Snowed Under (Aspen Peaks #2)

27. Cooper

“ R elieved?” I asked in confusion.

Out of all of the things that had run through my head when Madeline called me with that broken, shaky voice, relief was the last one I expected. No, actually, the last I expected would be that her parents had spent her college fund on bathroom renovations and hospital bills.

“Yeah.” She whispered it like a secret. Like we were two kids playing hide-and-seek, and she had to whisper something just for me. “Because I thought, finally, I don’t have to do this anymore. The tests. The thought of labs next semester. The idea of having my nights back.” She sighed mournfully. “And if I’m being honest with myself, that might be more selfish than what they did.”

“It isn’t,” I interjected. “You are nowhere near them.”

“How? How could I be relieved to drop out of school when I have an opportunity to graduate and make money at a job that could give the kids good lives? I could give them good futures, and still…I just want to be here.”

“How long ago did you realize it?” I asked in a hushed tone.

“I think I always knew deep down. I just hoped they didn’t know too.”

“Well, then, maybe that means this is a good thing, right? A good thing in a really, really ugly disguise.”

Madeline’s face fell to her hands, and she groaned. “I think I just wanted to finish for the wrong reasons. Like, sure, money and stability would be great, but I think, more than anything, I wanted it to prove something.” She shifted in my lap, and I moved my hands from her arms to rest on her hips. “Jake was one of the reasons I wanted to go to nursing school in the first place. Then, when he left, I was just so mad. Mad at the whole world, and I thought, watch this. Take everything away and see how I thrive. I thought I could graduate and get a big-girl job, and then my parents would see me. Then Jake would see me too and know they had been wrong the entire time. And instead, just like my parents knew I would, I hated it. I wanted so badly to be right about something. I wanted to be looked at and admired and prove the whole world wrong. And now I think I was just so relieved to have an actual reason to quit just so I can work here a little longer.”

“That’s some bullshit.”

“What?”

“That. Is. Bull. Shit.” I emphasized each syllable. “Madeline, respectfully, screw your parents.” She huffed a little above me, but I made sure my tone was anything but amused when I continued. “No. Screw those girls who would look at this list of attributes for you and give you anything less than an absolute ten. Screw your douchebag ex who I honestly wish I decked that night at the drive-in. Screw anyone who makes you feel like you’re less than what you are.”

“You’re just say—” She started, but I cut her off. Because there was no way I was going to let her excuse my explanation with an oh, you’re just saying that. Because I didn’t have to say anything if I didn’t want to. I could’ve held her, let her cry it out, kissed her, and sent her on her way. But that would have made me exactly like him. And she needed to know I was the furthest thing from any of these people in her life.

“You don’t have to prove anything. Graduating from nursing school, getting a crummy hospital job, or if you turned out to get your PhD and become a freaking doctor, who cares? You have kids, two amazing ones, that you take care of. You have a job that you love. You know you smile when you’re dusting? This smile that is so bright it honestly makes me jealous, because I can joke with you all night, and still, I think you’d smile more while vacuuming or dusting.” She smiled softly at that. “And you have me. And I don’t care if you’re a stay-at-home-mom or a housekeeper or a nurse or a damn aerospace engineer.”

I don’t love Madeline the mom or Madeline the nurse. I love you, Madeline, alone, I thought. With her kids, without her kids. Degree or no degree. I loved her so much that I couldn’t even come up with a nickname for her. That’s how down bad I was.

“You’re enough on your own,” I said. “Accomplishments, degrees, salary—all of that really means nothing if you’re still miserable. We don’t have a ton of time here on earth. So spend it doing something you love.

“And if you decide you want to go to nursing school, then I’ll pay for the rest of it. We can do a loan if you want to pay me back. But I’ll invest in your future gladly, because I know it’s bright. And if you decide to stay at the lodge, I’ll bring you coffee every morning and watch the view in the sitting room any time you want.” She snickered, and I smiled back at her. “I mean it, Madeline. Whatever lane you’re in, I’m right there behind you. And if you need to switch lanes, that’s okay too. You have nothing to prove to anyone. Even me. Heck, especially me. You still think you don’t know who you are?”

