And so too slow.
She heard footsteps behind her as she stood at the sink filling a glass. Bare footsteps. Not her brother, as he wore shoes most of the time to help support his back after the injury that had ended his firefighting career. Not her mother, as noisy heels were permanently attached to her feet.
Keeping her back to the doorway, Zoe turned off the tap and brought the glass to her dry lips. The glass was too small, the water gone too fast, as Cooper stood several feet behind her at the breakfast bar. Waiting. She could feel his stare on her back.
“Hey,” he finally said when she continued to stall with her back to him. “Zoe.”
She closed her eyes. There was a certain timbre in his voice whenever he spoke her name. A slight drawl to the “oh” sound in it. She’d always loved it.
Now it made her want to cry.
Swallowing that urge back, she set the empty glass in the sink and turned around, not meeting his eyes. Afraid to let herself gaze into those blue eyes she’d loved. Afraid to discover whether his love was still there, reflecting back at her.
“You look good,” he said. “Really good.”
At the hint of a grin in his voice, her eyes rose to his face. Two days’ growth shadowed his jaw, and she could recall exactly how that stubble felt on her skin. Rough but not painful. Undeniably masculine. His dirty-blond hair was a mess, even though he couldn’t have slept that long. Then she made the mistake of meeting his gaze. The pain zapped her like a shock of static electricity directly to her heart.
She so couldn’t do this.
Averting her eyes, she did the only thing she could handle, immature or not, and made a beeline for the living room.
“Why do you have to be this way, Zoe?” His words, soft, achingly vulnerable, stopped her as she was about to hit the doorway to the other room.
Instinct and habit urged her to run into his arms the way she always had whenever they saw each other after weeks apart. She stood there, back to him once again, fighting that instinct, imagining her feet planted in the sand against the pull of the waves in the gulf. Reminding herself of why they weren’t together anymore. Why it would never work between them.
“Just … just don’t, Cooper. Please.” She swallowed hard and took a good three seconds to blank her face before walking out to the living room and picking up her purse from the floor. “Penn, are you coming with us to the hotel?”
“You know it.” He rose eagerly, no doubt motivated by the fact that Nadia, the woman he planned to propose to this weekend, would likely be there.
Zoe was ecstatic for him and adored Nadia, but at this particular second, the love in his expression was in stark contrast with the heartbreak throbbing through her.
“We need to go. Please.”
2
Cooper’s dart hit the three, and the bitch of it was, the damn thing was right up against the outer bull’s-eye ring. Touching it. So close in distance but so far from that twenty-five points. Just like he was with Zoe.
He went to the full-sized, bar-style dart cabinet that he’d splurged on right after he and Zoe had called it quits — now the centerpiece of the living room — and plucked out his darts. He set his feet behind the strip of duct tape they’d stuck down on the tile floor a precise seven feet and nine and a quarter inches away. Muttering a vulgar threat to the state-of-the-art board, he let another dart fly just as the front door opened behind him.
Like a dumb ass, his heart sped up with hope that it was Zoe, even while his brain knew full well it was Penn. He grunted at his roommate and tossed another dart, nailing the three.
“Stiff competition?” Penn asked, tossing his keys on the end table and giving Cooper adequate space to finish his turn before going to the cabinet and retrieving his own set of darts.
“I’m off my game tonight. How was dinner?”
“As good as it can be with three gabby women.” Penn’s love-drunk grin contradicted the exasperation in his tone.
“You think Nadia has any idea you’re gonna pop the question?”
“She was so busy chattering about the details of my party I’m pretty sure she’s oblivious.”
“Excellent,” Cooper said. “Where’d you eat?”
“Went to Local Lou’s. My mom loves that place.”
“You mean Zoe loves it.” She’d insisted on eating there every single time she’d been in town. Cooper had always been happy to comply. It was decent food, especially for being “healthy,” but even better was making Zoe content. Nothing selfless about it on his part — he loved seeing her face light up, watching her enthusiasm over something as simple as a local-ingredient salad.
“Wasn’t sure I was allowed to mention her name around you.”
