Last Good Man: A Crown Creek Novel Page 5

  And there was nothing I could do to stop it.

  I glanced at Willa who looked like she wanted the earth to open up and swallow her whole. I would have gladly flung myself in after her.

  "About time you two just got your love out in the open..."

  "...masking your true feelings..."

  "...about time, honestly!"

  Chrissi was listening to all of this with her hand over her heart, then took a look at Willa’s white face and the two spots of angry color that blazed on her cheeks. “What’s wrong, honey, you feel faint? Lift your head sweetie, I need to do your vitals.” She slapped a cuff on Willa’s right arm and gasped. “Your blood pressure is through the roof!"

  So was mine. The walls were closing in on me. I needed air. My eyes swept out over the sea of familiar faces, and I was jarred with the one that was missing.

  Shit. Liam. I never called him.

  "I'm going to step out," I excused myself and pulled my phone from my pocket as I headed out into the hallway. I just needed to get my thoughts together, and usually Liam would be the one to help me do that. But he wasn't here. And... shit... he cared for Willa way more than made sense.

  I snapped my head up at the sound of my name. How long had I been staring at my phone out here? "Cooper! How is she?"

  Mrs. Harlow was still wearing the same clothes as the night before. It looked like she'd slept in them. "Is Jakey okay?" I asked, worried about the absence of her freckle-faced shadow. "Did his neck bother him from sleeping on the chair like that?"

  She shook her head. "He's fine, young bones, you know? He's in school. I'm trying to keep things normal for him." She pressed her lips together and her eyes started to fill as her lips started to form the shape of her terrified question. When she'd left, Willa had just gotten out of surgery and was still hooked up to a breathing tube. It had been hard enough for me to see her like that. For her mother, though...

  I spoke quickly to head off the tears. “Hey, no. She's awake. She woke up." I rubbed circles on her back as she exhaled a shuddering breath, then chuckled ruefully. "Claire and the rest of the misfits of Crown Creek High are all crowded in there, but I'm sure they'll clear out once they see you're here, Mrs. Harlow. Willa will probably be grateful for the reprieve."

  Mrs. Harlow sniffled and then laughed. "Is Claire badgering her? I love that girl, but she can be..." She paused to find the most tactful word. "Intense."

  I laughed and agreed, then excused myself. "I just have to make a call."

  She made it to her daughter's room and then paused. "Oh, Cooper? One more thing."

  I braced myself. I could lie to my friends. To the cops, to the nurses, to the ambulance drivers. To Willa, even. But if one of my elders asked me for the truth, I'd have to confess it. Fred Grant’s words had taught me that much. I’d learned a long time ago to do what he said, and not what he did. No, Mrs. Harlow, your daughter and I are not engaged. I'm sorry I lied to you. And her. And, well, everyone, really. "What's up?"

  She smiled. A loving, proud, grateful smile that cut me so deep I almost missed the words she spoke next. "Thank you." The corner of her mouth twisted wryly. "I know I don't have the whole story yet. But I can see with my own eyes how good you are to her." She gave me one more grateful nod, then turned away.

  Frozen to the spot, I could only watch her disappear into the room. There was a chorus of greetings, a burst of applause. And then, above the din, louder than it had any right to be, floated Claire's voice.

  "Willa! Show us your ring!"

  * * *

  Chapter

  Chapter Eight

  Willa

  I had woken in an alternate reality. Or I hadn't woken at all.

  That was it. I was dreaming right now. Having a nightmare.

  A very detailed, realistic, nightmare.

  It was the only explanation.

  And it was that weird dream logic where impossible things make perfect sense that was causing my friends to demand to see a nonexistent ring and cheer for me and Cooper getting engaged. Everyone I'd encountered since "waking up" seemed to accept this engagement as a fact, and an inevitable one too.

  The very thought seemed to shut me down. Doors slammed shut all through my brain as my body went into lockdown. Ever since I was a kid, I'd had a gift for shutting down. For seeking numbness, instead of letting my feelings get too overwhelming. I'd learned to put all my emotions on to other people, to let their worries become mine, to make their problems supersede my own.

