Page 105 of Can We Just Be Happy Now?

I lay back on my board, kicking my feet out–unsure what to say, what kind of plan to come up with. My mind is whirling, cursing myself for not talking to my brother sooner, having a feeling he might be what I needed all along.

“So, what are you going to do? Lie here and hope things magically work out like they did for Mom and Dad? Be an idiot like your brother who is too chicken shit to tell the girl he loves that she’s his whole damn world. Or go fight for Cooper?”

“Fight for him,” I say confidently, flipping to my stomach, ready to paddle to shore.

“I didn’t mean right now, dummy,” he jokes. “You’re still stuck here for six more days.”

Chapter sixty-three

COOPER

NOW

“Proud of you, kid,” Dad says, raising his beer to clink it against my vodka Red Bull.

“Thanks, Dad. I’m ready to get to work and pull my weight.” Today I did a mock presentation of a contract perfectly. I’ve been going over all the ins and outs of them, trying to get my mind off Sophie and on my future.

“I know you are. I’m anxious to see what we can do with this company together, especially once you pass your tests.”

“Crazy to think you built this all on your own.”

“Not on my own.”

“It’s your company. Don’t downplay it.”

“It wouldn’t exist on my own, though. At the very least it wouldn’t matter.”

“Well, luckily for me, you’ve helped set me up for success. I just have to put in the work now, and I’m the only one I need for that.”

Dad’s eyes narrow as he takes a sip of his beer like he’s contemplating his next words. “Is this about Sophie?”

The melting ice cubes in my drink swirl in the liquid as I shake my glass before bringing it to my lips, avoiding eye contact or confirmation.

“Did you know your mom and I almost got a divorce?”

My eyes shoot to his. “I remember you guys fighting when I was younger, but I don’t recall it lasting long or being that bad.”

“It was Mom packed a bag for me and told me to leave bad.”

My eyes widen. I thought everything was generally great between my parents. They’ve always been that role model couple that makes you think when it's right, it should be easy. “Did you leave?”

“No. I refused. It snapped me out of my depression after losing my job. It gave me the fire to create my life–this life. But I knew I wanted her by my side to do it.”

“So, she just forgave you?”

“It took time. I needed to prove I could be there for her in ways I hadn’t been recently.”

“How did things even get so far out of control?”

“One day at a time, until they all added up to be too much.”

“Yeah, it’s like . . . I see where Sophie and I started, and I look at where we are at now and I don’t understand how we got here. The breaking point happened overnight, yet it’s been happening forever.”

“When you’ve been together so long, it’s easy to zoom in too far. It’s like when you were working on agility for football. You’d get so frustrated not seeing day to day progress, right?”

I chuckle. “Yeah,” I confirm, not sure where he’s taking this.

“Unfortunately relationships work like that sometimes but in a negative way. You keep doing little things that don’t seem like they matter. But when you look back, you realize how far you’ve fallen from where you used to be. You’re blinded by your focus on the day over the entire experience. Let me ask you something. Do you treat Sophie as well as you did when you two first started dating?” There’s no judgment in his tone.

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