Somewhere

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Four

In which Cooper remembers and never forgets

Cooper

The first night I returned to Somewhere, I went to a party in the woods and you took almost an hour to notice me. My eyes picked you out of the crowd the moment you stepped onto the grass. You smelled like paint, like spices and kindling and I wanted to disappear inside that perfect smell. It was my first night back. Lucinda told me to wait. Mom told me I had more important things to do. Bash suggested they help me unpack instead, but if I spent one more day without seeing you, I was more likely to throw myself off the nearest cliff.

You were just as I remembered you, the way my fifteen-year-old brain burned you into his memory.

Sam Rivera.

My Sam with messy black hair and dark brown eyes. Your skin was velvet brown like warm bread fresh from the oven and I heard your laugh, your goofy laugh that echoed into the night. You grew taller. You were older. You were different, but you were the same, like a repackaged book. The outside was new and improved, while the inside stayed true to the first edition. Just with some new bonus material.

"It won't be the same," Lucinda told me dryly on the car ride over.

She was right. When you finally saw me across from the bonfire, you froze. You stopped as if I was a car, crashing into you. My wolf clawed at my chest, desperate to walk through that fire and grab you into the greatest kiss of your life. In that moment, I knew I was going to hurt you. And I needed you to hate me. I needed you to hurt me too.

That would have been safer, but Sam Rivera never let a little danger get in the way of what Sam Rivera wanted. Your ambition was terrifying. Even after all this time and training, I was still no match for you.

You went right up to me. You were always the brave one.

You asked me, "why are you here?"

I asked myself the same question. It was too soon for me to say I came back to Somewhere for you because I hadn't stopped thinking about you after the five years we were apart. I had Bash and Lucinda watch you in my absence. It was too soon to explain that I was a werewolf that I loved you despite, not having that "mate" moment.

I loathed stories about mates, about looking into some stranger's eye and falling in love in that instant. I resented my grandparents for that story that was somehow better than mine, when I nurtured my love for Sam for twenty years. Not once I had looked at someone else in the same way. Not once. Not even for a flirtation.

Sam was my mate, I knew it.

I tried to argue with my mom, but that was like arguing with a cement wall. "We're different," I attempted to plead my case. Admittedly, I sounded like any teenager, crying over their first love. Mom did this to me. Her scowl reduced me to a sniffling child and I lost all my sense and reason. "We're special. I can't explain it. My world starts and ends with him. He's not here, but I can feel him out there. Don't you feel that with dad? At least something similar?"

My mom sighed. She hated lovey-dovey stuff. In the time my parents had been married and with me, Dad never bought her flowers. They didn't exchange cards or gifts or even celebrated Valentine's Day. They did not hold hands in public. Once, my Dad kissed her on the cheek before going to bed and I thought I was having a fever dream.

She told me, "don't be dramatic."

I did my best to stay away. We fought that first night and it felt good. He shouldn't want to see me after that performance and if he didn't see me, he couldn't ask questions. He couldn't be involved. I should have known better. Sam Rivera didn't quit. Sam Rivera persisted and because of my weakness, Griffin Sage got his hands on you.