Champion (Studs in Spurs) (13 page)

Chapter Thirteen

Cooper had demons he needed to wrestle. Bad shit from his past. Shit he’d hoped would stay buried. But now he knew the only way to get over it—to move past it—was to face it all.

That he had to do on his own, without Hannah and the stars in her eyes watching him. He couldn’t see her until after this was done and his head was on straight again. Then, maybe, he could hope to make some sort of go with her.

He knew what he had to do. He had to make peace with the past before he could move on to his future, and he’d start on that today. He slowed the truck and read the address off the paper.

This was it. Glen’s house. Cooper had sold every last head of stock on the ranch to sever the partnership, and he’d gladly done it to get Glen out of his life. Then, he’d even thrown in a couple of thousand dollars extra to help with the hospital bills. Guilt money, he supposed. Trying to buy himself a clear conscience over the accident. After that, with not much potential for earning the big payouts on the circuit and no income from the ranch, Cooper had been living off what little savings he had left.

It looked as if Cooper’s future had gotten Glen a damn nice place to live. Of course, Glen had also been living with permanent physical damage for the past five years. Ever since that night he’d been driving drunk and upset because Cooper had thrown him out of the house.

Being there brought to the surface the guilt he’d buried deep. That night had caused Glen to have to make sacrifices of his own too.

As his former partner opened the door, the surprise clear in his features, Cooper said, “Hey.”

Glen let out a short, breathy laugh. “Hey. Wasn’t expecting you.”

“No shit.” Cooper swallowed away the dryness. “Can we talk?”

“Yeah. Sure.” Glen turned sideways to let Cooper walk past and into the living room.

He noticed how Glen’s movements were stiff, and how he favored one leg when he moved to shut the door. The damage from that night hadn’t healed completely, and after all this time, Cooper knew it never would. “Sorry to drop in like this unannounced.”

“Hey, baby.” The sound of a man’s unfamiliar voice had Cooper turning. The guy, probably a few years older than Cooper and starting to turn gray, stopped in the doorway in the back of the room. “Oh, I didn’t realize we had company.”

Baby? That endearment from another man, accompanied by the “we” had Cooper turning to Glen for an introduction. An explanation. Something.

Glen drew in a deep breath. “David, this is Cooper Holbrook. Coop, this is my uh, friend David.”

David’s brows rose high and he looked as if he’d tasted something bitter at Glen’s use of the word friend in the introduction.

“David, can um, Coop and I have a minute alone?” With that request, Glen ended the stare-off Cooper had somehow become involved in. The man who was obviously Glen’s boyfriend didn’t look happy about that.

“Sure. Call me if you need me.” The angry, almost jealous expression on the man’s face told Cooper a bit more about their relationship.

Cooper had been the object of female jealousy before, but this was his first experience with it from a male. He watched David leave the room and then turned to Glen. “So…”

Glen shot his gaze to the door David had left through and nodded. “Yeah.”

Not a lot of words were spoken out loud, but they didn’t need more. They both knew the deal. There wasn’t anything more to say. Glen had obviously come out of the closet and was openly dating, if not living with another man.

Surprisingly, Cooper didn’t find himself all that shocked about it. More happy that Glen had found someone. He wasn’t there to check on Glen’s love life or living arrangements. Cooper was there to apologize and set things right after far too many years had passed.

Apologies didn’t come easy to Cooper. He needed to ease into it. “I’m real glad to see you walking so well.”

“Yeah. Thanks. All it took was a couple of months in a wheelchair and then six month’s physical therapy and hell, I’m almost good as new. You know, except for the plate and pins they put in me.” The sarcasm in Glen’s voice was clear.

Cooper had heard the details about the accident. He couldn’t avoid it. After Darla had called from the hospital, he’d gone back to the house. The Arkansas state police had called Glen’s home of record, trying to notify next of kin. What they got was the house phone at the ranch and Cooper, still shell-shocked at the news Darla had dropped on him.

He’d looked up the number for Glen’s sister and given it to the cops, but that was it. Cooper hadn’t visited Glen in the hospital, even with as bad as they’d told him Glen’s condition was. Instead, he’d boxed up all of Glen’s stuff and put it in a storage unit. He’d prepaid for three months and given the sister the combination to the lock.

