Rebels and Roses, page 6
He’d been there enough to know where she kept her glasses and plates and was already pulling them out of the cabinets while she flipped open the pizza box. It was still steaming hot.
Damn, he’d remembered.
Cooper always wanted the works on his pizza - mushrooms, pepperoni, sausage, onions, etc. She, on the other hand, liked a basic sausage and cheese.
He’d ordered half and half. He’d remembered. Shit, he wasn’t making this easy. Her loser of an ex-husband had never remembered what she liked on her pizza, because frankly, he hadn’t given a shit about anyone but himself. He couldn’t be bothered by the wants of other people. They were there simply to orbit around him, of course.
It hit her right in the solar plexus hard how much she’d overlooked in that relationship trying to make it work. That someone had remembered her favorite pizza toppings made her this emotional, she clearly needed to think about her standards when it came to men.
I’ve raised them. Some might say too high, but I’m not budging.
The next time she gave her heart to a man, it was going to be different. It was going to be more equal. They were going to be partners, working together.
“Jane? Are you okay?”
“What?”
She realized she hadn’t heard a word he’d said. He was looking at her quizzically, as if wondering where her mind had gone.
“I was asking you for a favor,” Cooper replied. “You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. I know it’s a big ask. I wouldn’t do it, but you’re the only person I can trust with this.”
The only person? Really? What on earth could Cooper need from her that he couldn’t get from anyone else?
“Sure, a favor. What do you need?”
He placed his hand on the folder he had been carrying, now placed on the countertop.
“I was wondering…well…I hate to ask…it’s just that for some reason this new book has been really tough to write…and I just…I’m sort of…stuck…”
“Stuck?” Jane echoed. “On your book?”
He’d been working on it for a few months. She’d thought it was going well as he never talked about it.
“Stuck,” he revealed with a loud sigh. “I was wondering…and I know it’s a huge favor… But would you read through what I have? Maybe I’m so close to it, I can’t see what’s wrong with the story. A fresh set of eyes might help. I know it’s a big ask, and I know you’re very busy. You can say no, and it’s fine.”
Cooper wanted her to read his book and give feedback. Holy hell. She’d love to read it. He was one of her favorite authors. She’d never said that to him out loud, but he was brilliant. His plot twists were legendary in the mystery genre.
“I’d love to read it.”
“You don’t have—”
“I want to read it. Seriously, hand it over,” Jane said, wriggling her fingers at him playfully. “Hand it over and no one gets hurt. I can’t wait to dig into this. Like right now. How far into it are you?”
“I think I’m at the midpoint.”
“You think? You’re not sure?”
She accepted the folder, opening it to see that he’d printed out what he had which almost made her laugh out loud. Leave it to Cooper not just put it on a thumb drive. He wanted her to make comments in the margins. She’d bet on it.
“I’m not sure about anything with this story. I’m in a quagmire, and I’m not sure how to get out. Any feedback you can give me would be much appreciated. I know you’ll tell me the truth. You know the genre inside and out.”
“What about your editor? Did you show it to her?”
“She’s great, but she’s not the answer,” Cooper replied with a definite shake of his head. “In the beginning, she was more honest. Now that I’m a big success, I think she feels she needs to stroke my ego a little bit. I don’t think she could tell me that the whole damn thing should be burned, and that I need to start again. You’d tell me that, though. If that’s what it needed. She’d be more worried about me making my deadline.”
“Wow, was it that bad? Do you think that’s what you need to do? Are you ready to toss about two or three months of work?”
“If I have to, I will. I just hope there might be something in there worth saving. I know you won’t spare my delicate feelings. You’ll be honest.”
“I’m not sure I like how you’re characterizing me,” Jane laughed. “I’m not one of those brutally honest people, Cooper. I do try to be tactful and nice.”
“You are nice, but I know that you’ll be honest with me. In a tactful way. But you won’t lie to make me feel better about myself.”
No, she wouldn’t do that. He was putting her in a difficult position, however, of possibly hurting his feelings if this was bad. This was his creative “baby” so to speak. She would be telling him that his child was ugly.
If the book wasn’t any good. She had a feeling it was better than he thought. He was a damn good writer, and there had to be something in here worth saving. Maybe a lot of “something” that needed to be kept.
“I won’t get mad or pissy,” he promised. “I need someone to tell me the truth. I’m too close to it. One day, I love it, and the next I think it stinks and I should join the French Foreign Legion and leave writing behind.”
“Is the French Foreign Legion a real thing?”
“It is, although to be fair, I’m not sure it’s a truly valid option for me. I don’t speak French, and I have issues with authority figures.”
“Then let’s hope this book is better than you think.”
“I do appreciate you looking at it.”
“Not a problem. I’m looking forward to it.”
With that settled, they sat on the floor around her coffee table with the pizza between them. Cooper had poured two glasses of wine. After eating her fill of pizza and a second glass of vino, Jane was blissful and content. This was exactly what she’d needed tonight to relax.
“Did you take Tom to the airport this afternoon?”
The pizza box was empty, and Cooper folded it up and stood to take it to her trashcan.
