Bad Girl Reputation (Avalon Bay #2)(13)
“Then stop being on the wrong side.”
Fuck this. I push him aside and go upstairs to take a shower. Cooper has always refused to see my side of anything. He’s too busy being a judgmental prick. Must be all warm and cozy in his Good Twin delusion, but I’m sick of it.
Waiting for the water to heat up, I stare at my reflection in the mirror and experience a jolt of shock. My lip’s a bit swollen, but not too bad. No, it’s the ravaged look in my eyes that startles me. It matches the broken, battered feeling I’ve been struggling to ignore since my best friend skipped town on me, but I hope like hell I wasn’t wearing that expression back there with Gen. She knows she stuck a knife in me when she bailed, but I’ll be damned if she sees the damage it wrought.
CHAPTER 6
GENEVIEVE
It’s dark outside by the time I shut off the computer in the office Friday night. I hadn’t intended to work so late—everyone else had long since gone home—but I was in a spreadsheet trance and just kept going until Heidi texted to remind me that I’d agreed to meet up later with the girls. It’s taken me the better part of two weeks, but I’ve finally managed to get a handle on the invoice tracking system. By next week, I should be caught up on all the outstanding accounts just in time to make payroll. I had to give myself a Google crash course on the software, but thankfully Mom had it set up to automate most of the process. Last thing I need is a bunch of angry employees when their paychecks are screwed up. While part of me is worried that doing too good a job might make me indispensable, I’m hoping that efficiency will help motivate Dad to allow someone else to take over soon.
As I’m locking up the building, a familiar pickup truck pulls into the parking lot. My shoulders tense when Cooper steps out and approaches me with the determination of a man with something on his mind.
“Hey, Coop.”
He’s identical to his brother, with dark hair and daunting brown eyes. Tall and fit, both arms covered in tattoos. And yet, strangely, I’ve never been attracted to Cooper. Evan caught my eye, and even in the dark I could tell them apart, as if there was some distinct aura about each of them.
“We need to talk,” he tells me with an angry edge to his voice.
“Okay.” His abrupt tone puts me off, raising my defenses. I grew up the middle child with five brothers. Absolutely no one gets to come in hot at me. So I plaster on a placating smile. “What’s the problem?”
“Stay the hell away from Evan.” At least he’s direct.
I knew it was a bad idea showing up at the bonfire the other night. Every instinct said going anywhere near Evan wouldn’t end well, but I’d convinced myself if I kept my distance, didn’t engage, it wouldn’t be so bad. Clearly it was too close.
“Maybe you should be having this conversation with him, Coop.”
“I’m having it with you,” he bites back, and for a second I’m unnerved. I’ve never gotten over the uncanny feeling of arguing with Evan’s face but Cooper’s words. I’ve known them since we were kids, but when you’re as close as Evan and I were, it’s hard to reconcile these feelings of intimacy that belong to a completely different yet similar person. “He was doing fine until you came back. Now you’re not even here a few weeks and he’s beating the tar out of some college prick because you’ve got his head all fucked up again.”
“That’s not fair. We’ve barely even spoken.”
“And look at the damage it’s done.”
“I’m not Evan’s keeper,” I remind him, uncomfortable with the animosity wafting off him. “Whatever your brother’s up to, I’m not responsible for his behavior.”
“No, you’re just the reason for it.” Cooper is all but unrecognizable. He used to be the nice one. The reasonable one. Well, as reasonable as a Hartley twin can be. Cornering me in a parking lot isn’t like him.
“Where’s this coming from? I thought we were cool. We used to be friends.” The three of us had been a trio of trouble once upon a time.
“Fuck off,” he says, scoffing. It startles me. He might as well have spit in my face. “You tore my brother’s heart out and took off without even a goodbye. What kind of cold-ass person does that? You have any idea what that did to him? No, Gen. We’re not friends. You lost that privilege. Nobody hurts Evan.”
I don’t know what to say to that. I stand there, mouth dry and mind blank, watching this person I’ve known practically my whole life look at me like I’m scum. Guilt burns at my throat, because I know he’s partially right. What I did was cold. No warning, no goodbye. I may as well have taken a match to my history with Evan and set it on fire. But it hadn’t occurred to me Cooper would give a shit that I’d left his brother. If anything, I figured he’d be relieved.
Apparently I was wrong.
“I mean it, Gen. Leave him alone.” With a last glare of contempt, he gets in his truck and drives away.
Later, at Joe’s Beachfront Bar, I’m still distracted by the encounter with Cooper. Amid the crappy music and scents of perfume and body spray wrestling in the salt air blowing in from the open patio, I keep rehashing the interaction. It was unsettling, the way he sought me out to basically say stay away or else. If I didn’t know Cooper, I’d have good reason to feel intimidated. As it is, though, I do know him. And his brother. So the more I spin the conversation over in my head, the more pissed off I get that he had the nerve to come and, what, tell me off? As if Evan weren’t a grown man with more than a few malfunctions of his very own that have nothing to do with me. Coop wants to play the protector? Fine, whatever. But despite my lingering guilt over my abrupt departure, learning that Evan’s still going around causing trouble only strengthens my conviction that leaving had been the right thing to do. Evan’s had plenty of time to straighten himself out. If he hasn’t, that’s on him.