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There are many ways to grieve—no one way less valid than the others—but this shutting down and shutting out... Cooper didn’t know how to help him. And he wanted so desperately to help Park. To be there for him the way Park had been there unerringly for him the last four months; teasing him out of dark moods, arguing calmly with him when the inertia set his blood on fire, holding him like he was the one sure thing in a life full of uncertainties.
“I’ll walk to town and bring help,” Park was saying. “It shouldn’t be farther than ten miles. I might even get a couple bars of service closer than that.” Cooper blinked rapidly and dropped his hand. “You’ll—While I do what, pray tell? Sit around here awaiting your return and composing a ballad on your bravery?” “I mean, whatever strums your mandolin.” Park waggled his eyebrows.
“Oh, I hope you don’t think we’re as bad as all that.” “You know, I’ve been hearing that a lot today and have come to realize it’s Park shorthand for yes, we are that extreme, but I don’t want to give you details. Just shout jump when it’s my turn.”
“Well? Don’t leave me hanging.” “It’s a silly story.” Cooper settled in deeper against Park’s side. “I’ve made you watch Bringing Up Baby three times. What makes you think I don’t like silly stories?”
“Anything,” Park promised. “You can have anything you want.” “I want to be good for you.” “You are,” Park said fiercely. “So good. I’m not ashamed of you. I could never be,” he added, squeezing his hip. Cooper’s breath caught. “What?” “I wasn’t trying to hide you or anything about you from anyone. I’m so proud of you, so proud I get to be with you, to be part of your life. That you chose me.”
“C’mere. Let me show you my rise and shine.” Park resisted, but he sounded amused. “It’s not morning.” “Yes, it is. Cock just crowed. Hear him?” He thrust pointedly. “Is he always like this or is it still the drugs talking?”
Cooper grimaced at the thought of a one-on-one fishing expedition with Stuart, talking about why humans were the worst. “You mustn’t take his reticence toward you too personally,” Marcus said gently, catching his look. Cooper thought reticence was not really the word he’d have chosen. Not when disgust, open hostility and abhorrence were all ripe for the picking.
What was preferable, Cooper wondered, to find out your partner’s ex looked like you or that he didn’t?
“Oh, fuck,” Cooper muttered, tipping his head back. He dragged his fingers through Park’s hair. His skin tightened, prickling with awareness, the sound of a tongue on skin and Park’s heavy breaths sinfully Pavlovian. Suddenly Park pushed him backward so that he stumbled and fell, grunting, into the sturdy chair behind the desk, the leather creaking beneath him. “Jesus, what was that for?” “I’m being proactive. You were feeling weak in the knees.”
“Fuck, your mouth is sweet,” Cooper said, grinding his ass down into the seat to keep his hips from bucking. “Only sweet for you,” Park murmured, pulling off, then dipping back down and taking him so deep. “That’s right you are,” Cooper gasped. “Can’t let anyone else have you like this. Out there you have to be tough and strong. But in here you’re so sweet and soft and eager to please. Just for me.”
“I love you,” Park said, holding him against his chest. “Really love you. I mean it.” “That’s awkward, ’cause I’ve just been joking this whole time.”
Park had changed that. Well, he hadn’t cured Cooper’s anxiety, obviously. But having Park there, living with him even just temporarily, had reminded Cooper what a great apartment it was. The windows let in more light when Park drank his coffee by them in the morning, people-watching. The shower got hotter when Park crowded up against him and blocked shampoo suds from dripping into his eyes. The kitchen smelled better when Park was baking challah bread, even after Cooper found out the secret ingredient was puréed butternut squash and refused to speak to him for the rest of the day.
Cooper should have sat up. Confronted him. Asked him. Talked to him. Said something. Not communicating was the old Cooper. He’d worked so hard to change and grow. For Park’s sake. But damn, bad news knocks you down to your foundation fast.
“Cooper?” Park murmured. He didn’t answer. Didn’t open his eyes. Coward. But he just...couldn’t. He didn’t want to lie to Park and he couldn’t imagine pretending nothing had happened. But he didn’t want to have that conversation tonight. He needed time to think. Really think, and not whatever this useless trembling his brain was doing.
No mention of packs, wolves or murder. Nothing that risked digging deeper at all, which was how Cooper had gotten into this mess to begin with. By giving Park space and time. By letting him get away with all those stupid vague responses. Apparently Park did have a type, and it was professional avoiders. Well, fuck that.
Cooper exhaled shakily and put his phone back in his pocket. “Oliver, I’m going to ask you something and I want you to be entirely honest with me.” Park’s face twisted with confusion, and just a hint of fear and guilt. Cooper felt it like a kick in the ribs.
Park ran his hands through his hair and tugged, muttering, “Christ, I knew it was a bad idea bringing you here.” Cooper inhaled sharply. It hurt. Of course it hurt. More so because of the whispers of doubt that were already lurking deep inside him all this time. The fear of this very thing shadowing every action, every interaction since he’d gotten here. This was a mistake. You’re a mistake.
“Wh-what did you say?” “You heard me,” Cooper said, even as he wished Park hadn’t. The whole reason he’d waited to talk about this was so that they could do so calmly, reasonably, with plenty of time and no risk of interruptions. Not now, when he was hurt, angry, and there was a dead man in a tree.