“No, he’s still here. He says he feels safe here and wants to stay a few days.”
“Are you okay with that?”
“He didn’t ask so much as tell me he wasn’t leaving. I don’t have the heart to toss him out, although I was tempted. If he goes in a few days, it will all be fine.”
“You don’t sound so sure about that,” Jane said. “No one would blame you if you’d tossed him out. He’s not your family, and from what you said, he’s not a friend.”
“Honestly? I barely know him,” Cooper replied. “Fiona and I didn’t spend all that much time around him. I feel badly for him. I can see he’s scared of something, but it’s not anything that I can help him with.”
“So, you’re letting him stay?”
Cooper held up two fingers.
“He gets two days. Two. Then I’m driving him to the airport whether he likes it or not. He’s got to go home and deal with his life. He can’t hide out here forever. I think I made that clear to him today. This is a temporary reprieve from reality. But it will always come bite your ass in the end. You can’t outrun it.”
“You’re being very nice about this.”
“Are you saying that I’m not a patient man?”
“You have lots of patience, but not so much with pushy people.”
“I’ve had a lot of experience with my dad,” Cooper laughed. “He’s the pushiest.”
Joel Winslow was, indeed, a pushy man. He was a veritable steamroller when there was something he wanted. He didn’t care if someone was telling him no. He simply didn’t hear anything but what he wanted to hear. Jane hadn’t had any personal experiences with him, but she’d heard enough wild stories to know that Papa Winslow wasn’t a man to be trifled with.
“What are you thinking?” Cooper asked. “You have a strange look on your face. Is it because I didn’t throw Tom out on the street today?”
“Well…yes,” she admitted. “I guess I’m just surprised, that’s all. You don’t seem to particularly like him so…”
She wasn’t sure how to put her thoughts into words. Cooper wasn’t a pushover. Far from it. He was laidback as hell, that was true, but he knew when to stand up for himself. For some reason, he was letting his ex-brother-in-law skate through.
“I don’t particularly like him,” Cooper admitted. “The entire Kemp family is a pain in the ass. High maintenance. Believe me when I say, it’s easier to just let him stay for a few days and then get rid of him at the right time. I’ve seen him and Fiona throw tantrums that would have made a three-year-old proud. I learned to pick my battles.”
It was sad, really. Jane had learned the same thing in her lousy marriage. Eventually, she’d stopped caring enough to argue with her ex Peter. It hadn’t seemed worth the trouble.
“Did you and Fiona argue a lot?”
It was a gamble - asking a personal question. Cooper didn’t talk about the past much. With her. With anyone. He was someone who believed in living in the present which she admired. But sometimes…she was curious. Just how had Fiona Kemp managed to get Cooper Winslow down the aisle?
“In the beginning? Some, but not all the time. Later, we argued almost constantly. Then she’d apologize and try and lovebomb me. Try to make it so I’d forget about how crazy and out of control she acted. She’d just laugh and say she’d been in a bad mood or something. Like her behavior was totally normal. I think that’s how we stayed together as long as we did. My normal meter was off. I thought I was the problem the whole time. I was no angel, though. Hell, I’m sure I’m not an easy man to be married to, but I think we both were lousy at commitment. She wasn’t blameless either. We both fucked up. There were times near the end I’d deliberately do something just to make her mad, and I think she was doing the same. It was a way to get a reaction out of the other person.”
This was more personal information than Cooper had ever revealed previously. She couldn’t deny that she was curious about his ill-fated marriage.
“You don’t have to tell me anything,” she said. “It’s really none of my business. I shouldn’t have asked.”
Even though she did want to know.
“I wouldn’t have answered if it bothered me. My marriage isn’t some big secret. I don’t talk about it because it’s over and done with. It’s the past. I don’t dwell on it or anything. Frankly, it was a mistake. I was younger and more optimistic than I am now.”
“You thought it would last forever?”
If he was going to open up to her, she was going to ask questions.
“I did,” he confirmed. “I wouldn’t have done it otherwise. I’m not the type to cross my fingers and just hope it will all work out. But I ignored all the red flags.”
“Red flags?”
Chuckling, Cooper shifted so that his back was against the couch, spreading his long legs out.
“Fiona’s family comes from money. I thought that meant we had something in common. Her old man is a lot like mine. Controlling, money-hungry, and kind of cold to his kids. I guess I thought we could bond over that. Turns out that wasn’t the case.”
“You didn’t have a lot in common?”
“We did to a certain extent. We both liked to travel, and experience new things. She didn’t mind roughing it either. She was happy to hike through jungles and sleep on the ground. Unfortunately, that’s where our commonalities ended. When we were done roughing it and back in the big cities, she wanted to go out and party all night. She liked drinking and dancing. She wanted to be with people every single minute of every single day and night. That was fine every once and a while, but I didn’t want to live like that for months on end. I wanted to get back on the road or just have a quiet night in.”
“Did you fight about it?”
“Loudly and often. The one thing I learned about Fiona was that she liked having her way. She didn’t spend much time thinking about other people. She and Tom have that in common. They take after their parents, so I guess they come by it honestly.”
