My One and Only(15)

She hadn’t wanted to talk earlier, so why should he want to talk now?

“It’s already late and I still need a shower. Maybe some other time.”

“Please,” she pressed. “Give me two minutes. That’s all I’m asking.”

Against his better judgment, Cooper granted the request. “Fine,” he said, stepping aside for her to pass.

She looked relieved but nervous as she fidgeted at the end of his couch. Cooper resisted the urge to clean up. He shouldn’t care what Haleigh thought of his place.

Cooper closed the door and said, “Your two minutes starts now.”

“Right.” Her eyes dropped to the floor as she rubbed the back of her neck. Shifting from foot to foot, she surprised him by asking, “Could you put on a shirt?”

“A shirt?” He had to dirty another shirt for a two-minute conversation?

“It’s just . . .” She waved a finger in front of him. “That’s a lot of . . . And your shorts are riding kind of . . .” This conversation was going to take more than two minutes if she couldn’t finish a sentence. “Please just put on a shirt.”

Haleigh was clearly uncomfortable, and not because his looks offended her. The temptation to test her restraint tickled at the back of his brain. Dismiss him all she wanted, but Haleigh Rae was not immune to good old Cooper. At least not his body.

“You don’t look like you want me to put on a shirt,” he said, stepping closer.

“No woman in her right mind would want you to put on a shirt,” she argued, stepping back. “I’m asking you to do it anyway.”

The compliment made him generous. “All right. I’ll be right back.” When he returned wearing a plain gray tee, he said, “Better?”

“A bit, yes.” Haleigh took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “Now. I’m here because I owe you an apology.”

Not what he expected. “An apology for what?”

“For a lot of things, but most of all for taking advantage of you thirteen years ago. And for insulting you earlier tonight. You didn’t deserve that.”

He latched onto the first part. “You took advantage of me?”

“Yes,” Haleigh said. “I’m a crappy person, and my track record goes back pretty far. I doubt I can find the boy I made fun of for flunking first grade, or the transfer student I said horrible things to in third, but I have to start somewhere.”

This had to be a joke. “Hal, you are not a crappy person.”

“But I am,” she argued. “I never should have dumped my problems on you that night at the prom. And I definitely shouldn’t have taken your money.”

“Where is this coming from?” he asked. “You didn’t dump anything, and I didn’t give you a choice about the money. What were you going to do, get it from your mom? I’d have beaten it out of Stapleton, but you wouldn’t let me.”

“He outweighed you by fifty pounds.”

“Ever heard of a tire iron? It’s a great equalizer.”

“Are you crazy?” she squawked. “You could have jeopardized his football scholarship.”

“Please,” Cooper said. “That dipshit drank himself out of school in the first year. He never played in a game, and now he’s selling cars in Chattanooga.”

Haleigh looked less appalled. “Really? I knew he hadn’t become the next great quarterback, but I never bothered to find out what actually happened to him.”

“You dodged a bullet,” he said. “You never told Abby about that summer, did you?”

Haleigh shook her head. “She’d been talking about being a mom since sophomore year. She’d also warned me about David, and I hadn’t listened. I was stupid and weak and I couldn’t bring myself to confess. She’d have been so disappointed in me. As the years went on I committed enough other sins that keeping this one to myself got easier.”

Knowing his sister and the bond that she and Haleigh had, Cooper said, “You weren’t stupid, you were young. We all were. But she’d have been there for you.”

“I know. But I don’t want to talk about the past anymore.” She ran a hand through her hair. “I shouldn’t have been so mean to you today. Something else was bothering me, and I took it out on you.”

Cooper nearly asked what that something was, but forced himself to stay out of her business. That didn’t mean if the circumstance happened again, he’d let her go a second time.

“Okay then,” he said with a nod. “Apology accepted.”



Haleigh wasn’t sure she’d heard right. “Really?” she asked. “Just like that?”