At the time, he’d thought he was being generous. Now, it all seemed pretty inhuman. Glen had been his best friend for half of his life. Nothing should have been able to change that. Nothing at all. Not even what had happened that night.

He never did find out what exactly had caused the wreck or why Glen was speeding down the highway. It was probably the same reason why Cooper had hid in his parked truck until morning. They’d both needed to escape that night.

The whys and hows were no longer important, but this apology was. Even if Glen didn’t accept it, Cooper still had to make it. Then, after this was over, he could go to Hannah’s with a clear conscience. Or at least clearer than before. He had a feeling he’d never be totally free of the guilt of his actions.

Cooper steeled himself and did what he should have done years ago. “Look. I’m sorry. I overreacted then. You were driving that night because of me. The accident was my fault. I’m no good at apologies, and this is long, long overdue. I’m sorry for that too. I’m sorry for everything.”

“It’s okay, Coop.”

“No, it’s not.” Cooper shook his head even though Glen had sounded sincere. “You could’ve been killed. Or crippled for life, all because of me. Because I—”

“Flipped out because your best friend, who you’d thought was straight, kissed you?” Glen let out a breath. “Coop, I don’t blame you for that.”

“It was a fucking shock, but still, I should have handled it better.” Cooper glanced in the direction Glen’s boyfriend had walked. “So, were you always…gay? The whole time?”

One corner of Glen’s mouth lifted in a half smile. “I’m not even sure I am now. Not totally anyway. I like pussy, Coop. I really and truly do. Always have and I think I always will, even if David hates that I do. Really hates it, with a passion. It’s just, I…”

“You like penis too.” Cooper thought he was being pretty forward thinking, discussing this openly, calmly. He sure didn’t expect Glen to laugh in his face.

“Yeah, I guess you could put it that way.”

“And back then, when we were partners, had you ever…” Cooper was finding choosing the right words hard. He didn’t want to offend Glen but his need to know trumped that.

“Had I ever been with a man?” Glen finished the sentence for him.

Cooper swallowed and nodded. “Yeah.”

“Yeah. Not often, but once in a while.”

“When?” They had spent so much time together, how had Cooper missed this?

“It wasn’t that hard. If you were busy with a girl in your truck, I’d hook up with one of the guys. An anonymous blow job behind a trailer would take the edge off, satisfy that craving for a while, and then I could go back to girls and be happy.”

“Jesus.” Cooper ran a hand over his face. “I never had any idea.”

“Of course not. I didn’t want you to know, so I hid it.”

“Why?”

“Because I knew you wouldn’t handle it well.”

He would have handled it better if Glen hadn’t freaking kissed him out of the blue. Would he have not freaked out as bad if he’d known the man swung that way? Maybe. Then again, probably not.

Cooper let out a breath. “That makes me feel better, actually, that you were with other men.”

“It does?” Glen looked as surprised as he sounded. “Why?”

Cooper shrugged. “All these years, I’ve wondered if it was me giving off some sort of vibe that made you think you could… Anyway, it’s a relief to know it wasn’t me. It was you. It’s just who you always were.”

Glen shook his head. “Spoken like a true homophobe. No, Coop, don’t worry. You don’t give off a gay vibe. You’re as hetero as they come. Like I told you that night, I was drunk. You’d said yes to the threesome after never wanting that before. We were next to each other on the sofa watching the flick—”

“A’ight. I got it. I remember.” Cooper threw his hand up to stop Glen’s recap of the night he remembered too well, the one night he would never forget. It didn’t prevent him from finishing the unspoken end of Glen’s sentence in his head.
With our dicks in our hands.
“And I guess that situation could have been confusing.”

So confusing it had taken Glen’s tongue in his mouth plus his hand reaching for Cooper’s dick before he had sobered up enough and had the presence of mind to stop the situation. Maybe half the anger had come from Cooper’s own fears. What if he’d been drunker? Would he have let Glen—

Cooper yanked his mind away from the what-ifs. They didn’t change or help anything. “Anyway, I came to tell you I was sorry, and to tell you that you were right about something else back then.”

“Oh really? I was right about something? You don’t say that all that often, so now I’m extra curious.” Glen crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall. “Tell me, what was I right about?”

