The Space In Between (22 page)

I WOKE UP with the need for a
garbage can next to my bed. I felt awful.
Dammit Jose
. No more tequila.
Ever. Pushing myself up on my elbows, I was pleased to see Cooper walking in
with a tray of all types of liquids and foods on it.

“You’re up.”

“I’m up.” And I remembered everything I’d said the night
before. And I still meant it.

He placed the tray on my bed and gestured towards it. “A
hangover kit. I dropped two off to Michelle and Ladasha, who both look worse
off than you, may I add.” He pointed towards the tray and explained what was
included in this magical hangover kit.

“We have water. Coffee. Bloody Mary.” I wiggled my nose as
he said Bloody Mary and he removed it from the tray. “Okay, no Bloody Mary. We
got toast, crackers, some weird baked bread type crap the chef made and two
Tylenol.”

That I could do. I opened my mouth for the Tylenol, and he
dropped them in and gave me a sip of water.

“Do you have any flaws?” I wondered out loud.

He studied me with a serious look. “I have many flaws,
Andie.”

I removed the tray from between the two of us and placed it
on the ground. I pulled him closer to me. Stroking the side of his face, I
leaned in and gave him a soft kiss on the lips. We rested our foreheads against
one another and sat in silence. My head was still spinning and I wanted nothing
more than to fall back to sleep in his arms.

“Speaking of flaws…” His brows lowered as he spoke.

“No.” I didn’t want to speak of flaws. I wanted him to lie
next to me. The sun was peeking through the window shades as I lay down and
patted the spot next to me. He listened to my wordless request and joined me.
My body slid into the curves of his body and he held me as if it were the last
thing he ever wished to do on this planet. I’d
never
felt so safe and
protected in my life—and that’s saying a lot.

“The costume designers are coming tomorrow for the party. We
have to try things on…but until then, can we stay here?” He kissed my earlobe.
I assumed that was him agreeing, and we both fell asleep. A lazy Saturday was
very much needed after last night’s crazy events. Plus, my head hadn’t stopped
pounding and I was almost certain if I got up out of bed I would pass out.

“IT’S A LITTLE tight.” Ladasha
sucked in her stomach as Ms. Jacobson tightened her corset.

“Suck it in!” Ms. Jacobson hollered. “I swear, Rose, these
dresses weren’t made for people like this,” Ms. Jacobson whispered to Mrs.
Rivers, who was working on Cooper’s costume. Ladasha quickly placed her hand on
her hip and looked to Ms. Jacobson.

“What’s that suppose to mean? People like what?”

“Nothing. Nothing. Don’t get your panties in a bunch. You’re
just a very curvy girl,” Ms. Jacobson hissed. Ms. Rivers, her gossiping, rude,
sidekick joined in.

“It’s true, honey. And back in the time period of
Pride
and Prejudice,
I’m sure there weren’t any people of color involved in the
balls. You should be thankful to be able to wear these pieces of clothing. Let
alone take part in the dance.”

I watched as Eric’s fists tightened at the way the two older
women were being so blatantly disrespectful towards Ladasha. Ladasha’s eyes met
with mine and I mouthed an apology. Michelle bounced over to Ladasha in her
costume and smiled brightly. “I don’t know what they are talking about. You
look fabulous!” She placed her hands on Ladasha’s waist and smiled. “I would
kill for your curves.” She winked at my best friend and walked away to help
Cooper locate some of his costume pieces.

“Ouch!” I whined as my mom stood behind me and poked me with
a pin.

“Hold still!”

I looked towards Ladasha and could tell the women’s comments
were truly bothering her. “Mom, why do you hang out with those ladies? They
aren’t nice people.”

My mom glanced at the two women and shook her head. “I’ve
been friends with those two for years. Besides, they weren’t exactly wrong,”
she murmured.

I was shocked. I had heard my mom say some terrible things
to me, but saying them about Ladasha pissed me off. I was embarrassed by how
closed-minded this town could be sometimes. I was sure Dasha already felt a bit
out of place being one of the only black people in the town, but for them to
speak to her in a way to draw attention to it was too much.

“IT’S FINE,” SHE told me after we
finished trying on costumes. We walked around the backyard, Freckles meowing in
Ladasha’s arms, and sat at a bench after brushing off the snow covering it.

“It’s not,” I insisted.

“I ran into Eric last night.” When she said that, I raised
an eyebrow. I wasn’t sure if they had spoken since the drunken car ride home on
Friday. Whenever I mentioned it to either of them, they shrugged it off as if
it had never happened.

“What happened?”

“It’s embarrassing,” she said. I asked her once again. It
appeared Ladasha had been standing in the bathroom, door closed, giving herself
one of her pep talks. “I realized I hadn’t felt comfortable or had confidence
in myself in a long time…and after Eric mentioned it in the car that night, I
knew I had to find it. So I stood in front of the mirror and said it over and
over again. ‘I’m good enough.’