  Being engaged? To Cooper?

  That was a big problem. And the waves of confusion, betrayal, and righteous, indignant fury that got worse the longer he went without telling me what the fuck was going on were far too overwhelming. So I pushed them down inside and let the doors slam shut inside of me. I needed someone else to focus on.

  "What are you doing?" My mother wanted to know as she watched me move my hand.

  That was another weird little twist to this dream. My mom had suddenly shown up in it wearing her Royal Diner waitress uniform. It was a nice, surreal touch to add to a plotline that was already surreal enough on its own.

  But then I felt the sting. "Why are you pinching yourself?" Mom demanded. "Stop that."

  I blinked, but everything stayed the same. So I was awake. "Shit."

  "Language."

  "She was hit by some asshole who left her for dead," Claire brazenly pointed out. "I'd probably be cussing too, Mrs. Harlow." She smiled in that winning way Claire had that allowed her to get away with almost everything and my mom actually smiled in return.

  But hearing her say the words. Again. How I'd been left on the side of the road... how if Cooper hadn't come along when he did... I closed my eyes as I felt them start to fill. I'd slammed the doors on my feelings about the engagement, which mean the feelings about the accident were right there waiting. The suffocating cloak of helpless confusion was suddenly too much to take. I felt very small and very scared and.... "Guys?" I croaked.

  Every head in the room swiveled to me and I blinked, wavering in my conviction for a second. They'd all come to check on me, after all. I wasn't being nice by asking this. But I couldn't... I couldn't.... "Thanks for coming and all but can I..." My voice caught in my throat. "Can I just be with my mom right now?"

  Claire snapped upright. "You heard the woman!" She actually clapped her hands, which made Ruby laugh and make a comment about how she'd missed her calling as a kindergarten teacher. With a chorus of goodbyes, get wells, and shouted congratulations, the same friends I'd had since we all banded together in kindergarten filed back out of my room. They left a ringing silence in their wake.

  I let out a long breath. And then winced. My mom saw immediately and pressed her hand to my cheek. "Hey there. How's my little co-captain doing?"

  I swallowed back a lump. "I'm not... I'm alive, right?" She cast her eyes down and back up again, her lip wobbling dangerously. "Please don't cry," I begged. "You know I can't handle it."

  She nodded quickly and pressed the heel of her hand to her eyes. "I'm okay. I'm okay," she chanted.

  But her voice still wavered, and that meant the tears started sliding down my cheeks before I could catch myself. "I'm so sorry, Mom."

  "For what?" she asked.

  Where the hell did I even start? “Cooper and I...”

  “It’s not my business, baby. You have your reasons for keeping that mum.” She nodded stiffly. “The two of them are pretty close, right? Him and Liam?” She shook her head. “Oh, I don’t envy you being in the middle of that. It’s a credit to your friendships that you all are still speaking to each other.”

  My jaw fell open hearing just how wrong she had it, which made her laugh. “Oh don’t act so shocked your mother figured it all out. I just have one request.” Her eyes glittered. “Make him do it again? I don’t even mind it’s not the real thing, just let me pretend I got to be there to see your face when he got down on one knee.”

  “Mom-”

  “And make sure Jake
gets to spend time with him too. It’d be good for him to have another man in his life.”

  I felt like I was in a car that had just hit black ice. Everything was spinning out of control and I was too rattled, too doped up with pain and painkillers to know how I could stop it.

  "How's Jakey doing?” I squeaked.

  "For heaven's sake, Willa! Will you stop worrying about how you getting hit by a car is affecting everyone else?" She brushed my hair back and then yanked one of my curls. "Boing," she breathed softly, and I felt myself relax. However wrong she was - about everything - my mother didn’t hate me for keeping something as momentous as my engagement a secret from her. Her unwavering support, even for something completely fabricated, was something I could always count on.

