right in front of hers, his forehead touching hers. “I’m not going anywhere, and I’m gonna keep showing up for you. Every step of the way for as long as you’ll allow me, I’ll be here. We’re a team, sweetheart. We don’t do things on our own anymore.”
Maya leaned in and brushed her lips against his. “Okay. I’ll work on it.” And then she kissed him like she hadn’t seen him in months.
A few minutes after their conversation, Maya got a call letting her know she needed to go into the police station to answer a few more questions. Cooper joined her for moral support, though he wasn’t allowed to come into the room with her. He sat just outside, staring straight ahead as he thought through their options, trying his best to keep his exhaustion at bay.
He was absolutely purchasing the craziest gate and security system for her. Whether at her father’s house or wherever she lived next.
A commotion to his left startled him, and when he looked over, he noticed a familiar face screaming at him, his hands in handcuffs.
“You piece of shit! You’re the reason I’m here.” The man kept spitting the same words out over and over.
Cooper blinked. Then blinked again. In all the craziness, he hadn’t thought to ask who had broken into her house. Now, as he looked at him, anger, red and hot, pulsed through him, shoving that exhaustion away .
The man’s mousy brown hair was a lot longer and greasier, and he looked different without his evil grin, but it was most definitely the reporter who’d needled Maya during their first press conference, who’d shown up to bother Cooper after the gala in Charleston, and who’d been sitting outside her house after she’d kissed Cooper at the Honky Tonk.
So threatening a libel suit against the paper he worked at had worked then.
Cooper stood, walking toward the door through which Maya had gone to talk with an officer. Another officer, whose desk was right next to the room, looked up at him.
“Hi, I think I might have additional details about the break-in at the house on Sunnyvale Avenue.”
The guy stood and knocked on the door, and after speaking with the other officer, Cooper was allowed to go in. Maya looked at him, confused.
Cooper explained it all. How after the press conference, when Maya had been so brave and that reporter had kept questioning about their relationship status, he’d called and left a strongly worded message for his boss. How the man had traveled all the way to South Carolina to ask Cooper his dumb questions. How after the man had asked Maya if she’d gotten her job with On the Line because of her relationship with Cooper, Cooper had threatened a suit. And how the reporter must’ve lost his job because of it and seemingly took that out on Maya .
Maya decided she wanted to press charges, and she was given information on how that would proceed. After the officer told them they were free to go, Maya whirled on Cooper in the parking lot, arms crossed.
“What happened to us being a team, huh? You want to tell me about how I have to let you be on my team and let you take things off my plate or help me with the charity, but you didn’t even tell me about this until after the fact! What, it only applies to me telling you things?”
Cooper raised his hands in surrender. “Mai, I’m very sorry. You’re absolutely right. I should have told you. I thought I was handling it. I just wanted to make sure he left you alone after he treated you so poorly.”
“ Us . He treated you poorly too.”
“Okay, yes. I just wanted his boss to know how he treated us .” He’d definitely only cared because it’d made his sweet and bright Maya upset, but he’d give her this.
Now he was pissed at himself because it was his fault for putting her in this situation. If he’d kept his mouth shut or done a better job of protecting her, she would have never been in danger.
“You should have told me. No more secrets. No more doing things on our own. Those were your words.”
Cooper nodded. “Agree completely. An oversight on my part that will not happen again.”
Maya rolled her eyes. “Stop talking like that and get in the damn car, you big idiot. ”
She’d been down all day, stressed about the situation and clearly still shaken up, but with that sentence, Cooper finally let himself smile.
His sunflower was back in full bloom.