Bad Girl Reputation (Avalon Bay #2)(85)

I love her. I’d rather never see her again than be the reason she hates herself.

“You should stick it out with your cop,” I tell her, my voice cracking slightly before hardening with resolve. “He’s a decent guy, and he’ll bend over backward to make you happy. Better influence than I’ll ever be.”

“Evan.”

I watch the realization cement in her eyes. Watch as she grasps for some lever to pull to make this stop. Then I turn my back on her.

“Evan!”

I’m out the door and down the stairs. Practically running to my bike. I have to get out of here before I lose my nerve. I know she’s looking at me from her bedroom window when I speed away from the curb. The ache begins before I’ve reached the end of the block. By the time I get home, I can’t feel anything. Not sure I’m even awake.

It’s dark when I take a seat on the back deck later. Clouds block the stars and make the sky feel small and too close. The cricket songs and katydids roar inside my skull. This is shell shock. I’m not fully present in the aftermath.

A cold beer lands in my lap. Beside me, Cooper pulls up a chair.

“You check on Genevieve?” he asks.

I twist open my beer and take a swig. I don’t taste a thing. “Think I broke up with her,” I mumble.

He stares at the side of my face. “You okay?”

“Sure.”

Turns out I could’ve saved everyone all sorts of grief if I’d listened to both of them. Coop doesn’t know his head from his asshole where Gen is concerned, but as much as I hate his second-guessing, he does know me.

“I’m sorry,” he tells me.

“She’s not a bad girl.” People have always given her a hard time for the crime of trying to enjoy her life. Maybe it’s because her lust for it sparked envy, longing. Most people are too afraid to truly experience their lives. They’re passengers or passive observers to a world happening around them. But not Gen.

“I know,” Coop says.

When she left a year ago, it never really ended. Nothing was said. She was gone, but we remained frozen in place. Even after it’d been months and everyone told me to take the hint, I couldn’t let go of where we’d left off. It was only ever a matter of time before she came home and we picked up again. Except it didn’t happen that way. She changed. And though I hadn’t noticed, so did I. We tried to shove ourselves back together, fill in the same blank spaces, but we don’t fit the same way we used to.

“You love her?”

My throat closes up to the point of suffocation. “More than anything in the world.”

She’s the one. The only one. But it’s not enough.

Cooper lets out a breath. “I am sorry. Whatever my beef is with Gen, you’re my brother. I don’t like seeing you hurting.”

He and I have been through a lot with each other this past year. Finding one reason or another to be at odds. It’s exhausting, honestly. And lonely. Nights like this remind me that whatever else happens, it’s just the two of us.

“We’ve got to do a better job of being brothers,” I say quietly. “I know this thing with Mom gets you mad, but do we have to come to blows about it every time her name comes up? Man, I don’t want to keep this stuff from you. I don’t like lying about where I am or sneaking away to take phone calls so you can’t hear me. I feel like I’m tiptoeing around my own house.”

“Yeah, I get it.” Coop takes another swig of his beer, then turns the bottle between his palms while the breeze kicks up and blows in salt air from the beach. “I’ve spent so long being mad at her, I guess I wanted you to be upset at her with me. Kinda lonely out in the cold.”

“I’m not trying to leave you out in the cold. I knew you weren’t ready to let her back in. That’s cool. I told her not to expect anything. Hell, I warned her you’d tell the FBI she had Jimmy Hoffa buried in her backyard if she came around here.”

He coughs out a stiff laugh. “Not a bad idea. You know, if needed.”

“Anyway, I didn’t ask you to see her because I know how bad she messed you up last time. I’d wanted you to give her a chance and she’d betrayed you. Both of us. Yeah, I was worried she’d make me a sucker again. Still am. I’m not sure that feeling goes away when it comes to Shelley. This is just something I need to do. For me.”

“I was thinking.” His attention is drawn to his lap, where he picks at the melting label from the sweaty bottle. “Maybe I’d be willing to consider meeting up with her.”

“Seriously?”

“Oh, what the hell.” Cooper downs the last of his beer. “As long as you and Mac are there. What’s the worst that can happen?”

I wouldn’t have put money on such a dramatic change of heart. I doubt it was anything I said; more likely Mac worked on him. But it’s all the same to me either way. We don’t have much of a family left. It got even smaller today. I’m just here trying to cobble together as much as I can out of the bits and pieces. If we can stop fighting about this one thing, it’ll go a long way.

“I’ll set it up.”

“Telling you now, though,” he warns. “If she comes looking for a kidney, I’m giving her one of yours.”