  “Boing,” she whispered again, tugging gently, and this time I smiled. A silly old joke. One that had made me cackle with laughter as a toddler. Back when it was the two of us against the world.

  My mother was young when she had me, barely eighteen. "I've got no good words for the man," she'd always said of the mysterious stranger who fathered me. "Other than he gave me the best gift I could ever ask for." Then she'd squeeze me tight.

  My whole childhood was spent secure in the fact that I was her whole world. And at age fourteen when she'd come to me to let me know she was pregnant again - that she was sorry, that even though she had me she still got lonely for a man's touch sometimes - it was to ask for my input, "as co-captain of our little family ship." She knew that there was a strong chance that I'd react badly to the idea of introducing the disruptive force of an infant into our little unit. But it was her respect for me, and her faith in me, that made me promise, at the rebellious age of fourteen, to be her co-parent when that baby was born.

  "But how is Jake?" I asked her again as she tugged my curls over and over again. It was comforting for her, I knew, and it was making me profoundly sleepy. I fought to keep my eyes from closing. "Don't let him see me in here, okay? I don't want him to get freaked out."

  My mother sighed. It sounded like she wanted to say something, but held back. My eyes drifted closed.

  She'd named the baby Jacob at my Twilight-obsessed insistence (Team Jacob forever). But I called him my little Jakey-poo and poured every ounce of my devotion into caring for him.

  I popped my eyes back open again. "Who's watching him after school? How are you going to -"

  "Relax. I don't want you worrying about that kind of stuff." She stroked my hair back. "Stop worrying and go to sleep."

  I dutifully closed my eyes, but all I could picture was my brother. What time was it? Was he going to have to get off the bus all by himself? Who was going to watch out for him if I was stuck in here? While other girls were pasting posters of the King Brothers on their walls, I was diapering his little butt and pacing the floor in the middle of the night while he wailed. I cared for him with all the fervor of a brand new mother, even going so far as to beg a ride from Claire's mom to Reckless Falls to take a baby first aid course at this very hospital. I made it my mission to learn everything I needed to know in order to make sure little Jakey Harlow thrived.

  So it wasn't ignorance that led to what happened that night. No matter how many times my mother tried to excuse me - saying I didn't know better, saying it wasn't my fault - I knew that I was to blame. And it weighed on my soul every time I saw the scars on his hand. Every time I watched my little brother struggle with his grip, every time I saw him drop something because the skin grafts on his fingers were too tight for him to close his fist all the way, I felt it. How I'd failed. I knew I couldn't protect him from what happened that day. But forever after I would make sure that he... and everyone I loved, was safe from harm.

  I breathed easier as the confusion eased. Thinking about Jakey - worrying about Jakey - that was my normal. With all the weirdness - engaged? What the fuck? - swirling around me like a whirlpool, it was a life preserver I could cling to. I pushed all thoughts of Cooper out of my head and let myself fret about the birthday party Jakey had been begging to attend. The one where they were supposed to see a movie. What movie? I needed to know that he wasn’t going to be seeing something inappropriate. Jake was a sensitive kid. He had nightmares. Last time I allowed him to stay up late to watch a superhero movie, he’d been up all night. I wasn’t going to let that happen again.

  The whirlpool eased, and I felt like I was on solid ground again. I made a note to call his friend’s mother once I was out of here.

  Then I drifted off to sleep.

  * * *

  Chapter

  Chapter Nine

  Cooper

  I quickly checked my phone. My battery power was down to seventeen percent. My brainpower percentage was even lower.

  Claire and Ryan and all the rest of them had loudly filed out a few minutes ago. I knew this because I'd heard them. Not because I'd actually seen them leave.

  Had I hidden on the other side of the nurse's station to avoid my friends? Had I turned and walked briskly in the opposite direction the second I heard Claire start shouting goodbye? Was I being a total pussy avoiding them like this?

  I really didn't want to dwell on the answers to any of these questions, or what they might say about my manhood. I just wanted to check in with Willa. Try to explain really quickly before we got interrupted again.

  I nearly broke out into a sprint to get back to her room....

