Tease (Tease 1)

I groaned loudly, burying my face in my hands. What was I going to do? If Mia found out, then any ch

ance we had of a relationship was gone.

“Tell me about her, Coop. She is obviously very special to you.” Beth smiled at me, her eyes showing a twinge of sadness.

“She is. I can’t even explain how I feel about her, Beth. She is amazing, caring, sweet, funny . . . I think you would really like her.”

Beth’s eyebrows raised as she waited for me to continue.

“When I’m not with her, I’m thinking about her. I notice every little thing about her, like the way she sticks her tongue out a little when she giggles, or when she gets passionate about something, her eyes go such a deep, deep green that they’re almost black . . . and it’s crazy, but I enjoy our long chats about nothing just as much as I do being physical with her.” I stopped, embarrassed. Beth didn’t need to hear all this.

“I think it’s sweet,” Beth said wistfully, “that you’ve found someone you feel that way about.”

“You’ll find it, too,” I said, sensing her sadness. “You’re so young, there is so much you have yet to experience. Don’t rush it, Beth. Enjoy being young. Don’t look back on your life in ten years and wish you’d done it differently.”

Beth shook her head and laughed. “Well, this conversation suddenly got very deep and serious,” she joked. “Come on, we should be okay to leave now.” She pushed back her chair and smiled at me, the smile not quite reaching her eyes.

Chapter Twenty-One

Parking the car out the front of Nic’s house, I sat there for a moment, running through exactly what I was going to say. Fuck. I felt sick. After the day I’d had, the last thing I wanted to have was this conversation, but the risk of my name being leaked was too real for me to ignore.

I walked up the path to the front door and knocked. Jake opened it a few moments later, looking surprised to see me. He stood aside. “Coop! Come in, man. I didn’t know you were coming over.”

“Yeah, I didn’t even know myself,” I said, forcing a smile. “Nic home?”

Jake nodded. “In the living room.”

I walked through the kitchen to the living room. Nic was curled up on the sofa, her eyes glued to the TV. I glanced at it and groaned. A full picture of Melinda at the previous year’s Academy Awards was on the screen.

“Hey, Nic,” I mumbled, sitting down.

“Hey, asshat,” she said, grinning, looking as surprised to see me as Jake had been. “Can you believe this? They said she died while fucking a hooker in a hotel room.” She looked at me, her eyes huge with disbelief.

Fucking great.

“Yeah. Hey, I need to talk to you guys,” I said.

Nic nodded, and muted the TV.

“Uh, can you turn that off?” I asked, my voice weak.

Having her picture right there in fifty-inch high definition definitely wasn’t making things any easier. Jake walked into the room and passed me a beer, and sat down next to Nic, his arm draping over her shoulder.

“What’s up?” Nic asked nervously, clicking the TV off. “It’s not about Mom, is it?”

“God, no.” I didn’t even think about that. Of course her mind would go right there. “Mom’s fine,” I assured her. I paused. “Are the kids in bed?”

“Yes. What is it?” Nic pressed.

Okay, just say it. Get it over with.

“I have no idea how to tell you this, and I just want to say first I’m so sorry about lying to you. Fuck, this is hard.” I shook my head. This was up there as one of the worst conversations of my life—right alongside the talk with Mom, when I was eleven, about how masturbation was normal.

“Liam, you’re scaring me,” Nic said, her voice shrill. She sat forward, her body tense, as if she was waiting for bad news. “Are you sick?”

“I’m not sick.” I sighed, wiping the sweat that had accumulated on my forehead. “Okay, I’m just going to say it. I don’t work in insurance. Never have. Wouldn’t know the first thing about it.”

Both Nic and Jake looked at me as though I’d grown an extra head.