Page 54 of Playmaker

That hurt. I’d thought we were friends. Of a kind. He didn’t need to tell me what was up with Winthrop, but if he didn’t want to make conversation, he didn’t need to put on his facade. “You don’t have to make small talk.”

He shot a glance at me. “Sorry. Not in my best mood.”

“That’s okay. I’m not one of your fans who has to be placated. If you don’t want to talk, don’t talk.”

“Okay.” He shrugged and sank back into his thoughts.

And irrationally, now I wanted to make him talk. To tell me what the tension with Winthrop had been. Was it something about his brother? He had said his family wasn’t very nice.

As the car moved through the outskirts of the city, he spoke again. “I don’t think I’m going to be a good dinner companion.”

“Fine.”

“We can do dinner another night. You can even pay.”

“Cooper, you don’t owe me. If you’re in a bad mood, be in a bad mood. Go punch a bag or kill people in a video game or whatever you want to do.”

“I want to drive.”

“Lucky for you, you’ve been doing that.”

He shook his head. “Not this car.”

I frowned, but of course—why would I think the man had only one car? This might be Toronto, where the traffic was insane, but he had more money than he could spend. “Let me guess, a Lamborghini? Ferrari? Porsche?”

That got a smile. “A Ferrari.”

“I knew it.”

He shot me a glance. “It’s not what you think.”

“And what do I think?”

“It’s not about the image. What other people think. It’s about how she feels to drive.”

There was no doubting his honesty. His voice had gone deeper, and he almost smiled again. I shivered. Not something I could relate to, but I’d never driven a vehicle. “I’ll have to take your word for it.”

Something sparked in his eyes. “Do you want to come for a drive?”

Didn’t he want to be alone? “When?”

“Now? Do you need to be somewhere? Fuck, you’re probably hungry.”

I wasn’t ready to head back to my apartment alone. I’d planned to be with Cooper at Briarwood for the rest of the day. I wasn’t that hungry, and when would I get a chance to ride in a Ferrari again? Was I trying to justify saying yes? “I didn’t have anything planned, and I’m not hungry.”

A smile picked up the corners of his mouth this time. “Okay.”

I wasn’t just curious about the sports car. I wanted to understand this man who was helping me. And his family. I wanted to help him. Meeting Winthrop had shown me that the Cooper family would be a challenge, and I wasn’t prepared for what was coming. Those undercurrents indicated problematic issues that could set Cooper off, and I didn’t know how to avoid them. Or protect him when they came up.

We pulled into the underground parking of a luxury condo building near the waterfront. It looked like the kind of place Cooper would belong. He pulled into a parking stall next to a sleek, red, low-slung car that was probably the Ferrari. I peered at the back bumper. I thought that rearing horse was the Ferrari symbol.

I opened the door of the Bentley carefully, pretty sure dinging the red vehicle beside me would be considered sacrilege. Once I was safely standing behind the cars, I looked at the gleaming vehicle. “So, this is a Ferrari?”

He nodded.

“It’s…low.”

He looked at me, as if just remembering I was wearing a dress.

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