What Goes Around...

Part Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

                "What the fuck is WRONG with you?" Coop could barely contain the anger that bubbled dangerously under the surface of his apparently calm exterior.

Freya laughed, the beers had made her relax, he could see the softness in her movements. "I am out to have a good time. You won't oblige..."

He shook his head, "throwing yourself at strangers? You're going there again? I thought we'd agreed..."

                "I agreed to nothing! I still want this..." she gestured between them with a pointed finger. "I want what I asked for, can't you see that?"

Coop ran a hand through his hair exasperated, he'd brought her outside to prove that this was wrong, but instead of feeling embarrassed, instead of her smelling the cold harsh and bitterness of reality, she was looking at him all dreamy eyed and it was all back firing around him.

He paced for a moment shaking his head, "don't you listen? Can't you hear what I'm saying? There is no 'this'," he reciprocated her gesture of pointing between the two of them. "And there never will be. But neither will there be anything with those louts in there." He hitched a thumb behind him in the direction of the club they'd just exited."

                "I just want to..."

He reached for her other arm, pulling her to face him, "I know what you say you want, but I keep telling you, you're wrong. You have a man you love, says you love him, there may be a few hitches...but that is life. You've got to get down off your high horse Freya, this isn't a college course where you can cram in some revision, it's life...and making mistakes is the way we learn." She was silent staring at him, "have you ever got anything wrong?"

                "Other than moving to this town, no." He hated that he could see tears in her eyes, as she looked into his eyes, "I've always excelled at everything. From day one. I don't fail Mitchell Cooper,  I don't know how."

She continually called him by his full name, only his mother called him Mitchell, but the name on her lips was anything but derogatory or authoritarian.

                "You have to have confidence in yourself, trust yourself and in this man you love. Ok?"

Freya laughed nervously, "love? You're talking about love?"

Damn the woman for always being able to unsettle a situation, instead of dealing with her words, he pulled his lips into what he knew was a snarl and hissed, "what I DO know is that this whole mission of yours...it's ridiculous. Go home, phone your married lover and head off into the sunset with him."

She shook her head, "I can't." When he greeted that with a shrug, she whispered, "I'm scared."

Freya Wicker managed to pull on every one of his heartstrings. "I can't help you Freya, I'm not that man."

Her eyes were wide, her disbelief in that statement so obvious in her expression, then she whispered, "I think you are."

As she watched him, she bit her lip, he was unsure whether it was nervousness or a deliberate ploy, he was hoping she wasn't that contrived, because that gesture seemed to complete the image of innocence, and reaffirmed a tug at that place in his chest that wanted to keep her away from the danger or strangers.

                "God woman, what the hell?"

It was a gasp, an attempt at saving himself, but he knew that he was lowering his head, that he was seeking her lips. And in that split second he could have changed things, he SHOULD have changed things, but he didn't, and something sparked at that very moment, he dropped his head further and connected almost aggressively with her lips.