“I’m kind of seeing Hannah now. You remember, Skeeter’s mother. The kid I used to—”

“I know who he is and who she is. About damn time, Coop, but I guess better late than never.”

“Yeah. You’re right. I should have listened to you and asked her out back then.”

“Yup.” Glen dipped his head. “You should have.”

Cooper had to wonder what would have happened differently if he had been dating Hannah ten, or even five years ago. If he had been, there would have been no talk of a threesome with Glen and Darla, that’s for damn sure.

Glen would likely have continued to keep his extracurricular activities of the male variety on the down low. He would have never kicked Glen out and dissolved what by now could have been one hell of a stock business. He’d have plenty of money and a well-run ranch.

Absolutely everything would have been different for Cooper, but it would have been different for Glen too. He wouldn’t have a permanent limp, but he also would have been living half a life. He’d probably still be pretending to be straight, hiding parts of who he was to fit into Cooper’s ideal world instead of how things were now. Glen openly with David as a couple.

“You happy?” Cooper’s question had Glen hesitating before he lifted one shoulder. Glen’s shrug confused Cooper. “What’s wrong? You’ve got a nice boyfriend. You’ve got a nice house.”

Glen glanced at the doorway David had left through. “Things are all right. I wouldn’t say they’re good.”

Something Glen had said before came back to Cooper. “Because he doesn’t like having sex with women and he hates that you do?”

Glen smiled. “Yeah, that’s part of it, among other things. But besides the relationship, I hate living in town. There’s too many neighbors too damn close. I hate working at the feed store. I’m the manager, but still, it’s not like working for myself alongside you when we could be outside and tending to the animals. The work was hard, but it was satisfying, you know? Now all I handle is paperwork and annoyed customers.”

Cooper nodded, understanding so much of that himself. Not wanting to work for someone else was one reason he lived like a pauper. He survived off the remains of a bank account and the tiny residual income from the few products he’d lent his name to back when his name was worth something rather than get a real job and make more money. He kept the ranch—broken as it was—and all the acreage because he couldn’t tolerate city life or neighbors too close.

But he wouldn’t have to live hand to mouth if he started up the business again. “I still own the farm, free and clear. I don’t have a mortgage on it, but I also don’t have any stock.”

“Yeah, so I heard. You miss it?”

“I wouldn’t mind starting business back up and maybe taking on a partner.” He brought his eyes up to meet Glen’s.

Glen opened his mouth and then closed it again before he started the process over again and words finally came out. “What are you saying, Coop?”

“That I want to give it another go with you and me—” He realized how that sounded and rushed to add, “The business, not the uh, other stuff.”

“Yeah, I got that, but thanks for spelling it out.” Glen rolled his eyes.

“You think you could handle the work?” Cooper eyed Glen’s leg.

“I think so. I might not walk so pretty or move as fast as I used to, but the leg’s strong. And I’ve seen you tend the stock when you were way more broken up than me.”

Cooper couldn’t argue Glen’s point.

“You could move back in. And it wouldn’t be like before. I don’t want you hiding shit from me. You bring a woman home to your bed, fine. You bring David, or any other guy home, that’s fine too.”

“You’d be okay with that?” Glen looked pretty doubtful.

Cooper didn’t blame him. He thought for a second before nodding. “Yup. I think I would. It’d be wrong of me to have you sneaking around and trying to hide who you are.”

He might consider busting open the wall between his and Glen’s bedrooms and adding a nice thick layer of insulation as soundproofing, but otherwise, he really thought he could handle it. Cooper was confident he’d matured, mellowed with age.

“You sure you want me living there? Hannah and you, won’t you want your privacy?”

Cooper shrugged. “I’ll give you your privacy, you give me mine. Just like it always was.”

Glen dipped his head. “But what if you two get serious and want to get married?”

“Married?” Cooper’s voice cracked on the word. “Jesus, Glen, you trying to run me off?”

He and Hannah had had sex one time. He needed time to wrap his head around things like love and marriage. Yeah, that one time with her had been amazing, but it had also scared the shit out of him. That was one reason he’d avoided her. He had to get his bearings. He also wanted things made right with Glen. He wanted to be heading in the right direction for his future before he talked to her again.