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“I could cope on my own if he wasn’t in my way”

“Is it hi with your head?” He’d hired Dean as an extra cook to help out during high season

“He thinks it isn’t fancy enough” Crosby rubbed his forehead, looking at the ht”

“The ets in today I’ll tell hi, and if he doesn’t like it he can leave”

Crosby nodded, looking relieved “Okay Sorry, boss”

“Jesus,” Cooper et a social life Making his job his life was turning hier nut than he already was

“Hey”

The fah hi inside the bar He i on the spot “Hey, yourself” He wrapped his ar her to him for a kiss

“It’s good to see you” He looked into her eyes as he pulled back and his happiness at seeing her di on?”

“Iuh” She sighed, her fingers tensing against his shoulders “I just had an encounter with Dana”

And thisbetter “What now?”

“Oh, she had so to say” Jessica pulled away, only to take a chair off a table and hop up onto the space it had made He tried not to be distracted by the reether

He crossed his ar the memory out for now “Hit me with it”

Jessica gave him an inscrutable look “She said that you want kidsand that when you found out she couldn’t have them, you resented her for it, that you were cold and distant and she got hurt, that she wouldn’t talk about adoption and then took her hurt out on you by cheating on you”

His gut tightened

His blood heated

For a second he couldn’t even speak, he was that mad

“Cooper?”

He held up a hand, needing a minute

Finally, when he felt like he wasn’t going to throw a table through the , he choked out, “She would tell it like that”

Jessica hopped off the table and ca her hands up his arms and around to clasp the back of his neck She stared up into his eyes, showing his she felt for him but had never said “I’m sorry she’s such a bitch, Coop”

And just like that he found hi

Calling Dana a bitch at this point was such a goddamn understatement

He wrapped his ar her close “Don’t you think if I wanted kids more than I wanted to have the to me that I’d have started on that as soon as my divorce finalized?”

She gave a soft smile “Yes”

“So do you want to hear the real story?”

“If you’re willing to tell it”

“It’s just another exaed her back over to the table and lifted her onto it He wrapped her legs around his hips, keeping theht I knew her, I wanted them with Dana We talked about it; she said she wanted kids, too Outright said it So as far as I kneere trying A fewhappened, and I discovered hen I found the damn pill in her purse”

Jess gasped “She was still taking the pill?”

“Yep” He no longer felt the betrayal and confusion he’d felt back then But he re worse than the realization that you didn’t know the person who lay in your bed as well as you thought you did “I confronted her and she cried a lot, proot scared and that she really did want to have children She said that She said it straight to ave her and we tried again

“Nothing happened again and we argued because I thought she was still on the pill She denied it and said we needed to go to the doctors to see rong Turned out this ti called an ectopic pregnancy just after high school that I didn’t know about”

“Jesus,” Jessica muttered

“I learned that was partly why she’d been afraid to get pregnant to begin with But she could have told me that”

“She could have,” Jess agreed

“I think she was asha that shit “The problenificantly We couldn’t afford IVF so adoption was our only option Dana didn’t want to adopt In fact, she was relieved about the whole thing Turned out she didn’t want kids after all We argued a lot All the time, in fact And then she cheated”

“I’ his hair the way he liked “I’m so sorry”

“Done now, Doc”

“Yeah” She frowned

“What is it?”

“It’s justDana seeret how she acted She said that she acted out of hurt”

“That ht be true I tried to understand where her head was at about the whole kids thing because she’d been through a lot, but she wouldn’t talk about it She just got defensive and argumentative Who knoith Dana what the truth is any fairy tales” o;I could cope on my own if he wasn’t in my way”