“It sounds like a recipe for disaster. Peter was a lot like that, too. He had to have everything his way, right down to the color of our bath towels and the brand of toilet paper we used.”
“Eventually, it came down to that moment. You know the one…the so often talked about last straw.”
Cooper Winslow was so laidback Jane couldn’t imagine what his line in the sand would be.
Just what would make this man end a marriage?
6
Cooper didn’t have a clue what was loosening his tongue tonight. It wasn’t the wine. He hadn’t had that much. Perhaps it was the fact that he felt so comfortable with Jane. She wasn’t going to blab what he told her around town. She knew how to keep information to herself, and while she might enjoy listening to a bit of gossip at the hairdresser, she wasn’t going to take part by spilling his life story to others for fun.
He was probably talking because he was trying to make heads-or-tails out of his own behavior these last few days. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t kicked Tom out of his apartment. The man needed to go back home and deal with his shit. Nothing was solved by staying here.
But for some reason, Cooper hadn’t pushed Tom to leave. He’d been around the Kemp family long enough to know that it would only trigger a massive meltdown and tantrum. Tom, Fiona, and their parents didn’t like being told what to do. Everything had to be their own idea, or they’d dig in their heels and resist.
If Cooper pushed too hard, Tom might buy a house and never leave, becoming a thorn in his side for years to come. That’s how crazy that family could be. They’d fuck someone over - even themselves - just to make a point.
And what was that point? That they couldn’t be controlled. That they’d do whatever the hell they wanted, when they wanted to do it. Not a moment before.
He’d forgotten this feeling of walking on eggshells. He’d done it while married to Fiona, but over the last few years the memories of worrying about the next huge explosion had faded. Tom’s appearance had brought it all back.
He just wanted the Kemp family out of his life. For good. If it meant dealing with Tom for a day or two more, then he could do it. Anything more than that, though, and he would forcibly put Tom in the car and drop him at the airport.
Frankly, the Kemp family was trouble. And Cooper didn’t want any more of their brand of chaos in his life. He’d happily left that behind, and now his life was quiet and uneventful. Just the way he liked it.
“What was the moment? Shit, that was too personal a question. Forget I asked it.”
For almost anyone else, Cooper would have told them to shove off. He wasn’t answering it. But for Jane he didn’t mind. She’d been through the mill with her ex as well. She’d…get it.
“I don’t even remember exactly what it was,” Cooper confessed, his mind back to that day in their London flat. “I just remember knowing deep inside of me that this wasn’t going to work. We weren’t going to get any sort of happily ever after. Things were only going to get worse.”
“Yes, I know that feeling.”
“To be fair, it wasn’t all Fiona,” he replied quickly. There was blame enough to go around. “I’m not an easy man to live with. I always said that she liked her way with things, but hell, I’m probably the same. We were both a little spoiled and stubborn. Neither one of us knew shit about compromise or healthy relationships. We didn’t have anyone to look up to when it came to being married and what that took to make it successful. Looking back, it’s a miracle that we lasted as long as we did. I put it down to both of us being too damned stubborn to admit that we made a mistake.”
“Was the divorce ugly?”
That had been the surprising thing. He’d expected it to be nasty, but it had been far from it.
“Actually, no. I suggested that we go to therapy, like a marriage counselor. Fiona laughed at the idea, but she could see that I was serious. The next morning, she said that she didn’t think it was going to work out. That we needed to separate. I didn’t argue because I was going to say the same thing. She just beat me to it. I think once the writing was on the wall, and she saw that I wasn’t going to change, she tapped out. Like I said, I don’t blame her. I wasn’t what she truly wanted. I hope she’s happier now. I don’t wish anything ill to happen to her. We decided that we’d stay out of each other’s lives after the divorce. That’s why I was so shocked to get a text from her.”
“Is she remarried?”
“Not that I know of. We have some mutual friends that I still talk to from time to time, and they said that she’s been in some relationships. I don’t ask, they just volunteer the information. I try not to make it my business. It’s the past.”
He’d thought more about the past in the last two days than he had in the last five years combined.
“What about your ex?” Cooper asked. “Is he remarried?”
“Yes, and I pity her. She’s young and naive like I was. I think he likes them that way.”
“Get ‘em young, train ‘em right,” Cooper said. “My uncle used to say dumb shit like that.”
“I think Peter agrees with your uncle.”
Cooper would love just fifteen minutes alone with Jane’s ex-husband. The guy needed a lesson on how to treat a woman. She’d deserved better. Much better.
Better than Cooper, too. He didn’t have any delusions about what kind of partner he’d make in a real relationship. He’d already screwed up once. It was better to keep it all casual. Then no one would get hurt.
He wasn’t a man that liked to dwell on the past. He couldn’t change it, for better or worse. He wanted to concentrate on the present - the here and now.
Right at this moment, he wanted to do that with this particular woman. He was done with this stroll down memory lane. Her bastard of an ex didn’t deserve even five minutes of her time. Cooper could take that melancholy expression off of her face and remind her that she was too good for that asshole.
