Oddly enough, his open chat thread shows a screenshot of none other than my website. This particular post is from GirlfriendFails, an anecdote about a girl who goes home with a guy late one night after meeting at a bar. They sleep together, but after he’s fallen asleep, she realizes she’s started her period and doesn’t have a tampon or pad. So she goes rummaging through his apartment to see if there are any in one of the bathrooms. The first bathroom is devoid of menstrual products, so she has no choice but to creep into the second bedroom and sneak into the en suite bathroom. She finds a box of tampons under the sink just as someone walks in on her. It’s the guy’s mom, wielding a lamp as a weapon because she thinks she’s being robbed. She’s screaming like a banshee, demanding to know why this nearly naked girl in a T-shirt and underwear is rifling through her bathroom at four in the morning.
“Can you even imagine?” Cooper grins. “Kinda makes me glad my mom isn’t around.”
I should probably tell him that I’m the brains behind the site he’s laughing over. But I don’t have the heart to say, Yeah, I own this website. Launched it and made my first million while I was still in high school. But tell me more about your struggling furniture business. What a jerk that would make me.
I don’t brag about my success in general, but it feels extra wrong to say something now. So I address his mom comment, asking, “Where is she?”
“No idea.” There’s a sting in his voice. Hurt and anger.
I’m realizing I’ve touched a nerve and am scurrying to think of how to change the subject when he releases a ragged breath and keeps talking.
“She was barely around when Evan and I were kids. Coming and going with a different guy every couple of months. She’d take off one day, then show up unexpected looking for money.” He shrugs. “Shelley Hartley was never any kind of mother.”
The burden he’s carried—still carries—is obvious in the drop of his broad shoulders, the crease of his forehead as he picks at frays on his jeans.
“I’m sorry,” I say earnestly. “What about your dad?”
“Dead. Died in a drunk driving accident when we were twelve, though not before racking up a mountain of credit card debt that somehow became our problem.” Cooper picks up a chisel, handles it a moment, then absently scratches at the plywood surface of the table. “The only things either of our parents ever gave us were liabilities.” Then with a sudden ferocity, he stabs the chisel straight into the wood. “But I’ll be damned if I end up like them. Rather throw myself off a bridge.”
I swallow. He’s a bit scary sometimes. Not threatening, exactly. Unpredictable, wired with the kinetic potential of the demons that torment his mind. Cooper Hartley has depths that are dark and treacherous, and that reckless part of me—the impulses I keep buried deep—wants nothing more than to dive in and explore.
It’s just one more reason I’m finding myself in over my head.
I wrap my hand over his. “For what it’s worth,” I tell him, because right now he needs a friend to say they hear him, they understand, “I don’t think you’re anything like them. You’re hardworking, talented, smart. You have ambition. Trust me, that’s more than most people have going for them. A guy with a little bit of luck and a lot of initiative can make his life anything he wants.”
“Easy for you to say. How many ponies did your parents buy for your birthdays?” He lobs a sarcastic jab my way, and I know it’s because I’m the only target in the room.
I offer a rueful smile. “I’m lucky if I can get past my own mother’s assistant when I call. My birthday cards are issued by their personal staffs. My report cards and permission slips were signed by employees.”
“Fair tradeoff for getting everything you’ve ever wanted by snapping your fingers.”
“Is that really what you think?” I shake my head at him. “Yes, I’m extremely fortunate to have been born into a wealthy family. But money becomes an excuse for everything. It becomes a wall between all of us. Because you’ve gotten one thing right—we are clones. From the day I was born, my parents have groomed me to be like them. They don’t think of me as an individual with my own thoughts and opinions. I’m a prop. I swear, sometimes I wonder if I was only born to help my father’s political aspirations.”
Cooper gives me a questioning look.
“My father is a US Congressman,” I explain. “And everyone knows voters prefer candidates with families. At least that’s what the pollsters say. So, poof, here I am. Born and bred for campaign photo ops. Built to smile pretty for the camera and say nice things about Daddy at fundraisers. And I did it, all of it, without question or complaint. Because I hoped one day it would make them love me.” A bitter laugh pops out. “Honestly, though, I don’t think they’d notice if I were replaced with a totally different daughter. Recast in my own life. They’re not all that interested in me as a person.”