“And I kept saying it until I somewhat felt it. And when I
opened the bathroom door, there he was. And he took my hands and said it back
to me. Over and over again.” Her voice sang as she remembered her moment with
Eric. She started to frown. “And then his fiancée had to go and be one of the
nicest people ever. I’ve never met a person who hugs so much and is so
touchy-feely. And I’m falling for her soon-to-be husband. I’m a terrible
person.” She sighed, sticking out her bottom lip.

“It could be worse.” I smirked.

“How so?”

I opened my mouth to speak and closed it. My shoulders
shrugged. “No. You’re right. You’re a terrible person.” Ladasha laughed and
nudged me in the arm. She rested her head on my shoulder.

“What are we going to do with our lives?”

I had been wondering the same thing. There was one thing I
knew—I didn’t want to stay in this small town anymore. I had outgrown it. And I
didn’t want to be far from Ladasha. We needed each other. “Let’s go back to New
York.”

Her eyes lit up and she grinned ear to ear. “I’m so glad you
said that because I kind of sort of applied to a summer program at New York
Film Academy.” I was ecstatic for her! Film was the right road for her to take.
It was her everything and I knew she would shine at it. “Eric pushed me to do
it last night.”

“Dasha, that’s amazing!”

“That’s not all. I kind of sort of applied for a job at a
dance studio in New York. Under your name.” She closed her eyes to avoid seeing
my reaction, “I would need a roommate and I couldn’t think of anyone else I
would want to live with. Please don’t kill me.”

I didn’t kill her. I hugged her.

THE WEEK FLEW by, and it was two
days before the big Christmas party. I was actually pretty excited for it all,
surprisingly; it seemed to be shaping up to be a good time. I sat in the coach
house with Cooper as he stared at his laptop, going over emails. “Have you seen
my cell phone?” he asked. “I swear I hate those damn things. If it’s not
physically attached to my body, I lose it.”

“I haven’t seen it.”

His hands ran across his face. I watched him murmur
something under his breath before he spoke loud enough for me to hear him.
“Shit. My manager said he has been calling me all week. He said it’s urgent. I
need to go back to New York for a day to meet with him.”

“Why?” I wondered. It seemed like he was holding back from
telling me something, fighting the urge to let me into his head completely.

“I have to take care of some work. Figure out a few issues.”

The sound of his voice was filled with worry, which in turn
made me feel extremely troubled. “Coop, is everything all right?”

He bit the tip of his thumb and smiled. “Yeah. I’m sure it’s
fine. He didn’t say what the problem was. Kyle overreacts. I’m sure it’s
nothing.” He closed his laptop, leaned over, and kissed my nose.

I felt a vibration under me and pulled his cell phone out
from the couch cushion before handing it to him. My heart raced as I looked at
him with hopeful eyes. “Let me come with you.”

WE SAT ON the airplane, and I was
freaking the hell out as I thought of landing in New York City. I didn’t let
Andrea know how worried Kyle actually was in his letters. Something was
definitely not right, and I needed to find out what was going on as soon as
possible.

“Did you bring sunglasses?”

“No, why?” she asked.

Damn. I knew the paparazzi would be waiting at the airport
for photos. Kyle had already set it up for them to get their shots of me
returning to the city. He said it may be needed down the line.

As we got off of the plane, I slid on my sunglasses. Andrea
looked at me with questioning eyes. I took her hand into mine and rushed her
out of the airport. There were a ton of people flashing their cameras in our
faces. The look of horror on Andrea’s face made me cringe. I felt awful. I
quickly pulled her into a taxi and slammed the door behind us.

“What the hell was that?!” she hollered, looking at me,
shocked. My head hung low in embarrassment. I felt terrible.

“Welcome to my life.”

We arrived to the hotel, just to be tackled by more
paparazzi there, and I raced her inside before any questions could be asked. As
we finally made it to the room, I sighed heavily and fell onto the bed. Andrea
stood with her hands on her hips and raised an eyebrow.

“Cooper. What’s going on? Why are they following you?”

“Iris and I are filing for divorce. Ya know, they love their
drama.”

Her hand flew to her mouth, “Oh my gosh. They are going to
think I’m the other woman!”She paused before continuing, “How do you get used
to that?”

I took off my shoes as she joined me on the bed. “You
don’t.” I needed to warn her if she came across the paparazzi when I wasn’t
around. “Andie…those people. They have a way of knowing things about us. Things
we don’t know about ourselves. And they lie. It’s their fucking jobs to lie.
Just…don’t feed into any of it if you cross paths with them.” She nodded with
understanding, but I knew it wasn’t something she could understand without
experiencing it firsthand.

“When do you meet with your manager?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

She removed her shoes, and climbed behind me, and started
giving me a back massage. My eyes closed with satisfaction as her fingers
rubbed me down.

“We should go to a world where there is no drama. No death.
No cheating. No divorce. No one else but us. Back to where we started,” she
said as she lightly kissed my earlobe. A slight moan escaped my mouth.

“Back to our space in between,” I agreed.

“Back to us.”

