He’s perfection.
How did I never notice this before? How did I not see?
I must have been blind because the man before me is absolutely flawless.
His eyes hold my gaze as he sucks eagerly on my finger until I finally pull my hand away.
“You drive me absolutely crazy,” Coop whispers, and I can’t help but kiss him again. Doesn’t he know that he does the same thing to me? That I’m lost without him?
I try to convey that in the kiss I lay on him, but I’m not sure it’s clear. I will have to tell him eventually, will have to put into words what’s happening inside of me.
When we finally manage to break apart, we quickly clean up the mess on the floor and then return to the kitchen, a bottle of wine in Coop’s hands.
I’m sure by the pink flush of our cheeks and our tousled hair his parents can tell what we’ve been up to, but thankfully they don’t say anything. They just watch with astute gazes as Coop pours them glasses of wine.
“So, tell Matthew about Japan,” Coop says, stirring the pasta on the stove, and I take a sip of my wine as I listen to Isabella regale me with what the two of them did in Tokyo.
When Coop finishes making dinner, he hands us each a plate of food and then leads us out onto the balcony. The two of us take a seat on our lounger, the blanket pulled up over our legs, our plates settled on our laps. His parents sit in chairs near the heater, their bodies turned toward us.
“I always forget how beautiful this view is,” his mom says, turning her gaze out and over the ocean. The sun is beginning to set, casting pinks and purples across the horizon like spun cotton candy.
“It is. Matthew loves it out here. Spends most of his day either on the beach or sitting out here, watching the waves,” Coop tells them.
I feel my cheeks heat as I place a bite of linguine in my mouth.
“I do love it,” I say softly and watch as his mom beams at me. “It’s a nice change from my old place and a relaxing way to decompress from teaching.”
“Ah, a teacher,” Isabella says, and I nod, swallowing another bite.
“Yeah, he teaches athletics and coaches on the side,” Coop says, making my job sound more than it is.
“Yeah, I mean, usually I just end up yelling at kids to stop putting balls in their pants,” I murmur, making his dad smile for the first time since he arrived.
“Well, aren’t you a cutie,” his mom says. “What age do you teach?”
“High school.”
“Well, you must be a saint then,” she says. “I remember Cooper as a teen. Smelly and rude. One time, I found him with his dick stuck in a bottle.”
“Mother,” Coop says with a huff. “I told you not to tell anyone that.”
“We never made that promise, especially when it came to meeting your husband,” his dad says with a grin.
“What were you like as a teen, Matthew?”
“A shit, mostly, but I never got my dick stuck in anything,” I say and then bite my bottom lip, worried I may have just offended his parents. The silence is heavy for a second before they both start laughing.
“I like him,” Isabella says, and I grin back at her, feeling slightly relieved. Guess I’m making an okay impression, at least with her.
“My opinion has yet to be formed,” his father says, his voice stern.
Coop huffs in frustration, but his father continues on. “What? Do we know what his motives are? You boys haven’t known each other all that long.”
I peer up at the man, seeing so much of Coop in him, the slight slope of his nose, the bunch of his brows, the auburn hair. Except, he seems more intense, more critical.
Especially of me.
“I’m not going to hurt him,” I say just as his mother nudges her husband.