“That’s not who I am anymore. I don’t like talking about it because I don’t like thinking about it.” Cooper laughed, disbelieving. “Have you met me? I don’t like to talk about anything, Oliver, but I do it for you. You think it’s fun for me to tell you about my dead mother and my childhood bullies and my psychopath partner? It’s not. Do you think it makes me feel good when you see me vomiting because I ate too much too fast for my fucked-up gut or when you come back to the apartment and I haven’t dressed or showered or moved because my anxiety is spinning out? It doesn’t. It’s painful, it’s
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“I thought we were more than just a good time, sex and laughs.” “We are,” Park insisted. “I do want that.” “Really? Because it doesn’t look like that from here. It has not been easy for me, but I gave you all my soft spots and you gave me the same perfect, phony fucking mask you give everyone else.” “I just didn’t want you to get hurt.” “Then stop hurting me!” Cooper yelled.
Park stumbled back, physically shaken by the pain in Cooper’s voice. “I didn’t mean to—” He bit his lip hard, fists clenched and trembling. “I just wanted to be as good as you thought I was.” “I didn’t need good. I needed a partner who respected me enough to let me decide what and who I want for myself. It’s like you took away my choice.”
You don’t know what that’s like.” “You’re right,” Cooper said numbly. “I don’t.” He shook his head. “Maybe that’s the problem. Honestly, I haven’t understood seventy percent of the things that have happened since I got here. I’m so far out of my depth, I don’t know what’s right anymore.” “I know. And I didn’t want that for you,” Park said earnestly. “I tried to keep you separate from all this, this world—” “But that didn’t work. For either of us.”
He stared down at the carpet. It was intricately patterned and bright orangey-red and lapis blue. A design and color scheme that should have been garish and hideous but just looked expensive. He hadn’t taken his boots off when they’d stomped into the house, and a dark spot of melting snow spotted with mud was spreading beneath him. He felt like a dog about to be sent back to the pound for piddling on a carpet worth more than his life. He didn’t belong here.
It was hard to know where to go from here. He loved Park. So much. But the hurt he felt from being lied to had given him, if not clarity, at least a reason to step back and really look at what they were doing. Helena had been right. Park clearly wasn’t okay. If Cooper were an armchair psychologist, he’d guess the early abandonment Park had experienced by his parents paired with Joe’s extremely conditional love had shaped him into someone who’d do anything, be anyone, for love. That sounded romantic. It wasn’t.
Did Cooper believe in that? Maybe, maybe not—it was hard to tell. All he knew for certain right then was that the idea of standing around Oliver’s wedding to some other man making small talk with old work colleagues saying we loved each other, sure, but it just didn’t work out made him want to set the whole world on fire.
It was always odd to see how little murder truly affected a place. By any rights there should be a town crier running through the streets shouting, Two people have been killed, two more have gone missing, the best relationship you’ve ever had is nose-diving, shot down by secrets you don’t even know the scope of! Hear ye, fucking hear ye.
More heavy silence. Cooper was going to lose his freaking mind. This entire weekend had contained more dramatic pauses than a French new-wave film.
He didn’t say “It’s okay” because it wasn’t, or “I know” because he didn’t. He didn’t say “I’m sorry” because it was an empty, ritualistic platitude, or “You don’t need her” because need had nothing do with it. It was about want. And at some point, at least once in a lifetime, no matter who or why or what came before, everyone wants their mom. Cooper just squeezed Park tighter and pressed kiss after kiss to his temple, the top of his head, his shoulder. Willed him to feel how much Cooper loved him. One person can’t love you enough to make up for all the people who don’t, but Cooper wasn’t
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It was true they rarely got emotional like this—they each had a lifetime of brainwashing that tears somehow devalued a man to contend with, after all—but while he wished the circumstances were different, he felt stronger and closer to Park than ever before. He didn’t want to see Park ever cry again, but in a weird way, he wanted to be there every time he did.
Should Cooper still be angry that he’d hidden a major secret about his past? Maybe. Park had purposefully concealed something he thought Cooper would leave him for. Whether he would have or not, that manipulation was wrong. Had he been too angry already? Maybe that, too. No one owed anyone the most painful secrets of their life.
“What do you want?” Park whispered into the crease of his thigh. “You can have anything.” He pressed an open kiss to Cooper’s skin. “My mouth? My tongue? My ass? My dick?” “Yes, good,” Cooper groaned. “That sounds good.” Park laughed breathlessly. “You have to choose. Or do you need me to repeat the options?” “What is this, a game show? Who Wants to Get Fucked? Do I get to phone a friend?”
Unexpected emotion filled his chest, and Cooper had to bite the inside of his cheek hard not to cry. No one’s happiness had ever been so intrinsically linked to his own. Oliver’s joy was his joy now. And Oliver had never looked so fucking joyful. They could make the happiest goddamn home together.
“Come home with me. Stay.” Park’s whole body stilled. “What?” “Live with me. Move in.” “Are you serious?” “Why wouldn’t I be?” Cooper said. It had seemed like a good idea when he said it, but Park’s slack-jawed reaction wasn’t exactly boosting his confidence. “It’s just—” Park stammered. “I mean, I know you like your space. I don’t ever want to get in the way of that.” Cooper snorted. “It’s not space worth having without you in it.”
His thighs were starting to burn, but it was inconsequential compared to the nuclear heat radiating off his skin’s surface. He wondered if he was shimmering.
Park came to stand by Cooper. “I believe him.” “Ollie,” Marcus said with disbelief. “No.” “Cooper has never lied to me. I trust him.” “Against your own family? Your blood?” “Against anyone.”
After all, as Park had said, Marcus wasn’t a fighter or anything special at all, really. Just like any power-hungry man, deep down he was a coward.
Marcus was a bad guy, but Cooper had to admit he was right about a couple of points. One of which was the state of things right now was not working. And continuing in the BSI was passive support of the toxic status quo.
“For you? It means nothing more than what we’ve been building together for a while. You are my partner. My love. My family.” “And for you?” he asked, his voice gruff. “With you I’m finally home.”