I turned towards her and rotated her body on top of mine. I
brought her face close to mine and studied her beauty. She wasn’t the same girl
I’d met that one Friday night. That girl was hardly there. But today, Andrea
was staring back at me, her eyes sparkling. Her light had been found. My lips
ran across hers and she slightly parted her mouth, before pulling back. Raising
an eyebrow, I asked her what was wrong.

Her blue eyes blinked and I watched them reappear. “I know
people have told me that I need time. Time to heal. I need space to find my
way. But what they don’t know is I have found my way. I was led to you during
my lowest form of Chaos. I found my Order. I found you. Cooper, I love you.”

Our next kiss was the best kiss we had ever shared. It was
as if our lips were destined to be together forever and always. I pulled back
and smiled towards her. “I love you, too.”

I laid her on the bed and stood over her. She was wearing a
light blue button-down shirt and tight blue jeans, fucking stunning. I started
with the top button and worked my way down. She was patiently waiting with her
arms to her sides, and I took my time. We weren’t in any hurry. We were going
to enjoy this moment together, making love for the first time with one another.

Before when we had sex, it was a way of forgetting. Of
getting lost, of letting go of reality, and finding a single moment when we
could shut off our brains from overthinking. But now… now we did it for us.
Just the two of us. No one else.

I bent down and kissed her stomach with gentle pecks. She
lifted my arms and pulled my shirt over my head. Her fingertips ran across my
chest as she pulled me closer to her. I began kissing her neck, running my
tongue across the same spot, massaging her skin with my mouth, sucking lightly,
moving down to her collarbones. I continued to explore her body. She moaned my
name, begging for me, but I was the one addicted.

“Cooper…” she sighed as I curved my tongue to outline her
bra. Sliding my hand behind her back, I unhooked the bra and slid it off her
body. Her breasts were so perfect, and I was happy to glide my mouth over her
hardened nipples. Her whimpers pleading for more of me turned me on so fucking
much. She unzipped my jeans and slid them off, allowing her hands to travel
into my boxers before she slid them to the ground. For a moment I just lay
there.

“Mmm…Andie…” I whispered as my lips explored her breasts a
moment longer before I covered her mouth with mine. I kissed her hard, and she
kissed back harder. Deeper. She parted my lips and allowed our tongues to get
to know one another on a deeper level. I loved her kisses. I loved her so
fucking much.

We didn’t leave the hotel room. We stayed wrapped in each
other’s arms. I never could have dreamt of the beautiful moment we had shared
with one another. That night, we stayed up, learning more about one another.
Finding out more details about our drives in life. Our passions. I asked her
everything I could think to ask about her life. And she asked me the same. Her
mind brought out the best memories, and she would start laughing as she shared
them with me. I wanted to know everything about Andrea Mae Evans, and I was so
thankful she took me there.

She didn’t put her clothes back on. Instead she wore one of
my white t-shirts that swallowed up her small frame, yet somehow it appeared to
be a damned perfect fit in my mind. She picked up my camera and started taking
pictures of me. I felt uncomfortable because being behind the camera was where
I belonged.

“Tell me what you like about me,” she grinned, holding the
camera up and snapping away. I hesitated, rolling my eyes, knowing how this
game ended the last time. “Don’t worry. I’m not freaking out this time.” Her
smile pulled me in, she looked so sexy in my t-shirt.

My hands wrapped around her waist and I lowered her down to
the bed. Straddling her, I smiled, allowing her to keep taking photos of me.
Then I took the camera away, sitting it next to us, and stared at her.
“Alright…but I’m warning you, if you panic, I’ll hold you down forever.” I
cautioned. She smirked wider, wiggling her nose.

“And that’s supposed to be punishment? Come on, we don’t
have all night.”

I brushed my fingers up and down her neck, watching her
relax into the bed. “I can’t say what I like about you, but I’ll tell you a few
things. When you were seven, Eric broke a lamp, but you took the blame for
it—afraid that he wouldn’t get to go to his baseball game, where you cheered
the loudest. When you were eight, you lost a tooth and buried it in the backyard
so a weird creep wouldn’t walk in on you at night.

“When you were thirteen, you cried because you thought
someone kidnapped Oscar the cat…Sorry about that one.” Her lips curved up even
more, and I felt everything inside of me fall even deeper for her. “And today
you’re twenty-two, wearing my t-shirt, your body under mine, looking up at me.
And your eyes lock with mine in such a sexy way that it makes me want to rip
off your shirt and just lay with you naked. It’s not even that I want to have
sex with you. I just want to fucking lay with you.”

Her eyes started to glass over with water and I shook my
head. “So I’m sorry, I can’t say what I like about you. Because it stopped
being ‘like’ a long time ago for me. I stopped liking you at age nine and fell
in love with you at nine-in-a-half.”

I watched as a small gasp released from her lips. She
wrapped her hands around my torso, pulling me down to rest my mouth against
hers. “Thank you,” she murmured.

Picking up the camera, I started taking her photos. The light
in her eyes right then and there had to be captured. It was the most beautiful
thing I’d even witnessed. It was the best feeling, taking her picture; at least
I thought that until she started taking photos of the both of us together.

Best fucking night of my life.