Page 73 of Boss Me

And a pair of brown eyes, not blue, watched me over the back of the sofa.

I sat up so fast that dark spots dotted my vision.

“Morning,” Ramón said. “Coffee?” He held out a white mug.

“Please.” I took it from him and sipped. He’d doctored it with cream and plenty of sugar, and I eased back against the sofa cushions. “Thanks for letting me crash here.”

“No problem. But you’re going back today, yes?”

“I don’t know.” Yesterday, walking through town, meeting Cooper’s tío, had been pure joy. The future had opened up ahead of me, and I’d seen the two of us, Cooper and me, side by side, facing life’s challenges and its rewards. Together.

Then when he’d tried to rearrange my life and, worse, when he held back that part of himself, the familiar feelings of doubt, of self-loathing, of jealousy had crept back in. Had he shared his truth with Jackson? Yet again, I was good enough for a fling but not for any of the serious stuff.

“Today.” Ramón nodded, like we’d settled it. He didn’t ask any questions last night when I’d knocked on his door. He just let me in and sat back down on the sofa to watch baseball. I got the feeling he would have listened if I wanted to talk. But he seemed to know what I hadn’t said. That I couldn’t give up Cooper Fallon any more than I could give up breathing.

“You’re right. I should talk to him. I’m a grown-ass adult.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, you are. Now go get your man.”

I sucked down the last of the coffee and tried to make myself presentable in Ramón’s bathroom. My eyes were puffy, and my button-down shirt was wrinkled from sleeping in it. But I didn’t need to keep my rough night from Cooper. Let him see what he’d done. How he’d hurt me. So he wouldn’t do it again.

Twenty minutes later, I took a deep breath and stepped off the path at Cooper’s back gate. After walking out on him last night, using the keycard he’d given me didn’t feel right. Neither did ringing the front bell.

A familiar bark came from the beach. I took two steps in that direction before Coco sprinted toward me, his floppy ears flying. Kneeling, I opened my arms, and he wiggled into them, licking every part of me he could reach.

“Stop, Coco,” I said, laughing. “I missed you, too.”

He paused for a moment to look back over his wagging tail. Cooper stood twenty feet away, holding a tennis ball.

When I stood, Coco trotted back to Cooper and sat at his feet.

“Hi,” Cooper said. He wore the shorts and one of the guayaberas we’d bought on our shopping trip. Sunglasses reflected the overcast sky.

“Hi.” I closed half the distance between us.

“I’m glad you’re okay. Mateo said you went to Ramón’s?”

“Yeah. We watched baseball, and I slept on his couch.”

“He’s a good man, Ramón.”

“Yeah.” I let a grin crack my face. “He makes better coffee than you do.”

He shifted his jaw and stared at the waves that caressed the beach.

Slowly, I approached him until I was near enough to touch him. I reached for his hand and took the disgustingly damp tennis ball. I threw it toward the beach and wiped my hand on my jeans. Then I slipped my hand into his. I waited.

“Look, I’m sorry I blew up at you last night. If you feel safer at Ramón’s—”

I squeezed his hand to stop him. “Your bark doesn’t scare me. You should know that by now.”

Coco raced across the sand and dropped the ball into Cooper’s hand. He threw it right-handed, and Coco tore away.

I eased back my shoulders. “When you closed yourself off to me, it hit my soft spot, you know? I’ve had a lot of relationships, but no one sticks. I’m starting to think it’s not them, it’s me.”

He stepped closer until our shoulders met. “Ben, it’s not you. You’re—”

“Just let me finish, okay?” I wished he wasn’t wearing those sunglasses so I could look into his eyes. “Mimi—my sister—tells me all the time I wear my heart on the outside. I don’t need you to do that, but I do need you to open up a little. To share what’s going on inside you. When you’re having feelings, talk about them instead of trying to distract me with one of your blowups. Okay?”

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