Upside Down (Breaking the Rules #3) - A.M. Madden Page 0,59

least long term for my standards. A year or so, running full speed ahead right out of the gate. But each of them had been with men who’d been extremely comfortable in their own skins. They’d also been promiscuous in their sexual relationships, and their two-timing ways had been what had ultimately done us in. Pathetically, I’d had no issues with being cheated on, rationalizing I’d known what they were before I became involved. Sick as that sounded, consciously engaging with chronic cheaters made me feel more in control than engaging with someone who drowned in confusion.

But not one of those past relationships had managed to fuck up my head as much as Cooper had already seemed to.

“Apparently, you don’t,” he went on to say when I still hadn’t answered.

“I trust you as a person.”

“That’s a cop-out. You either do or you don’t.”

“That’s not true. You can’t fault me for not trusting that you’ve come to terms with this new revelation of yours… so quickly at least.”

“Four months isn’t a blink of an eye,” he countered. “While you were on your yacht working, I was home hashing and rehashing every minute detail of our conversations, our kiss, our undeniable attraction.”

“And you came here still questioning it, most likely treading lightly until you figure it out.”

“Says who?”

“Says me.” I ran a hand through my hair and sighed. “Jesus, Cooper. There’s a lot more involved than fooling around behind closed doors… or to sitting back and letting a man jerk you off. Accepting sexual acts from a man is an entirely different scenario than giving them.” He wanted to know why it was hard for me to trust him, then he’d know. “And going public is a fuck-ton more difficult than keeping things a secret.”

He rolled his eyes and huffed. “Ricky, just because I have no idea how to act in public with a man doesn’t mean I’m not ready to. You can’t fault me for being inexperienced in that area. But questioning that I’m ready to explore all that and more is not fair.” He slipped a hand in his pocket and pulled out his phone.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

Ignoring me, he tapped the screen a few times and suspended the cell in the air between us. “Hey, you,” a female voice said over the line.

“Hey, Ree. I’m sorry it’s late. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

“Did you forget we share the same awful sleep patterns?”

Cooper chuckled even as his eyes drilled through mine the entire time. “True. So, I’m here with Ricky—”

“Well, yay,” she interrupted, and her enthusiasm was clear in those two little words. “You told him your decision, I take it?”

“I did. He’s having a hard time believing I could’ve made a decision so quickly. He’s on speakerphone.”

“Oh, hey, Ricky. Nice to informally meet you,” Riana said over the line.

“Same here.”

“Coop, can you pass the phone to Ricky?” Cooper’s brows shot up, but before he could say anything, she added, “I just want to talk to him for a minute.”

Wordlessly, Cooper tapped the screen and handed me his phone. “Hi.”

“Hi. I’m sure Cooper is glaring at you right now, but I wanted to just say this to you without him hearing it. If you choose to tell him, then go ahead.”

“I’m listening.”

“He definitely hasn’t come to this decision lightly… trust me. But having said that, I’m not sure he would’ve been open to this if it weren’t you in the equation.” I looked away from Cooper’s scrutinizing focus while taking in all she said. “He needs someone he can trust with his vulnerabilities.”

At the expense of mine?

But when I looked at Cooper, the way those vulnerabilities were written all over his expression had me inexplicably forgetting about mine.

“Are you there?” she asked when I hadn’t spoken.

“Yes.”

“You’ve been on his mind a lot. He never once downplayed the attraction he holds toward you. And whenever he did talk about you, that spark in his eye, one I always searched for when we were together, was undeniable.” It felt wrong listening to those details with him standing right there, but she reiterated, “I have no problem with you telling him all that I just said. It’s the absolute truth.”

“Okay.”

“Great. Please tell Coop I love him, and I’ll talk to him soon. And Ricky?”

“Yeah?”

“I can’t wait to meet you in person.” Once she disconnected on her end, I handed back his phone.

That move he made, calling his ex-girlfriend to prove a point, couldn’t have been easy. My resolve softened just