Careful
1644 Words
Marie’s POV
I might be in touch with my s****l side, but that doesn’t mean I appreciate my Alpha using me to bait my ex-boyfriend-s***h-unrequited-true-mate into…
Well, I don’t know what I’m baiting him into, exactly. Dean was pretty vague in the mind link.
“Just the two of us?” Cooper repeats brightly when I inform him that we’re needed back at the house. “Double date?”
I wish he weren’t being quite so flirty with me. Obviously it makes me feel weak at the knees and all that, but does he not understand how little it means when he spent the last two and a half years forgetting that I exist? If I’m so easily out of sight, out of mind, how could I possibly mean even a fraction as much to him as he means to me?
I won’t allow myself to “fling” with Cooper the way I do with guys like Jason. The only thing that didn’t utterly destroy me the last time was that I didn’t sleep with him.
His call, by the way, not mine. At the time, I was all in. So I suppose I owe him at least a little gratitude.
I ignore his question, leading him back to the house with a sour expression on my face. It only makes him smile, of course. He seems to take great pleasure in my annoyance.
“What gives?” Cooper asks Quinn and Dean when we re-enter the house. “Finally decide I’m worthy of cutting in on your plans?”
I wish he weren’t so damn charming, too.
“We need a favor,” Quinn tells him. “A rather… large favor.”
Cooper raises his eyebrows. Moon God, he’s got nice eyebrows. All dark and thick and… anyway, he says, “I’m intrigued.”
“Nolan made a really ridiculous proposition that we can’t possibly agree to,” Dean tells him. “But we’re worried that if we turn him down point-blank, he’ll… overreact.”
“Right.” Cooper’s jaw tightens. “Battle of the Blood, Part Two.”
At least he gets it.
“We want to delay the decision for a few days,” Quinn explains. “Make him feel like we’re really considering it. But to do that, we have to offer him a place to stay.”
“No,” Cooper says immediately. “No way.”
He really put that together quick. Does he really have to be so smart on top of being hot, funny, charming, and all the rest?
Dean glances pointedly at me. I guess this is the part where I’m supposed to bat my eyelashes.
“We have no reason to believe they’re dangerous,” I tell Cooper. “At least, not until they get their ‘no’ from Quinn, which will happen here, not at the Estate.”
He watches me intently for a second. Then his eyebrows narrow and he turns back to Quinn and Dean. “I see what you’re doing here. Calling my irresistible ex-girlfriend over with me to entice me into saying yes? Low blow, Quinn. I thought we were friends.”
He’s joking, I can tell—mostly, anyway, but hearing him call me “irresistible” sends my heart hammering so hard against my chest, I can almost feel my ribs crack.
“It was Dean’s idea, to be fair,” Quinn says with a weak smile. “Did it work?”
Cooper groans, hanging his head dramatically, before sighing and pulling out his phone. “Let me make a call and get back to you.”
I can hardly believe my ears. It worked? I didn’t even flirt with him; I just gave him a very simple fact.
The tiny grin he shoots me before exiting the room is enough to tell me that, yes, it did work—as if I’m somehow his Kryptonite after all this time.
It doesn’t make any sense.
“Thank you,” Dean says to me as we wait. “Sorry to ask that of you.”
I wave a hand as if it wasn’t a big ask, even though it was.
“You’re going to be careful here, aren’t you?” Quinn asks me. “I mean, I’m glad he’s back in our lives, but…”
She doesn’t have to finish her sentence. Quinn and Dean both saw how much the breakup devastated me the last time; no one wants to see me go through it again.
“I’ll be careful,” I promise her.
Cooper steps back in a few seconds later. The devious expression on his face suggests that he’s got another of those sinister plots he pulled on me back at the Roswell Estate.
“Well,” he says, clearing his throat, “nobody’s thrilled, but they’re okay with it on a couple of conditions.”
“Great,” says Dean sarcastically. “Lay ’em on us.”
“For starters, it really has to be only a few days. They aren’t to get comfortable in the mansion. They’re only to occupy the space that we allow them to.”
“Done,” Quinn says easily. “I’ll make sure Nolan understands that. What else?”
“The Estate is big, but in case you hadn’t noticed, so’s the Refugee Coven. If we want all thirty of them to fit, we’re going to have to move a chunk of our own elsewhere.”
“You mean, here,” Dean growls.
Cooper shrugs. “I’m always down for a stay at the Four Seasons on your dime, but I know money’s always been tight here at the farm.”
Dean growls again, but Quinn puts a gentle hand on his arm to calm him. “It’s not a bad idea,” she tells him. “If the new clan is still in town, and Julia’s staying here, the safety in numbers here would make me sleep easier.”
It’s impossible to miss the way Cooper stiffens at hearing the name Julia. It’s the same reason he claimed to take issue with finding out Quinn was pregnant two and a half years ago—in the same breath she told him the news, she told him the name.
Until now, I never bought it. The devastation on his face was clear as day; how could I not interpret it to mean he was heartbroken?
Now, though, seeing him react the same way after all this time…
Is it possible that it really is hearing the name that bothers him? After all, Julia was one of his best friends, and she sacrificed herself to save him—and this entire pack. Is it so wild to imagine that he hurts that deeply when he thinks of his fallen friend?
If it isn’t, does that mean I left him for no reason?
Even if I did, I’m not sure it matters. He’s had two and a half years to convince me that I made the wrong decision, and he’s never so much as picked up the phone. He didn’t care that I left him. For all I know, he was grateful. He’s probably only flirting now because seeing me reminded him how big my t**s are. Not remotely the same thing as love.
“Fine,” Dean says gruffly. “We’ve only got two empty cottages at the moment, but there are a few more spare bedrooms in some of the occupied homes. How many, exactly, do we need to house?”
Cooper glances at me with a rather devilish expression. “I seem to recall there being a spare bedroom in your house.”
I scowl at that. He only came over once or twice over the course of our short-lived relationship; he was in the midst of getting his new coven afoot and, being the legal owner of the Estate, had to be there to facilitate most of the activity. It was usually me who came over to his place. I’m surprised he even remembers the extra room.
“Cooper,” Quinn scolds. “Don’t be creepy.”
“Who’s being creepy? If I wanted to be creepy, I’d insist on staying in her room.”
Moon God, he’s laying it on thick. I really wish my heart would stop pounding. “Does that mean you’re insisting on staying in my spare?” I ask.
He bats his eyelashes at me. Like, actually bats them, the way Dean tried to convince me to do a few minutes ago. “It’s impolite to insist. But it would certainly incentivize me to agree to this little arrangement.”
“Your coven already said yes,” Dean reminds him.
“No, they said they deferred to me. Being that I’m the coven leader.”
That’s not entirely true, from what I know. Cooper is only the co-leader of the Refugee Coven; Max would have had to agree to this, as well.
Frankly, I’m surprised he did.
Dean and Quinn both glance at me, eyebrows furrowed with concern. I hear Dean’s voice in my head: Are you okay with this? We can find another way if not.
I suspect that that they’re really Quinn’s words, linked to him, which he then linked to me. Either way, I appreciate them.
Am I okay with this? Do I forgive Cooper for letting go of me so easily—for doing what at the time I thought was proof that he was still in love with Quinn? Am I prepared to deal with this degree of flirtation on a daily, and even hourly, basis?
The truth is, no matter how scary it is, it feels good. It’s the only thing that’s felt good in a long time.
It’s okay, I tell them. I’ll be careful.
But I’m starting to doubt those words.
- Writer