  Then skidded to a stop right outside of her door. "Shit," I hissed. "Mrs. Harlow."

  Willa's mother hadn't left with the rest of the group. Right? Shit, now I wished I had poked my head around the counter and done a quick headcount. Was I about to walk in on a touching mother-daughter moment?

  I poked my head gingerly in around the curtain.

  And caught my breath.

  Cradled in her mother's arms, Willa was curled up on her good side. Fast asleep.

  I couldn't breathe. The soft, peaceful set of her mouth, the vulnerable way her dark lashes swept her cheekbone, the unruly halo of her dark curls on the white pillowcase.... Had she always been this beautiful and I was only just now noticing? How could I have missed the deep Cupid's bow of her top lip? How had I never touched one of her curls, even by accident? How did I not know whether they were as silky as they looked? How had I not known how sweetly the shell of her ear nestled underneath them, or how beautifully the curve of her neck met her jaw? Was I delirious, or just exhausted, and that was why Willa Harlow looked like a goddamned ethereal angel right now, instead of the pain in the ass in the background I was certain she should be?

  I actually turned my head and checked the whiteboard on the wall. Willa Harlow. Yeah. It was her.

  What the hell is wrong with me?

  The motion at the doorway made Mrs. Harlow look up from where she'd been intently staring at Willa's face. I held up my hand before she could speak, not wanting her to wake Willa. She nodded when I pressed my finger to my lips and then pointed back out into the hall. Then I slipped back out of the room as quietly as I could, hoping I didn't look as rattled as I felt. I stepped back into the hallway and let my forehead rest on the wall while I tried to make sense of the strange way my heart was beating.

  You've been awake for over twenty-four hours right now. You're exhausted and confused and feeling guilty as hell. That's why. That's why all you want to do is go in there and kiss her right now. You've taken leave of your senses. It's Willa for fuck's sake. You know everything you need to know about her to know that she'd be a terrible idea.

  She acts like she should know everyone's business but gets all pissy when you get in hers. I nodded as I began to tick down the list of everything I hated about Willa to slow the strangely fast way my heart was beating. She acts like a goddamned martyr all the time. She is totally humorless, can't take a fucking joke to save her life. She's a wet blanket. A nag. A fussy old woman disguised as a twenty-two-year-old.

  She's the enemy of fun.

  She's always doing this over the top shit. She's a total try-hard.
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  She's Debbie Downer.

  She's Mother fucking Teresa.

  And she won't let Liam out of her sight when we're out together, always policing how much he drinks and fussing over him. She shoves her tongue in her cheek and huffs like crazy whenever I want us to do anything more exciting than sitting in a bar. Like she has a right to act that way when she fucking tossed him aside like he didn't matter. I nodded again, not caring if I looked like a crazy person because obviously I was turning into one. Remember the night before prom, the movie theater. The way she looked so guilty when she saw it was you calling her name. The way she only remembered to drop his hand when you asked what the fuck she was doing? Remember the empty seat in the limo because Liam was too heartbroken over his girlfriend's betrayal to come out that night? Don't forget that.

  She thinks it's no big deal what she did. That it's water under the bridge. That we've all forgotten how she treated the best friend I've ever had.

  But I haven't forgotten. She cheated on him. That was the biggest sin of all. She cheated on him, and cheaters don't change.

  I stood up straight again, feeling like pieces of me that had been scattered around were now sliding back into place. Old anger helped things make sense again. It was true that Willa was pretty, but that didn't matter. She was still the same Willa.

  Feeling in control of myself again, I considered what to do next.

  Her mom was here with her. Now would be a great time for me to go home and shower. I nodded, started forward, then stopped short when I remembered my truck was still parked on the side of the road by Cutter's farm. And all the people I could call for a ride were the same people I didn't want to face until I'd figured out what to do about the fake engagement thing.

  Those were both valid reasons why I should stay here. But the biggest one? Was that the idea of going home felt... wrong to me. For some reason I wanted - no needed - to stay. Because...