Page 49 of Flirty Thirty

Yet, that word doesn’t seem to fit.

I growl under my breath and head out the door, following in his footsteps. The urge to calm my ragged breathing is too strong to just sit and wait. He’s worried, so I’m worried, and I’m not going to try to figure out why that is.

I stop when I hear Robbie’s voice billowing from an open office door, and I rest against the hallway wall and try to look inconspicuous.

“Why are you even hesitating?” he says, and I hear a thick file hit a desk. “Fire his ass, then sue it for good measure. I’m about ready to get our lawyer on the phone.”

“Whatever happened to giving people the benefit of the doubt?” Cooper says, his voice vibrating somewhere deep in my chest. “He’s been with us for a long time.”

“Probably means he’s stolen way more than we should’ve let him get away with.”

Cooper’s quiet for a moment. “I know.” He sighs. “I know, you’re right, I just… this is gonna be messy. He’s got a family. Little kids at home.”

“Then he shouldn’t have taken the risk. Damn it, Coop, don’t get soft. We all got problems.”

“It’s not about being soft. It’s about knowing all of that and still wanting to take him to court. It’s about being his friend for years only to put him on the street. I wasn’t like this. It’s pennies to us, yet I want to ring his neck. What does that say about me? Firing him feels so… heartless.”

Robbie chuckles, but that sound only guts me from the inside out. I clutch at my chest, push back the sting behind my eyes, and try to calm my breathing. No one has a bigger heart than Cooper, and to hear him talk so openly about how he feels he doesn’t have one? It ruins me. I want to break down the door and assure him otherwise… and give Robbie a glare over his blasé reaction for good measure.

“You want to talk heartless, bro? Stealing from the guy who gave you a job… not just any job, but a lucrative career… now that’s pretty damn heartless.”

I drop my hand in the silence that follows, let it swing like a pendulum down by my side. This isn’t my concern; it’s Cooper and Robbie’s and my opinions here don’t matter. My nose is buried deep into things I know nothing about, and I can’t know any more about. Cooper and I are separate entities; he owes me no explanation and I owe him nothing when it comes to the day to day stresses. That is marital relations, serious couple talks, not for two people playing house. I force myself back to the canvas-filled office, trying to convince myself that I don’t care.

It doesn’t work. I care all too much, no matter how frightening that is.

***

A strip of light streams across the canvas, turning the colors I carefully selected into bright hues that completely contrast. I chuckle at the painting, brush poised between my thumb and forefinger. A blue droplet falls onto my knuckle, and I let it streak down to the back of my wrist along with several of its friends. I believe there is more art on my hand than made by it.

“Well, you can rule out painter for your retirement plan,” Cooper says from the doorway.

I turn with a frown. “Don’t like my interpretation of a midday horizon?”

“Oh, I do. Especially the signature.”

My name resembles that of a kindergartner, scribbled across the entire bottom of the canvas in black. It covers the original signature in orange that was, believe it or not, much worse on the eyes.

He chuckles, pushing off the doorframe and wrapping his arms around my waist. “Thank you. I’ll make sure it’s in the back of the shoot.”

“The way back.”

I feel his smile on my neck, and based on touch alone, I know it’s a lackluster grin.

I swivel in his arms. “You ready to go?”

“Just about.” He pushes his forehead against mine. “I have one more conversation ahead of me, but… I had to see you first.”

The words I overheard ping around in my head, and I let out a sigh and run a hand over his chest. He has no idea just how wonderful his heart is, how I wish I had one just like it.

I pull at buttons of his shirt, undoing just the top few to expose the white undershirt hugging his pectorals. Careful not to get any bit of his clothing, I tug the material down with one hand and hold it out of the way while I push the tip of the paintbrush against his chest.

The brush leaves a broken path along his skin, flecks of paint speckling his arm as I form the only shape I know how to paint correctly.

“What’s this?” he asks, his lip crooked up in an adorable half-smile.

“A heart,” I simply say.

“Yes…” He chuckles. “Why are you painting it on my skin?”

---