Weekend Goal

Chapter 22: The End

Everyone has worked so hard these past few days and the clubhouse looks amazing, mint green paint and all. Cooper was bitching about it in the beginning, but Cooper bitches about everything! And I know that this is the start of something good and that everything will work okay in the end - it has to. The team is going to start winning matches. Who knows maybe we'll even win the league, we're only twelve points behind first place, it's doable, right?

I'd love to get my hands on the championship cup one more time. Fancy people are going to stop by for fancy cups of coffee and food. We're going to make a shit-ton of money and the whole thing will just be a massive success. And I'm going to hang my boots up and ride off into the sunset, well, maybe.

I haven't spoken to Cooper since the other day and I know I need to, but I'm just not ready for that conversation yet. It's going to be awkward and it can go either way - he'll either be massively relieved or he'll go back to hating me again. So, instead of going to speak to him in person, I sent him a text saying that I need to take the weekend off. He replies almost immediately.

Can you come to the club? We need to talk...

No, I can't. I can't go to the club and I can't speak to Cooper. Like, actually meet and speak to him face to face. No, not happening.

"I'm busy, café stuff," I reply.

This time it's not a lie, I have so much to sort out. There were more applications for the manager role than I was expecting to get. I need to arrange interviews and trial days, and I need to get it all done before Friday.

Cooper doesn't reply to my last message, so I can only assume he's got the hint that we won't be meeting up, we won't be talking and I won't be at the game on the weekend.

* * *

Oh, my god! I've really gone and done it this time. This is it now. There's no coming back from this.

It was a slow day at the café yesterday, so I let Lisa and Margot leave early; I'd just finished wiping the last of the tables and he walked in. Fucking Cooper! If there was a list of people that I wanted to see or speak to, he'd be at the bottom! He just casually walked in and flipped the open sign to closed, sat down on one of the comfy sofas in the reading corner and ordered a flat white like it was nothing. Like, just who did he think he was? Hadn't I been clear enough, I didn't want to see him, if anything, I'd been actively avoiding him.

"We're closed."

He did that stupid, sexy smirk that he does. "I know. I guess this is one of the perks of being friends with the owner," had been his response.

And I wanted nothing more than to punch him in his face and maybe, like, kiss him at the same time. Ugh! Fuck! Why did he have to be like that?

He'd just sat there scrolling through his phone while I'd made a coffee for him. He didn't even say a word. And I don't know what was worse, the silence or the thought of what he might've been building up to say. And he didn't even say anything when I'd sat down opposite him or took a large gulp of iced water, he just kind of gave a slight shrug of his shoulders and I could tell he was wondering how long it had been since I'd stopped drinking coffee. But he said nothing, just sat there sipping coffee and mindlessly scrolling through his phone.

"So, why are you here?" I'd asked him when the silence was too much to bear.

"Just thought I'd come to see how you are. I feel like you're avoiding me," he'd said after taking another sip of his coffee and putting his phone face-down on the table.

"I'm not." Of course I'd been avoiding him, I was still trying to avoid him.

And then there he was, turning up unannounced and uninvited. Why couldn't he understand I didn't want to see him and I didn't want to speak to him?

"You haven't been to the club," he'd shrugged his shoulders at me again.

"I told you I've been busy. I've got a lot going on right now, with this place and Jacob."

"The captain's armband, that was weird, huh? You bitched and moaned about it the whole time someone else had it and then when you get it back, you don't want it."

"Do you want another drink?" I'd asked him, because I needed another drink. My throat was too dry.

Obviously, I'd bitched and moaned about Cooper giving the captain's armband to Willow because it wasn't right, he only did it to get at me. She wasn't the captain because she deserved to be. She was made captain because that was Cooper's way of trying to win the imaginary battle that was going on in his head.

"No, I don't need another drink. I need you to tell me what's going on."

"Honestly, there's nothing going on." I just couldn't help myself. Lie after lie, they just seem to come so easily lately. "I've got a lot going on. I can't commit to being captain. Sanne can, she'd be perfect and you know she would. I have this place to sort out and I need to go see Jacob this weekend. He's not having a good time. I need to be there for him."

And all Cooper did was shrug his shoulders at me again. He was the one who'd turned up at my place of work because he apparently wanted to talk to me and all he did was sit there shrugging his shoulders like some sort of moron.

"Look, one day when you have kids, you'll understand. When you're a parent, your kid will come before everything else, even football."

He just sat there looking at me, like he was expecting me to say something else. There wasn't really anything else for me to say, but I couldn't stand it, him just sitting there looking at me and expecting me to tell him something that could never be.

"And you will one day, you'll meet someone who you can have that with. But it won't be me." I'd said when I couldn't stand the silence any longer.

"But, I thought..."

"No," I'd cut him off mid-sentence because there was no way I could have that conversation with him.

"What do you mean? Are you not? I mean, I thought you were..."

"No. I mean yes, but it's not..."

"How is it not?" He'd sat forward in his seat and I'd moved back. I just didn't want to have that conversation with him, nothing good would come from it.

"Like, when was the last time anything like that happened between us?" I'd sunk further into my seat, hoping that the sofa would just swallow me whole.

"A couple of months ago," he'd said with another shrug of his shoulders.

Fuck!

"Okay, and the time before that? It was ages ago, right? It doesn't add up."

And I could see from the look on his face that his brain was working overtime trying to work out dates of when we'd spent the night together, but how would he know that? It's not like I'm the only one he sleeps with. I could tell he was going over all the potential fathers, figuring out which would be the worst possible option.

"So, if it's not mine, then who is it? Who's the father if it's not me?"

I'd gulped the last of my water but was still desperate for more. "Does it matter?"

"Of course it fucking matters." Cooper had banged his fist so hard on the table I thought the whole thing was going to break. "It matters to me, and it's gonna matter to this kid as well. Do you know what it's like to not have a dad?"

I didn't know if I was supposed to answer that, so I didn't. But I'd never seen Cooper look as angry as he had at that moment, he was raging. But I think he was a bit sad too.

"Because I do. I grew up without a dad. It's shit!"

And what was I supposed to say to that?

"Fuck this!" Cooper knocked the table as he stood up and sent the coffee cup skidding across the room. "Don't come back to the club. I don't want to speak to you or see you. Ever again." He'd slammed the door behind him so hard that one of the panes of glass cracked.

There have been loads of times when Cooper has said that he doesn't want to see or speak to me again, but this time I think he really means it. And I can't blame him. I wouldn't want to see me or speak to me either if I was him. I'm sure one day he will realise that it was for the good of all of us that things have to be like this.