Page 4 of September's Bad Boy: Cooper
He presses a peach into my hand, his fingers lingering. I fumble as I try to drop it in my basket.
"Thanks," I say, even though that word doesn’t come close to what I’m really feeling.
He nods but doesn’t move away. We just... hover.
My gaze drops to the floor, then lifts to meet his. I shouldn’t. It’s a mistake. But I do it anyway. He’s looking at me the same way he did that night, making sure I was okay.
I’m at college in Whitefish, visiting a sports bar off campus. I’m there for a friend’s birthday. She is turning twenty-one and we have just been out a few weeks ago celebrating my twenty-first birthday at a different bar. Loud music, too many drinks, the kind of place where everyone pretends they’re safer than they are. I’ve been laughing. Flirting maybe. Just a little. Just enough to attract the attention of someone I don’t know well.
I step outside to call a friend to pick us up because we all had too much to drink, and there is no way any of us can drive back to our dorm.
Then the guy I’d been flirting with is pressed up behind me. His hand finds my waist. Then lower. Breath hot and wet against my neck. I freeze as he moves us toward the shadow of the building. I say no.
I shout no! Then louder a second time.
He doesn’t listen.
Suddenly, like a shadow from nowhere, Cooper appears.
I had no idea he was working security there to put Jason through college. When I stepped outside, I didn’t even know he’d been watching me from across the room. But the second he saw what was happening, he stepped in. Pulled the guy off of me and then took a hit when the guy retaliated. Cooper gave better than he got, and it escalated fast. The guy’s friends jumped in, and the cops were called.
And because Cooper already had a record from his younger years, he was the one who paid for it.
He went to jail for saving me. And I never got the chance to say thank you.
Not really.
I blink back to the present.
"Riley," he says. My name on his lips still does things to me I don’t want to name.
I glance up. "Yeah?"
He opens his mouth, but before he can speak, Ruby’s voice calls from behind the counter.
"Cooper! Your paperwork’s up here!"
He hesitates. Nods toward the front. "I should..."
"Of course," I say too fast. I grip my basket tighter. "Right. Go ahead."
He walks off, but I don’t move for a second.
I turn to the cooler section, pretending to browse. The glass doors are fogged slightly, and I can see my reflection. My cheeks are pink, my eyes too bright.
What is this?
Ruby materializes beside me as if she’s been waiting for the perfect moment. "So... you and Cooper, huh?"
I shoot her a warning look. "Don’t."
She lifts her hands in surrender, but her grin says otherwise. "I’m just saying. You two lit up the entire store. It’s like watching a slow-burn soap opera."
"Ruby."
"Alright, alright. I’ll back off. But for the record, I’m rooting for you. That man needs someone who believes in him. And I know you do."
I say nothing, but her words hit deeper than I’d like to admit. Shaking my head, I start toward the register, hoping to escape before my face combusts.
