Snowed Under (Aspen Peaks #2)

33. Cooper

A ll eyes landed on me.

“Dada.” The word rang in my ears, like the after sound of a gong, echoing in the walls of my brain. “Dada.”

“I…” I lifted a hand to my chest and looked around the room. Charlie, with this expression that seemed like he was close to bursting into tears. My mom, watching me with soft, gentle eyes. Mr. and Mrs. Sage, covering their mouths with their hands in shock. Piper, red-rimmed eyes and tearstained cheeks, reaching out to me with both arms. And last, Madeline. Madeline, who looked at me with fear and sadness. And I just couldn’t take it.

“I’m not…” I shook my head. “She’s not my…”

Time felt stopped as the room seemed to spin. The walls closing in, my chest cramping tight. My eyes starting to water. I was about to cry. Oh, God. I was crying.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, and like a coward, I bolted out of the room.

“Cooper!” Madeline called after me, and I turned over my shoulder, refusing to meet any of their eyes. “I can’t…I’m…Just stay here. I need a minute. Stay with her.”

I pushed the hefty door open and passed two older nurses that I’d seen my mom talk to.

“You did a great job, dad.” The short, gray-haired one smiled.

The taller, younger of the two, nodded. “Brought her in the nick of time too. She’s blessed to have a wonderful father.”

Dada. Dad. Father.

My stomach clenched tight, nausea rising in my gut, my mouth sour.

I was going to throw up. Again.

I ran past them to the nearest bathroom and rushed into the open stall, emptying anything left in my stomach. Dada. She’d reached for me. I threw up some more. Dada. I’d ruined her. Dada. Her own dad was six feet under dirt, and she’d found the saddest replacement and had stuck the golden name badge on me.

An unpaid intern with a CEO nameplate on his desk.

I emptied my stomach further, not holding back any of the pain it caused me.

After I pulled myself together, however long that was, I left the bathroom and looked down the hall to where Piper’s room door was propped open. I wanted to check in, wanted details from nurses and surgeons. Honestly, I wanted a hug from my own mom. Because I was still running on pure adrenaline, and nothing in the world calmed me like the soft voice of my mom. I wanted to kiss Madeline. I wanted to be the one to comfort her. To apologize. To let her know everything was all right now. But I…just couldn’t. So I hopped into the nearest elevator, halfway shut with an older couple in it, and pressed lobby.

I sat in the hospital’s coffee area for a while. I hadn’t brought my phone with me. Honestly I had no clue where it was, and since, apparently, no one thought wall clocks were useful anymore, I had no clue how long I’d been down here. Enough to watch at least ten people order at the register, receive their drinks, take a seat, and leave with their families, friends, or spouses.

“Hi, Charming,” a voice called out to me, soft and feminine. Like pink-painted nails scraping along my neck and down my throat. Like the tiny kisses she’d planted on my cheek just this morning. Like her hugs, so light, no matter how hard she tried to squish me. She was always so soft.

I looked up and saw Madeline taking a seat across from me. Her eyes were a little brighter, the mascara underneath them now wiped away, and she looked more relieved than when I’d seen her last. A weight had lifted from her shoulders.

“Hi,” I mumbled.

“You ran out on me.” She didn’t say it in a defensive, accusatory way. Just like she was stating facts. Like she was recalling the last memory. “I was worried about you.”

I puffed out a breath of air. “I lost my phone. I was going to text you that I was down here, but—” She pulled a black rectangle out of her pocket and set it on the table in front of me.

“I found it in Charlie’s seat when you left. Figured you needed some time to breathe.”

I nodded. “I did.”

She sucked in a breath, one dainty hand reaching over the table to land over mine. “And?”

“And…I can’t do this, Madeline.” I shook my head. “I’m not fit for…that.” I waved my hand, gesturing upstairs. “I love you. A lot. I love those kids. I don’t think I realized just how much until I looked in my rearview mirror and saw them both crying in my back seat.” The memory alone brought bile up my throat. My hands felt shaky. “I want you in my life so bad. I want all of you for myself. But I’m not…I’m not strong enough for this, Madeline.”

I looked up, expecting to see her crushed. Waiting for her eyes to water and for her to tell me to screw off or go to hell or some other typical shouted break-up phrases. Instead, she was smiling. I should have known; she was always smiling.

“Cooper.” She squeezed my hand. “You know what the doctor just told me?”

I didn’t respond. Just looked down at our joined hands. The tiny bracelet I’d given her weeks ago rested on her wrist and grazed mine.

“He said that you saved her life. That if you hadn’t driven her here…we could have lost…” She took a deep breath in and squeezed my hand, not quite able to say the words. “I owe you everything, Cooper.”

