“Fuck.” I turned around to head outside again when Eli stepped between me and the door.
“Stop for a minute. I get that you’re pissed, but talk to me. Are you mad at me or at Cooper?”
“I’m not mad at anyone,” I said. And it was true. “I just want to work, okay? I want to focus on getting this shit done so I can move on with my fucking life.”
It wasn’t until the words were out of my mouth that I realized they were true. I needed to move on. The only way I was going to get over Cooper was to finish this project and leave this place. Memories of him and the two of us together were everywhere: in the clearing, in the cabin, in the RV, and in the woods around us. Hell, even my truck and the nearest town had memories of Cooper’s smiling, snarky self-embedded in them.
Eli studied me for a beat and then nodded with a smile. “Okay. Then let’s get to work. I can’t promise I’m in decent shape after all these years behind a desk, but hopefully I can still keep up.”
That got a snort out of me. Eli took great pride in working out religiously, and he helped Dad and Aaron almost every weekend on the farm. He was in fine shape.
I cranked up the music on the speaker, and we got to work. It was nice having Eli’s easy, silent companionship while we worked. It felt somehow like a step in the right direction, away from this crazy temporary life I’d been living with Cooper and back toward my normal life—my real life—at home near my family.
With Eli beside me and the sun beating down on my skin while I worked up a good sweat preparing the roof for the new shingles, I felt like maybe I would be okay.
Five days later, when Eli and I were finishing up repairs to the exterior timbers, I finally got something new to focus on. It was a call from a marketing executive at a big vacation booking website.
“Hi, Nine, this is Adrian Walsh with MyCabin dot com. We were hoping to talk to you about some sponsorship opportunities we have.”
I waved to get Eli’s attention and then took the call in the cooler air of the shade over by the RV.
“Hi, Adrian. Good to hear from you.”
“Yeah, listen, we’re actually really impressed with your programming on YouTube, and we’d like to talk to you about an idea we have, but first we needed to find out about your commitment to Stallion. Are you exclusive to them, or are you free to do other projects when this one is over?”
I wasn’t sure if they needed the both of us or not, but I decided to find out before this conversation went any further. “Well, I’m available in August for another project, but Cooper isn’t. Were you hoping to get both of us, or…?”
“That would be ideal, yes, but… hmm… Come to think of it… you are the one who does most of the heavy lifting, so maybe that would be okay. We’re more interested in the renovation-type content anyway. Don’t get me wrong, we’re LGBT owned, so we’d love to bring an LGBT partner on board, but the content doesn’t need to focus on that. Let me go ahead and tell you what we have in mind, and then I’ll confirm with our team that we’re okay with a solo deal.”
He explained that their company was essentially an Airbnb-type site specifically for cabins. They were looking for a vlogger to develop a web series on how to take an old cabin and turn it into a rental for supplemental income.
“Wow, that sounds exciting,” I said. “I’d definitely be interested in hearing more about it.” We finished the call with a plan to speak again in a few days. When I finally put the phone away, I made my way back to the cabin to tell Eli, who was getting off his own call.
“Guess what?” I called across the clearing. But he didn’t answer. Instead he turned to face me.
I could tell the minute I saw his face something was wrong.
28
Cooper
When I’d first arrived in LA, I’d been in heaven. There hadn’t even been much time to miss Isaac because I’d immediately gone into some group fitness classes Jarrod had roped me into since I had a scene in the movie where I was changing out of my scrub top in the hospital locker room. Evie convinced me to do some spray tanning to even out the farmer’s tan I’d apparently developed in Colorado.
By the time the meetings started for the film, I was already tired and a little overwhelmed. The noise and pace of the city took some getting used to, which was weird because they hadn’t seemed to bother me during my short visit before. But then again, maybe knowing that visit had been temporary had been different from thinking of this as my life again.