She looked up at me with this touch of confusion. A splash of misunderstanding in the hazel of her eyes. And it broke me to see it. Broke me so badly that I stopped holding anything left in me back.

“Madeline…you aren’t who you were before the accident. You’re not the you of after, either. You are…Madeline. You’re not your hair or your eyes, though I love those. You’re not what your ex did to you or what your brother and his wife left you. You’re not what your parents make you out to be. This ‘game’ we’ve been playing?” I said, using air quotes. “It’s not a game, Madeline. It’s who you are. The music you listen to. The kind of pizza you order. You’re the hater of two-lane drive-thrus and the lover of Planet of the Apes.” She laughed a little through a choked-up gasp. “You’re the fuzzy socks you wear at home. The way you sway your hips when you clean. You’re the first to burn a candle. You are what you love. You are Madeline. Those are the things that make you, tiny as they might seem. They all build and push and make you you.”

Madeline lifted a hand to wipe her tears on her sweatshirt before tucking her legs closer in my lap. I wrapped my arm under her knees and pulled her farther into me. Chest to back, warmth spread through my body, and when she whispered the tiniest thank-you, I kissed the top of her forehead and held her until her tears ran dry.

We listened as laughter and music poured from the windows outside. The sounds of a winter in Aspen. The ski lift workers, the yells of thrill rushing down the mountain, wind brushing around the lodge. I held her as we processed in the way we needed to, watching a view that we adored. Her soaking in my words, me soaking in the attempt to not call her parents myself.

After a while, Madeline hummed a little and then whispered, “Hey, Cooper?”

“Yeah?” A smile was in my voice when I answered.

“I like you a lot.”

I breathed in her hair. Vanilla, cinnamon, warmth. “I like you more. I was thinking about it last night, and you know…you’re a terrible liar.”

She lifted up a little. “Oh?”

“Yeah. Like the worst. So if we do this interview next week, you know…”

Her lips tilted up at the corners and she bit down. “Hmm. I am a very bad liar.”

I nodded. “Mm-hmm, the worst.”

“So maybe I…should just be your girlfriend.”

“Maybe.” I smiled. “And maybe, for the sake of straightening blurred lines, you should’ve been since I first kissed you.”

“No,” she whispered and smiled up at me. “No, this is better. Waiting for you is better.”

I shook my head. “It wasn’t me you were waiting on, Madeline. I’ve been here a while.”

Madeline leaned into me, her sweet smell wafting over me as I breathed her in. She was the first to tilt into me, but I was the one who sealed our lips together.

Our mouths mingled in tandem, pushing and pulling. Biting and sucking. Soft and slow one minute, with our hands in each other’s hair. Then hard and fast the next, hips settling into one another, rubbing and moving till we were nothing but moaning, groaning messes.

I moved my lips to the crook of her neck, planting gentle, then playful, bites down to her collarbone. The softest moan left her lips right above my ear, and the sound was my undoing.

I growled as I gripped her waist, testing it in my hands and settling my hips into hers.

“I could just…” I searched for the right words. “Eat you.”

“Yeah?” She laughed. “I’m flattered.”

“So what are you going to do now?” I asked as my mouth trailed down her chest, pulling her sweater down with my crooked finger and kissing the exposed skin there.

She sighed, half in pleasure and half in dread. “Finish up this semester strong, in case I ever decide to come back and…” She hissed when I sucked on a small sliver of her skin. “Go out with a bang. Never tell my parents that they were right, and then see if, starting in the new year, I can work here full time.”

“I like the idea of you here full time.” I kissed her to emphasize the sentence, like a period.

“Yeah?” She smiled, hands running into my wild hair, and I bit her playfully.

“I like you right under my nose. Where I can sneak away and see you. And we can come here anytime we want. Just me and you.”

I squeezed her backside and pulled her closer to me before looking up to her. We smiled at each other, and she gave me one more open-mouthed kiss before saying, “I’d like that too.”

Maybe gift giving was my love language, but nothing could compare to the way I loved Madeline.