“No.” I pulled my hand back, and when my eyes looked up, she was still smiling. Only it was that sympathetic kind of smile. She saw right through my hardened shell, straight to the gooey center.

“Madeline…I threw up in your driveway.”

She snorted a little. “Gross.”

“So gross. I didn’t even clean it up. I’m actually mortified about it.”

“Coop—”

“I threw up because I thought she was dying. I thought I was dying for a minute too. The way she was screaming, how she clung to my neck…I’m haunted, Madeline. It was the single most terrifying moment of my life. And I have jumped off the side of a mountain with only skis and no parachute.”

“Please never do that again.”

“It was my early twenties. I felt invincible. Either way, I want to be what you need. What those kids need. I just don’t think I’m cut from that cloth. I’m not your brother. Or Finn. Or any other great dad in the world. I didn’t even have my own dad growing up. How could I possibly be someone else’s?”

Madeline sighed and scooted her chair a little closer. “You know, when I first got the kids, I was terrified.” She picked my hand right back up, and I didn’t fight it. “During the first storm that came through, I thought of everything bad that could happen. I stuck them both in the bathtub with pillows and put helmets on their heads and made them sleep like that while I stayed up all night propped against the toilet, listening to the weather station. It was just a small thunderstorm. The power didn’t even go out. But still, everything felt magnified with them. Every time Charlie fell and scraped a knee. When Piper was teething. When they missed their parents, and I was the most pathetic excuse of a replacement. At first, it all felt so big to me. Terrifying. But then, time went on, scrapes happened, colds happened, and slowly but surely, we made it. We’re still here. And whereas I am not their mother, I think I’m a pretty good aunt. The best replacement there is.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Cooper. Parenting isn’t just the fun stuff. It’s not just the ice cream trips, the Disney on Ice adventures, or staying late, watching movies in a fort. You’ve got to take the good with the bad.”

“But I’m not—”

“You aren’t a dad, no. And I’m not a mom. You’re a Coop, and I’m a May. Those kids look at us with so much love in their eyes that I know they wouldn’t want it any other way. And if you ask me, that’s enough.”

I lifted my head so I could see hers. Her spare hand reached out to my chin, fingers lightly scratching the stubble there. “Parenthood, or aunthood and unclehood, doesn’t come with a book. And there are going to be times where we throw up in the driveway, unfortunately—”

“Hopefully not more than once.”

“Maybe twice. But”—she squeezed my chin—“we can do it together, yeah? All the good, bad, and ugly. You and I can tag team it.”

I straightened a little. “I want to. I do, Madeline. I meant what I said. I love all three of you. But I know myself. You do too. I’m not made for these things.”

“You know what?” Madeline pulled my phone closer to us and tapped the screen. “Someone wise once told me that who we are isn’t defined by our abilities but by who and what we love around us. You love those kids so much, I think you’d go to jail for them. Your value isn’t in how well you can handle the bad times. It’s in the amount of love you pour out into this family.”

I looked up at her, knowing she was probably right, but I couldn’t admit it quite yet.

“Finn texted you something. Maybe you should read it.”

I gave her a curious look, but she just winked and pushed the phone closer to me. My notifications were flooded with missed texts and calls from the people I loved. But a more recent one sat at the top, from Finland.

I opened it first. Attached was a picture of a tiny blue-swaddled bundle inside a clear basinet. A pink head poked out of the burrito, peacefully asleep with shut eyes, long eyelashes, and what had to be the tiniest nose in the entire world. A little Finn. My eyes moved the wooden cut-out circle with fancy drawn-on font.

Eli Cooper Beckett

My lower lip wobbled all over again, and I zoomed in to make sure I wasn’t seeing things from my lack of hydration.

Eli Cooper Beckett

I closed the pic and read the text from Finn that followed it.

Finland: Say hi, Uncle Coop.

Finland: Wish I could’ve told you in person, but I heard you’ve got some chaos with your own baby girl, so I figured I’d leave you to it. We love you, brother.

Uncle Coop. Your own baby girl.

I glanced up at Madeline to see she was crying already, with that same tilted smile. “I told you.” She sniffed. “You were already made for this.”

My fingers reached to lock my phone, and I pulled Madeline’s chair closer to mine, our legs intertwining and my arms wrapping around her midsection, squeezing her tight against me. Chest to chest, heart to heart. Our breathing matched each other’s as we cried.

Madeline’s gaze warmed me up, first inside and then all the way out. And when she leaned up to kiss me, letting me give her the tiniest nip on her bottom lip, everything felt right in the world. Like a new start. A refresh on something familiar and cozy.

“Come on.” I laced our hands together. “Let’s go get our girl.”