Page 30 of Swiped By My Dad's Best Friend
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TRACE
I met Matthew for a quick lunch during my seminar break. This time when he’d extended an invitation, I’d made sure it would be just the two of us. I didn’t want any surprises. Not telling Cooper the truth was a gamble, knowing that Matthew could mention it to him any time. The only reassurance I had was the fact they hadn’t been talking much lately. Cooper had mentioned that he and his dad had agreed to give one another some space after a recent conversation went sideways, but he’d shut down when I tried to delve into the details of what had happened.
“Trace!” Matthew waved to catch my attention. He sat in a booth in the back, nearly lost to the gloom of the dimly lit pub. When I arrived, a beer already sat on a coaster, wet with condensation. “I ordered you a drink. Figured you’d be short on time.”
“Thanks.” I dropped into the booth, lifted the frosty mug to take a sip. It was a bit hoppy, with a tang of fruitiness. I liked it.
“How’s your first day going?”
“Is that why you asked me here? Evaluating the new teacher?”
The seminar ran most of the day—being on Saturdays only—and I’d worried at first that I’d struggle to fill the hours. But when I’d received the past curriculum to plan my course around and combined it with real-life work examples I could use to illustrate the concepts, it’d been easier than I’d anticipated.
He snorted. “No, I’m trying to fortify the new teacher so he keeps coming back. Should I buy you another drink? Seminars can be a doozy.”
I chuckled. “Nah, I’m fine.”
Matthew grinned. “Yeah, you say that now...”
“I thought you were trying to convince me to stick with it?”
“Right, right. My bad.”
I’d missed this Matthew. The rapport between us had always been easy. We clicked naturally. Not so different from Cooper—even if I wanted entirely different things from father and son.
The second Cooper’s name crossed my mind, I felt a flash of guilt. “Did you, uh, mention to Cooper or Lena that I was doing this?”
Matthew shook his head. “Didn’t think about it. Should I have? If you want to—”
“No, no,” I cut in quickly. “This seminar is taking a lot out of me. I expect I’ll just be in and out with little time for anything else. I wouldn’t want to disappoint them.”
Cooper, especially, would be disappointed in me. Hell, I was disappointed in me. But maintaining the boundary of a screen between us seemed the safest for everyone involved. Yeah, I was mostly thinking of Matthew—but any explosion between me and Matthew would spray shrapnel all over Cooper as well. I didn’t want that for him.
Especially since he was young and would most likely grow bored with me. How long could I hold on to someone who shined so bright? Cooper had always been such a presence in the world. He didn’t even realize how magnetic he was, with his gorgeous smile and pleading eyes.
Oh, those eyes. Warm pools of light brown that implored me to give him everything he could want.
But I was only a man. As much as I enjoyed playing the role of Daddy, I didn’t have all the answers. I couldn’t even give myself what I wanted, so how could I be worthy of Cooper?
“Well, it’s a shame,” Matthew said. “Lena really enjoyed seeing you.”
“Lena?” I said, surprised. It took restraint not to ask whether Cooper had mentioned me. Most likely, he hadn’t. For the same reason I wouldn’t be asking. “She’s grown up so much. Charming girl.”
“Yes, she’s excited to start art school next year. Let’s hope she doesn’t follow her brother’s footsteps.”
“Oh?”
“Parties, weed, beer.”
“Reminds me of my college days,” I said. “Don’t you remember being young?”
Matthew groaned. “Young, yes. I know. I tried to give him time to outgrow it. But he’s a senior—again,or should I saystill?—and may very well be next year too. When is he going to grow up and stop wasting time and money?”
I had to bite back the urge to defend Cooper. I didn’t know him well enough yet to know all the intricacies of why he struggled with school and his father’s expectations. But I did trust my instincts, and my instincts told me that Cooper had a good heart. He tried way too hard to please me to be someone with no regard for how others viewed him.
But he didn’t trust me enough yet to let me in all the way—and why should he, with the limits I’d placed on our interactions? Hell, I hadn’t even told him I’d be in his town. He had no reason to trust me as much as he did, much less more.
