Then her panties were off. His corduroys were at his knees.
On the floor beside the bed was Craig’s backpack. Inside was a box of condoms. Quincy pulled one out and gave it to Joe, placing it into his trembling palm.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Tell me if it hurts,” he whispered. “I don’t want to hurt you. I just want to make you feel good.”
Quincy took a deep breath and eased herself lower, bracing for the pleasure and the pain, knowing it wouldn’t be one or the other.
It would be both at once, forever intertwined.
CHAPTER 34
Coop texts me the name of a hotel a few blocks from my apartment and the number of the room he’s staying in. I don’t know if he booked the room before coming into the city to meet Sam or after. I decide not to ask.
I pause outside his door, uncertain if I’ll be able to face him again. I already know I don’t want to. I’d rather be anywhere but that dim hotel hallway with its buzzing ice machine and carpet shampoo stench. But we have a history. No matter what Coop has done, I owe him the chance to explain himself.
I knock, the door quickly squeaking open beneath my fist. My hand remains clenched as Coop steps into view.
“Quincy.” The nod he gives me is quick, shameful. “Come in. If you want to.”
Only the past keeps me there. My past. Coop’s role in it. The undeniable fact that I wouldn’t even have a past if it weren’t for him. So I enter, stepping into a room shocking in its smallness. It’s nothing more than a large closet someone has managed to fit a bed and dresser into. There’s roughly two feet of space between bed and wall, making it hard for me to edge around Coop as he closes the door behind me.
The room has no chairs. Rather than sit on the bed, I remain standing.
I know exactly what I need to do, which is tell Coop everything. About what Sam has done. What I’ve done. Maybe then I can start the process of getting my life back to normal. Not that it’s ever been normal after Pine Cottage.
But I can’t confess to Coop. I can barely look at him.
“Let’s get this over with,” I say, arms folded, shifting weight onto my left leg so my hip angrily juts.
“I’ll be quick,” Coop says.
He’s just showered, steam lingering inside the miniscule bathroom. Dampness clings to his close-cropped hair and his body seems to radiate humidity, sultry and soap scented.
“I need to explain myself. To explain my actions.”
“What you do in your free time is none of my business,” I say. “It’s not as if you mean anything to me.”
Coop winces, and I feel a satisfying twinge of strength. I’m hurting him, too. Drawing blood.
“Quincy, we both know that’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?” I say. “If we meant something to each other you wouldn’t have gone to my apartment to try and fuck Sam while I was away.”
“That’s not why I was there.”
“It sure as hell looked that way to me.”
“She called me, Quincy,” Coop says. “She said she was concerned about you. So I came. Because something wasn’t sitting right with me. I don’t trust her, Quincy. I haven’t since she arrived. She’s up to something, and I wanted to find out what it was.”
“Seduction is an interesting interrogation technique,” I say. “You use it often?”
“What you saw wasn’t planned, Quincy. It just happened.”
I roll my eyes, going all big and dramatic, just like Janelle used to do.
“That’s the oldest excuse in the book.”
“It’s true,” Coop says. “You don’t know how lonely I am, Quincy. So completely alone. I live in a house big enough for five people. But there’s only me. Some rooms I haven’t entered for years. They’re empty, the doors closed.”
His confession leaves me speechless. This is the first time Coop has ever opened up to me like this. It turns out we have more in common than I ever imagined. Yet I refuse to feel sorry for him. I’m not ready to forgive him.
“Is that why you wanted me to come?” I say. “To make me pity you?”
“No. I asked you here because I need to tell you something. There’s a reason—” Coop stops to clear his throat. “A reason I’ve tried to be there for you. A reason I’ve made myself available day or night. Quincy—”
Instinctively, I know what’s coming next. I shake my head, my thoughts screaming, Don’t. Please, Coop, don’t say it.
He does anyway. “I love you.”
“Don’t,” I say, this time aloud. “Don’t say anymore.”
“But I do,” Coop says. “You know it, Quincy. I think you’ve always known it. Why else do you think I drive out here at a moment’s notice? It’s to see you. To be with you. I don’t care if it’s for one minute or one hour. Just seeing you makes that whole lonely drive worthwhile.”
He makes a move toward me and I back away, stuck in a corner between the dresser and the wall. Coop keeps coming, not stopping until he’s right in front of me.
“I’ve never met anyone like you, Quincy,” he says. “Believe me when I say that. You’re so strong. A true survivor.”
He looks at me, his blue eyes making my knees quiver. He touches a thumb to my cheek, sliding it down to my mouth.
“Coop,” I say as his thumbnail gently scrapes my lips. “Stop.”
“You feel the same way,” Coop says, voice husky. “I know you do.”
I picture him nestled beside Sam, caressing her neck, lips just starting to push against hers. I hate Coop for doing that. He should have been all mine.
“I don’t,” I say.
“You’re lying.”
It’s hot inside the room. Stifling, actually. The humming AC unit under the window does little to change that. And then there’s Coop, so close to me, emanating a different kind of heat.
“I need to go,” I say.
“No, you don’t.”
When he edges closer, I push back, shoving his chest. He’s sweating under his shirt. The fabric beneath my hands sticks to his skin.
“What do you want from me, Coop? You said what you have to say. What else do you want?”
“You,” he says softly. “I want you, Quincy.”
Contrary to what I’ve told Sam, I have thought about what could make me succumb to my attraction to Coop. Those blue eyes always struck me as the likely culprit. They’re bright as lasers, seeing everything. But it’s his voice that finally does it. That soft confession pulling me into his arms.
It’s our first embrace since Pine Cottage. The first time he’s wrapped those strong arms around me. I expect the memory to tarnish our current one. It doesn’t. It only makes it sweeter.
With him, I feel safe.
I always have.
I kiss him. Even though it’s wrong. He kisses back, lips hungry, biting. Years of pent-up lust are finally being released, and the result is more need than desire. More pain than pleasure.
Soon we’re on the bed. There’s nowhere else to go. My clothes come off. I don’t know how. They seem to simply fall away, as do Coop’s.
He knows what he wants.
God help me, I let him take it.
Pine Cottage, 11:42 p.m.
He was still asleep when Quincy slipped from the bed and crossed the room on tiptoes, hunting her shoes, her dress, her panties. It hurt to move. Soreness lingered between her legs, flaring whenever she bent over. Still, it wasn’t as bad as she thought it would be. There was consolation in that.
She dressed quickly, suddenly aware of the sharp chill hanging in the room. It was as if she had a fever. She shivered from the cold even though her skin was burning hot.
In the hall, Quincy ducked into the bathroom, not bothering to turn on the overhead light. She had no desire to face herself in the mirror under that harsh glare. Instead, she stared at her dark reflection, most of its features erased. She had become a shadow.
A chant popped into her head. Something from grade school. She and her friends in the pitch-black girl’s room, repeating a name.
Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary.