Shit. I glanced back to Andrea. She was standing there trying to connect the dots of what was happening. Hell, if I were her I wouldn’t know what to think. Digging into my jeans pocket, I pulled out my wallet, grabbed my wedding band, and slid it onto my finger. The light in Andrea’s eyes slowly faded as she gave me a sad grin.

“You can wait out here if you want,” I told her. I didn’t want to drag her too far into the craziness that was my family. I just wanted her to see me in a different light than the bedroom. It wasn’t until that moment when I started to regret my decision to invite her.

“I would like to come, if that’s all right.”

Dammit. She’s perfect.

We walked over to my mom’s room and I could feel the heaviness of the situation growing on my shoulders. I was praying. Praying she was all right. Praying she would know what was happening. Praying she was my mom today.

As Andrea and I walked into mom’s room, I saw her sitting at a table, working intensely at something. I held up my hand to Andrea as a signal for her to wait by the doorway. I didn’t want Mom to have too much of a commotion with me entering with another person.

She heard my shoes squeak as I walked inside. I sighed out loud when she turned to look at me and didn’t appear frightened—she looked…Excited.

“Cooper!”

There was nothing sweeter than hearing my name from my mom’s lips. She knew me today. She was quick to stand up and rushed over to me, wrapping her arms around me. I held on to her for quite awhile. Maybe Ms. Wells was wrong. Maybe somehow Mom’s mind had traveled back to present day. Maybe she wasn’t trapped in the sick time capsule that kept her wandering down a dark path of memory lane.

But quickly my grin faded.

“I thought you weren’t coming back from the honeymoon until next week, honey.”

Shit. It was 2009. And I’d just married Iris.

Her eyes shifted to the doorway and landed on Andrea. “Well, what are you doing out there, Iris? Come on in! Let me get you two some coffee! I can’t wait to hear all about it!”

“No, Mom, we don’t need coffee. We had some on the way.” I walked over to Andrea and spoke softly. “I’m so sorry…”

She shook her head and smiled. “What’s her name?”

“Grace.”

Andrea approached her and pulled her into a hug. “It’s so great to see you, Grace.”

I laughed. I was amazed by how okay Andrea was with all of this. She was going out of her way to make the situation seem somewhat normal. The weather here was in the 70s. It was pretty damn nice to walk outside without coats. But what was nicer was seeing Andrea in a tank top and tight jeans. No makeup. It wasn’t needed. She seemed so simple. So perfect. She never worked as hard as Iris did with her appearance, which made it so easy to fall for her natural beauty.

“Honey, what did I say about that? Don’t call me Grace! Call me Mom! Come on, now. Sit, sit.” Mom ushered her into the room and sat us down on her bed. She took the chair across from us. It was so strange. We were sitting in a nursing home, yet in my mom’s mind we were sitting in her living room. How could that be? I wished I could take a drive through her brain to see what was happening.

“So how was Thailand?” she questioned.

Andrea looked at me and nudged my arm. “You tell her, babe.”

I went into explaining the beauties of Thailand. The wonderful elephants we rode. The beautiful buildings, the museums, the amazing stone structures. The pandas at the Chiang Mai Zoo were pretty astonishing, but the fact that the word panda was now forever engraved in my heart as a connection to Andrea made it even more remarkable. It was her favorite animal, and there was not a doubt in my mind that the woman I wished I could have taken to Thailand was sitting next to me.

I found myself falling for her each moment our eyes locked. Each time she caressed my hand. I knew I wanted to fix Andrea, to help her move on. But the truth of the matter was that she was somehow fixing me.

Mom was happy. I hadn’t seen her happy in such a long time. Whenever I asked Iris to come visit with me, she said she felt uncomfortable with nursing homes. And she hated lying to my mom about the time period. She thought it was unhealthy the way I played along with her illness. But I didn’t think of Mom as being ill. I thought of her as being lost. And if I were lost, I would hope to have someone around me who was willing to help me find my way home.

Her eyes shifted to Andrea’s ring finger and she gasped. “Where’s your ring!?”

Shit. There wasn’t a ring. At least there wasn’t until Andrea reached into her purse, pulled out her engagement ring from Derrick, and slid it onto her finger. Holy crap. She was as f**ked up as I was, and I found it pretty damn sexy. I knew it was messed up.

The three of us talked for hours, discussing stories of the past and welcoming Andrea into my history. “You know, I bought him his first camera.” Mom smiled like she was the proudest woman on this planet. It felt good to see her feeling well.

“Yeah, he told me. He said you inspired him to be great.” Andrea leaned near my mom, her expression filled with care and compassion. “He also said you’re the greatest artist he knows.”

“Yeah, well you know. Cooper’s a liar like that.” She winked at Andrea as we all laughed. I couldn’t think of the last time I was able to actually sit down and have what felt like a real conversation with my mom. Sure, she thought the year was 2009, but it was turning out to be the best year of my life. Who said you couldn’t rewrite history?

“YOU WERE BRILLIANT!” I exclaimed as Andrea and I walked out of the nursing home. “I haven’t seen her like that in…forever. Thank you, Andrea.” We walked over to the rental car we picked up from the airport, and before opening the door for her. I stared at her. She leaned her back up against the car and her soft lips curved into an easy smile. I stood close to her and repeatedly kissed her forehead. “Thank you.”

“Thank you for allowing me in.” Her eyes shifted to the ground, and I could tell there was something on her mind.

“What is it?”

“Can I ask what happened to her? Or you can still call panda on this situation.”

My foot began to tap the concrete beneath us as I started to relive the accident. It was right after I’d moved my mom away from my dad. I was out of state doing a photo shoot spread for a magazine and I received a frantic call from my mom.

My father had showed up and forced her to take a ride with him in his piece-of-shit pick-up truck. I was sure his breath was drenched in its normal whiskey cologne. At some point on the line, I could hear my mom screaming. She seemed absolutely terrified and she dropped the phone in the car. “I should have been there.”

“You didn’t know. There was no way you knew.”

“Yeah but, didn’t I? I should have moved her out of the state. Away from him.” I continued to tell her how the truck got wrapped around a pole and my mom slipped in and out of coma. My father died on impact. And when she finally woke up, she thought it was 1992. She thought I was her brother, Travis, and she was so deeply in love with my father and hurt that he wasn’t there.

“The doctors thought her mind would start to unscramble itself over time, but after the first year, there was little hope.”

“Is that why you don’t drink?”

No. I didn’t drink because it landed me in the mental hospital. But I didn’t want her to know that. “Part of the reason.”

“I’m so sorry, Cooper.”

Her blue eyes grew very blue, something that happened when she became emotional about a topic. The idea of a car accident still had to tug at her bruised heart. This trip wasn’t about making her sadder, so I needed to let her know it was okay. “Today was a good day. Let’s hold on to that.”

She wrapped her arms around my back, and pulled me closer to her. We stood there for a moment, taking in what we had witnessed with my mom. The nurses glowed with how we left Mom in a better state than she had been in awhile. I planned to return tomorrow. But right now, all I wanted to do was hold on to Andrea.

She pulled my lips to hers, lightly kissed me, and nibbled on my bottom lip. “I’m hungry.”

I raised an eyebrow and felt a sudden twitch in my jeans. “A soda pop hungry?”

She tossed her head back and laughed as she rolled her eyes. “I’m hungry, Cooper. Food hunger.” She climbed into the car and I closed the door for her. Wandering over to the driver’s seat to get in, I couldn’t help but smirk at her reaction to my question. Hell, you gotta try.

Chapter Fifteen

IT FELT GOOD to laugh. I sat across from Cooper in the Italian restaurant and I was famished. For the first time in a long time, I felt like I could eat everything around me. The conversation with Coop was so easy; he made me feel comfortable, and he never came on too strong. I glanced at the rings still on both our fingers from earlier with Grace. Holding my hand up to him, he slid off the engagement ring, and I did the same for him.

“So my cousin is dating your brother.”

“Yup. Since middle school.”

“And they are throwing the big Christmas party.”

“Yup.” My mom had been calling me nonstop since I missed Thanksgiving, and now she was getting heavy on my case because I wouldn’t be home for Christmas. I wasn’t ready to return. I felt I was slowly moving to Order, but I knew the moment I stepped back into Derrick’s and my hometown, I would slide back down to Chaos. It was the curse of the small town.

For the past few years, Eric and Michelle had thrown big Christmas parties at Michelle’s family’s mansion. Every year there was a theme to the party. Each year, I would be in charge of the group dance that happened at the beginning. Not this year. This year, Rachel was in charge of it. The whole town would come to drink, laugh, and gossip. That was all too much for me. The bruise was still too painful. So I made up lies. I told my mom if I weren’t working, I would lose my ‘jobs.’ I told her I had auditions for dance schools in the next few weeks. I told her I was pulling my life together. I told her anything and everything to try to get her to back off a bit.

Of course she didn’t care. She just wanted me home. So she kept badgering me, asking me—no, begging me—to come home at least for the holiday. That was when the ignoring of her calls happened.

“Are you going?” His eyes stayed on me. At times it was hard to look at his handsome self. I watched as he wiped the sweat falling from his forehead with a napkin, thinking about how I would love for him to make me sweat. But I remained focused on the conversation at hand.

“No. I’m not.” He looked surprised, I shrugged my shoulders. “Are you?”

“Nah. I haven’t seen or spoken to them in years. And it’s pretty short notice for me…” That was good. It would have been awkward for both of us to attend the party. After the connection we had discovered, I could see going back to Albany, Wisconsin, as a terrible idea. The whispering, gossiping ladies of the town would have a field day with us, making up nasty lies to keep their minds busy for a few hours each day.

Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw a young girl, probably ten or so, arguing with her father as they gestured towards Cooper. “I think you have a fan.”

Cooper saw the uneasy father, smiled, and waved the two over. Excitedly, the daughter came bouncing over to the table, pulling her dad’s arm. The girl gasped with joy. “I don't know who you are!”

I couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. If she didn’t know who Cooper was, why was she so excited to see him? The girl’s dad rolled his eyes and joined in. “So sorry. My daughter saw you from our table. Her mom and she are huge fans of your show.”

Cooper turned his charm on high, and I melted inside as I listened to his soft southern tones directed at the girl. He made the interaction feel completely comfortable. A gift of his, I supposed—making anyone feel comfortable.