Intercepting Love (Second Chances #5)(41)
I picked up one of the bottles; it was filled to the hilt with hundreds of pills. There had to be thousands among thousands of them in his grasp. Cooper picked up one of the bottles and took it to his bathroom. Breathing heavily, he opened it up and slowly tilted it, letting each and every pill fall into the toilet.
“Before I tell you what happened, I need you to know that I’m not going to make excuses. I was stupid and there was a time when I sunk to a new low. The story was kept out of the papers because I spent a lot of money keeping it secret.”
Bottle after bottle, I watched Cooper take them into the bathroom and flush its contents, his face a stony mask of regret. “Cooper, just tell me,” I begged. “I don’t like seeing you like this.”
Angrily, he grabbed a few more bottles and dumped them. “The doctor my mom referred to was a woman I was f*cking, Kate. She lost her medical license because of what we did.”
“What did you do?” I asked nervously.
Swallowing hard, he flushed another bottle of pills and came to kneel before me, his voice pained and raw. “The deal was that if I slept with her she’d give me a bottle of pills. It was payment for what I did for her.”
Eyes wide, I gasped and glanced at all the bottles, then up to him. “Holy shit,” I cried.
“Yes, I know, you don’t have to say it,” he said, cutting me off before I could say anything else. “It’s disgusting and I’m sure you’re wondering why the hell I did it?”
Grabbing a few more bottles, he held them in his hand—his chest heaving up and down in anger—and it was like everything within him finally snapped. His arm reared back and he threw them against the wall, hard, scattering pills everywhere. I yelped, jumping back in surprise. Turning his back on me, he faced the window and fisted his hands in his hair.
“All I wanted was the pills, Kate. At that time in my life everything was a f*cking disaster. The girl I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with left me for someone else, and then not long after that I got injured. You saw what my parents are like, so you know they weren’t supportive. All they cared about was when I’d get better to get back on the field. When Oakland didn’t want me anymore, that was the last straw. The pain meds helped me cope with it all.”
“Who was your doctor?” I asked. “How did you even get that set up to exchange pills for sex?”
Releasing a heavy sigh, Cooper sat on the edge of the bed and kept his back to me. “I’m not going anywhere, Cooper,” I promised. “Just answer the questions.” When he didn’t say anything, I got up and stood in front of him, tilting up his head with a hand to his cheek.
His blue gaze penetrated mine … so sad and distraught. “Are you sure I haven’t scared you off yet?”
“Not yet,” I answered wholeheartedly. “It takes a lot more than that to scare me off.”
He scoffed, “Well, sit tight because I’m not done yet. My doctor had been my regular physician for years. She was a friend of my parents, and I knew a lot about her personal life. I knew she had problems with her husband, so one day when I was getting low on pills I decided to seduce her. I didn’t want to, but I knew she’d give in. Over time I used my advantage with her to ask for the pills. Her husband eventually found out and turned her in, along with filing for a divorce as well. So needless to say, she lost her license and her husband all in one day. When he threatened to go to the press, I paid him off … and her along with him.”
Lowering his gaze, he took my hands and kissed them gently. “That’s what happened, Kate. As of tonight, I’m not taking any more of these pills. I don’t care what kind of withdrawals I go through. I just want this part of my life over.”
“You know what will happen if you do that. It’s not going to be easy, Cooper,” I replied, trying to reason with him. “It’s not a smart thing to do.”
“I don’t care, Kate. It needs to stop … now.”
There were still tons of bottles on his bed, so I took a deep breath and picked one up, taking it to the bathroom. “What are you doing?” he asked.
Dumping the pills into the toilet, I threw away the bottle and grabbed another one. “I’m helping you, Cooper, because that’s what I want to do. I’m not going anywhere. If this is what you really want to do, then you’re going to need as much support as you can. I’m not going to leave you.”
Cooper jumped to his feet and wrapped his strong arms tightly around my body. “You have no idea how much this means to me, Kate. I don’t understand why you’re even doing it. You deserve someone so much better.”
Leaning up on my tiptoes, I closed my eyes and kissed him gently on the lips. “I deserve you, Cooper. I thought it would be quite obvious why I’m helping you. You should already know why.”
“Yes … but one day I want to hear you say it.”
The next morning was brutal.
I knew something was wrong when I woke up drenched in not my sweat, but Cooper’s. He lay there shivering, but his skin was warm to the touch. He had already gone through some symptoms last week with reducing his medication, but it was nowhere near what he was experiencing now. I had no idea how long it was going to be like that either.
“Cooper,” I murmured, wiping the dampened hair off of his forehead. His eyes were closed, but I knew he was awake. Wrapping my arm around his stomach I kissed his bare bicep and rested my cheek against his skin. “Cooper, you can do this. You just have to work through it. I know it feels like you’re sick, and I’m sure you’re body hurts like hell, but it will pass. The best thing to do is to keep busy and keep your mind clear.”