The Shippers(97)

“I thought you were joking.”

Cooper gave me a look. “No you didn’t.”

“But—” It still wasn’t computing. “When?”

“Always.”

Always?

Cooper took a breath and shoved his hands into his pockets. “After you told me you and Pearce got engaged, I made the decision. I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t be part of your life anymore. You were like a drug that I had to give up. I thought, Just let her be happy. Right? You’d made your choice. I didn’t have to fight with you about it.”

“Fight with me about it?” I said. “I didn’t even know there was a choice.”

Cooper nodded. “Looking back, maybe I should’ve said something.”

I gave him a look, like Ya think? “I didn’t pick Pearce over you. I didn’t know you were an option.”

“I thought I shouldn’t tell you what to do. That’s what my dad always did to my mom. Told her what to wear, and who to be friends with. I didn’t want to be like him. I wanted to be the opposite of him. I trained myself not to ask for things. I had a lot of regret after I thought I’d let you marry Pearce without ever telling you how I felt. I reevaluated how I’d been living my whole life—but too late.”

“You didn’t just not tell me how you felt,” I said. “You didn’t even tell me you were leaving.”

“I was afraid even one objection from you would stop me. And so I just—left. It was the only solution I could come up with. I didn’t even have a plan. I just figured I’d figure it out … but it didn’t work. I left, moved far away, started over, made new friends, and dated people, too—thinking if I waited long enough, I’d forget all about you. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I just … missed you. Even when I wasn’t missing you, I was missing you. It was like grief—but it didn’t get easier the way grief is supposed to. It was like there was a hole blown open in my chest that I could never close back up.

“But as bad as it was, I figured it had to be better than the alternative—which was watching you marry Pearce and build a life with him. Watching him get everything I wanted and take it all for granted. I told my mom not to tell me anything about your life, and for a while that worked. But I guess she didn’t fully get the importance of that rule, because she forwarded me your wedding invitation—and that’s how I found out you weren’t already married.”

“Cooper—seriously?”

“I was so enraged to see it—the real thing in my hands—that I went to a pub and drank and stared at it … and then stumbled to a postbox and drunk RSVPed.”

“Hence, the boycott.”

“Hence, the boycott. Humiliating—but I told myself that settled that, at least. But then … when I woke up the next day hungover, I had this terrible idea in my head. Maybe this was my chance for a do-over. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought about it—until suddenly I was on a plane. Crossing the ocean. Heading home to stop you. It was foolish and hopeless and way too late—but I did it anyway.”

“I thought you were kidding about that, too.”

“I have never been more dead serious in my life.”

I took a slow breath.

Cooper went on. “When I saw you again in that church—it was all I could do not to throw you over my shoulder and carry you off like a Viking.”

“You did wind up doing that,” I pointed out.

“But after you’d made your choice.”

“How gentlemanly.”

Cooper continued, “My plan was actually to stand up and object. And then to make a speech about how I couldn’t let you marry the wrong man—when I knew that I was the right one. I had a whole argument written out on an airsickness bag.”

“That’s romantic,” I deadpanned.

“Isn’t it?” Cooper deadpanned back.

“I can’t believe you wrote a speech,” I said.

“I can’t believe you faked a faint,” Cooper said.

“It was good to see you that day,” I said.

“It was agony,” Cooper said, “to see you.”

“So you stopped my wedding—and then you went back to London.”

“Sure, I mean—I’d called in sick to work and left the country.”

“And then you came to Ashley’s wedding, too.”

“Yeah. I went back, regrouped, got a job offer in Austin, got a haircut, bought a few extra vests, and came here planning to do the exact same thing to you that you’ve been trying to do to Finn.”

“Hold on. Have you been a double agent this whole time?”

Cooper shrugged. “Why do you think I asked your mom to make you room with Harmony?”

“My mom was in on this?”

Cooper nodded. “So was Ashley.”

“No, no,” I said. “Ashley was the architect of the whole thing with Finn.”

“She was playing both sides of the field,” Cooper said.

I shook my head. “Ashley was trying to set you up with Bridesmaid Two!”

But Cooper just raised his eyebrows, like Why do you think she was doing that?

I gasped. “Was everybody in on it?”