Page 12 of Craving Cooper

Chapter Four

Cooper

“So, what was the fight about this time?”

Brady jumps out of the truck, looking back up at me, and raises his hand to shield his eyes from the sun. It’s hotter than it ought to be, and I pull my t-shirt off over my head, dropping it to the floor of the truck before I join in him on the ground.

“She didn’t want me to come here today. She wants more… she wants us to settle down. A combination of most of the things we usually fight about.” I put just enough boredom into my voice to let him know this is nothing new… as if he didn’t already know that.

“I get that you think you’ve got it made,” he says, shaking his head. “You’ve told me often enough. But can you honestly say you’re enjoying life with Meredith? It seems to me you’re fighting more and more these days.”

“Yeah, we are.” As for ‘enjoying life’, I guess a little less drama would be nice.

“In that case, do you really wanna go on seeing her?” he says, surprising me. That’s not something I’ve considered before… probably because she always comes back before I have the chance. But if I’m being honest, I know that if Meredith left for good, I wouldn’t miss a single thing… except the sex. Not because sex with Meredith is so fabulous, but because I like sex. A lot. And sex with Meredith is convenient.

Should I really be prioritizing convenience in an intimate sexual relationship? Probably not.

But at least I’m being honest. I’m not pretending to something I don’t feel, or dressing this up to be something it isn’t.

Brady’s still staring at me, waiting for an answer I don’t have, and I shrug my shoulders, pushing my fingers back through my hair. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because there’s gotta be more to life than what you’re doing, man.”

“I’m not doing anything.”

“Which is part of the problem.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you’re settling.”

“Settling? You sound like Meredith.”

“No. She wants to settle down. I’m talking about settling. You know? Making do…” He shakes his head. “I’d hate that,” he says. “I’d hate to live with someone who made me feel as uncomfortable as you are.”

“Which is why I don’t live with her.”

“No. You just share a bed with her every so often. That’s not a relationship, Coop.”

“I’m not looking for a relationship. I never have. Not in the sense you mean. I’m not like you.”

“Maybe not. But tell me honestly, are you happy?”

He looks into my eyes, as only my oldest friend could, and I know I’ve got no place to hide.

“It could be worse,” I murmur and he frowns.

“If that’s your honest answer, then you also have to say it could be better, don’t you?”

I’m sure it could, because even if Meredith is convenient, there’s no getting away from the fact that we’re very different people. We have practically nothing in common. Meredith can be noisy to the point of being raucous… which is something that’s reflected in her art. It’s loud and brash, and not to my tastes at all. I’m much more calm and laid back… which she interprets as ‘boring’. We don’t like the same music, the same movies, and almost none of the same foods. And as for the fighting…

I sometimes think she enjoys it. She certainly instigates it. Every. Damn. Time.

I’ve often wondered if she does that for the make-up sex. Except that doesn’t make sense. We only see each other on the weekends. Why would she waste that time fighting, just so we can make up, when we could have been having sex all along? It’s what our weekends are all about… when she’s not asking me for more, that is.

“Your silence speaks volumes,” Brady says, his voice making me jump, although I hide it with a shrug of my shoulders.

“I was thinking.”

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