Page 107 of This Time Around
“What is it?”Rebecca asked, looking back at me.She lifted the ridiculous glasses off her eyes and squinted.“This isn’t where Brooke sits.”
“I know.”I slid the glasses back down and settled them on her nose.If she didn’t like what I had to say, I didn’t want to see it reflected back at me.“I just realized something.”
A tiny line appeared above the bridge of her glasses.“What?”
I kissed her lips and pulled back, grinning.I accused her of being a lunatic.I was pretty sure that title belonged to me.“I love you,” I said.“I just wanted you to know.”
I grabbed her hand and continued walking.She stuttered and tugged on my hand.I pulled down the brim of my KU hat.Occasionally, when I was out, I received the stares and fluttering eyelashes I was so accustomed to.Mostly, I realized, here no one cared who I was.They might have been curious, or excited, but other than Kelly and Brooke, most had manners enough not to go crazy.Instead, everywhere I went, I was welcomed with open arms and wide smiles, treated no differently than someone like Peter Whitman who’d lived here his entire life.
“Hey!”Rebecca tugged on my hand.She dug her heels into the asphalt street and growled at me.“Cooper.”
“What?”I looked back at her and grinned.“Don’t you want to find Brooke?”
I wanted her to know I loved her.I didn’t need a discussion about it.Sometimes Rebecca needed time to process everything, especially when it came to us, and I didn’t need a reply.I just needed her to know.
“I do want to find Brooke, but I’m wondering if we should flag down an EMT and get you checked for heat stroke.”
“Because I love you?”
“No!”She smacked her hands on her hips.“Because you just keep saying it in the middle of the street like it’s something you say to me every day and I don’t know how to handle it!”
I shrugged.She was cute when she was flustered.“Don’t know what to tell you.But I suggest you get used to hearing it.”
“Cooper—”
Ridiculous.“I love you.”I leaned in and whispered it in her ear.Goose bumps popped down her arm despite it being almost ninety degrees.“I love you and I mean it and I don’t know why I just blurted it back there, but I felt it and I don’t want to hide what I’m feeling with you.So I’m going to say it, and you don’t have to say it back.You don’t even have to feel it yet.I didn’t say it to hear you love me, I said it because I want you to hear it from me.That’s it, Rebecca.That’s all it is.”
Also because if she didn’t, if she wouldn’t ever say it, I didn’t want to know yet.We hadn’t talked about me leaving since I returned, and Max was handling an issue on a set based in Germany, so it wasn’t a good time to talk to him.
Her lips formed a pout.“You could at least kiss me when you say it.”
That I could do.I slid my lips along her jaw.“I’ll kiss you later,” I said, “when I’m deep inside you, taking you on your knees like I did yesterday.That was fun, right?”I nipped at her earlobe and pulled back.
Her hot pink cheeks had nothing to do with the heat.Neither did the pink on her chest.That was all me.
If it made me a bastard for liking that she got so turned on when I talked to her, I didn’t care.
“Yeah,” she said, her voice dry and hoarse.“That was fun.”
“Come on.You don’t want to miss the parade.”I readjusted the carrying straps to the chairs on my shoulder and grabbed her hand.
“And you say I’m the crazy one,” she muttered.
We walked one more block down the street, Rebecca occasionally stopped by someone calling her name where she’d wave and say hello before moving on before we heard a little male voice shouting her name.
“Auntie Becky!Auntie Becky!”Oliver jumped up and down on the curb, his hands waving wildly in the air.“Over here!Over here!”
“Just so you know, Ollie’s the only one who can call me Becky.I hate it unless it’s coming out of his sweet little mouth.”
“Got it.You love the name Becky.”
I grinned at her.She growled at me.Then she dipped down, picked Oliver up into her arms and was practically tackle hugged by Nathan.I went over and hugged Brooke, shook Andrew’s hand and set up our chairs while the boys chattered non-stop to Rebecca about all the floats they wanted to see.
Then I settled my ass into the chair.
“Want one?”Andrew asked, holding out a beer from the cooler next to him.“You’re going to need it.”
“Yeah.Thanks.”I sat with Andrew.We chatted.We stood when the Honor Guard led the parade, the National Anthem blaring from speakers in a pick-up truck following them.Then we sat, and for three long hours, I watched Rebecca act almost as manic as Nathan and Oliver did whenever candy was flung in our direction from floats and pick-up trucks and fire engines.
