The Space In Between(15)

“Okay. What?”
Clasping my hands together, I leaned in closer to him. “I like her. I like her a lot.”
The sudden shift of character in Kyle’s eyes was drastic; he knew where this was going, “Shut up.”
“She's different, Kyle.” My heart started pounding as I thought of the night before. Andrea was mysterious and different from anything I had ever felt with Iris. There were parts of her that were the same Andrea I knew when I was younger, but there was so much more depth to her nowadays that I found so f*cking attractive. “And the way she kissed me…” Her lips... Andrea Evans’s lips could make any man daydream of kissing her for the rest of their lives.
“One. Night. Stand. That’s it, Cooper. One night! None of this instant love bullshit again. You know where instant love put you last time? In the damn psych ward!” Kyle hollered at me, but I wasn’t interested in his opinion.
“She's beautiful. Not the type of beautiful most people see. But a sad type of beautiful, the type of beauty that changes people. And…” I chuckled, thinking of how insane what I was going to say next sounded. “You’re going to think I’m crazy.”
“I already do. Tell me anyway.”
“But Jesus...in the mental health clinic… he told me I would meet someone. And a few weeks after I got out of the clinic, POOF! I’ll be damned, there she was. And I have you to thank for that! If it weren’t for you sending me to that club, it wouldn’t have happened.”
Kyle sat there, stunned for quite a bit of time. “Get the hell out of my office. And take your damn pills!”
As my cell phone went off from a text message, my eyes widened when I saw the name ‘Andie’ displayed. She finally got back to me after the few text messages she seemed determined to ignore. I stood up and nodded, walking near the door. “I’m going to see her.”
A firecracker was lit under Kyle’s seat, sending him skyrocketing from his chair. “What! No. Noooo. She’s a stripper, Coop. You can’t actually be seen with her!”
“I'll see you later, Ky.”
I glanced back into Kyle’s office in time to see him tossing his paperwork into the air and kicking the side of his desk.
He was so dramatic sometimes.





SHE LOOKED PERFECT. She was wearing a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt, and somehow she managed to look f*cking great. Her eyes were hidden behind dark sunglasses, and I instantly stood up from the table at the café when she walked in. She quickly raised her hand to stop me from greeting her. She took the seat across from me and I lowered myself back down.
What was there to be said? I figured I should take a stab at it.
“Andie last night was—”
“Call me Andrea, Cooper. And last night was a mistake.” She removed her sunglasses and roughly rubbed her hands across her tired face.
Sitting back in my chair, I looked at her, taking note of the puffiness of her eyes. I had a small feeling I was the cause of her suffering. I didn’t know what to do or how to make it better. I laid my hand across the table to give her comfort, but she refused it. I felt like such an ass. She’d opened up to me last night, and I took advantage of her.
“I’m sorry,” was all I could think to say.
Lowering her head she shrugged. “It’s not your fault. But if you could do me a big favor and pretend this never happened? Please? I’m not the same girl I was back then when you knew me.”
“And I’m not that same guy, Andrea.” The fact was that I didn’t want her to be that same girl that I knew. I was so deeply engrossed with the broken creature before me and I wanted to capture her out-of-order smile in my mind forever. A beautiful mess she was. She was everything my soon-to-be-ex wife wasn’t. And I wanted to know more. I asked her to give me a chance.
She wouldn’t. She explained once again how she had already broken one too many rules.
“Please. Cooper, trust me. You’re better off. Don’t text me anymore. Don’t show up at the club. Don’t reach out to me. I’m sorry about all that is going on in your life, but that’s not my problem. And to be honest, my issues aren’t yours.”
Andrea stood up from the table, placed her sunglasses back on, and walked out of the café. I wanted to follow after her, but hell, what right did I have to do such a thing?


Chapter Seven

UGH. I FELT terrible for how harsh I’d had to be with Cooper, yet I knew if I hadn’t been he would still show up. And I’d needed to make it clear to him that I wasn’t interested in getting to know him, or anyone else for that matter, anytime soon. I stood outside of the café and literally counted the beats of my heart. One hundred and twenty beats per minute. I turned back to look through the glass window at Cooper and pounded my fist against my waist.
“We need rules,” I insisted as I barged back into the café and sat across from him.
“Pretty Woman rules?”
I smirked at his sarcastic tone and took off my sunglasses. “I’m serious, Cooper. Listen, I’m messed up. I really am. And you’re…” I stopped, not wanting to offend him. He sipped at his coffee and kept his eyes on me. “You’re going through some stuff, too.”
“This is true.”
“But for the first time in a long time…last night...for a small bit of a moment, I didn’t feel like constantly dying.” I rubbed my eyes, and cussed under my breath, realizing there was eyeliner on my fingers, which meant it was smeared all across my face. Without hesitation, Coop took a napkin and wiped the hot mess that had attacked me and turned me into raccoon eyes. A rush of heat ran through my body from his touch, a feeling I would beat myself up for later on.