Charming Cupid, page 16
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Cupid, that was my fault.” Madison took the fall for me. “I shouldn’t have waited until this morning to text you back.”
“Mom, this is Madison. Madison this is my mom, Celia.” My mother hated people calling her Mrs. Cupid, even when my dad was still alive.
“It’s nice to meet you.” Madison held out her hand but my mother pulled her into her arms.
“What a beautiful girl!” My mom commented as she released Madison. “Tell me, do you have a young man in your life?”
“Mom.” I knew that my warning tone wouldn’t do anything to stop her, but I heard myself use it all the same.
“Um…no.” Madison looked between my mom and me.
“And why not?”
“I’m busy”
She waved her hand. “This generation. So busy. So busy that you can’t live life.”
The front doors at the resort opened and a tall man with salt and pepper hair walked in. He was wearing a polo shirt and slacks and looked like he belonged in a Jaguar or a Ralph Lauren ad. He had an air about him. I wasn’t sure if it was confidence or arrogance but it was definitely a vibe. He didn’t resemble my father physically, but there was something about him that reminded me of my father.
My mother turned. “Mario, come meet my beautiful daughter and her stunning assistant, Madison.”
I extended my hand and he shook it. “It’s so nice to meet you. Your mother has told me so much about you.”
He greeted Madison, who, if I wasn’t mistaken, blushed.
Then he settled his hand on my mother’s lower back. I had to admit, the two of them made an incredibly good-looking couple.
The ten-minute warning alarm sounded on Madison’s phone and it startled me.
“I’m actually heading into my morning session.”
“Oh, good!” My mother clapped her hands. “I’ve wanted to see what you do.”
“Oh, um…” Panic rose in my throat. There was no way I could conduct my final session with my mother watching me. It had been bad enough having Coop there.
I felt the tiny hairs stand up on the back of my neck seconds before I heard his voice.
“Vanessa, Madison, sorry to interrupt. I was just double-checking that you didn’t need me for the session this morning.”
I turned and saw Coop standing behind me, looking somehow more gorgeous than he had when he’d left my room an hour ago.
“No, we don’t. But thank you.” I tried to sound as professional as possible even though just the sight of him had my heart beating out of my chest.
My mother stepped beside me. “Vanny, introduce us to your friend.”
“Oh he’s not—” I started to correct her when Madison spoke over me.
“We had a bit of an issue yesterday and Cooper saved the day,” she explained, probably in an attempt to throw my mother off the scent.
Little did Madison know, my mother was like a bloodhound when it came to sniffing out potential partners for me. Nothing would throw her off the scent.
“Cooper, this is my mother, Celia Cupid, and her boyfriend, Mario…,” I drifted off. I had no idea what Mario’s last name was.
“Mario Rojas, nice to meet you.”
“Yes, Cooper, it’s so nice to meet you.” I could feel my mother eyeing him up. “And how do you know my Vanessa?”
At least she hadn’t called me her Vanny.
“You remember my college roommate, Jade? This is her friend. From Wishing Well.”
“Vanessa, we need to…” Madison gestured toward the conference room.
“Oh, right.” And my mother wanted to come with me. I turned to her, trying to come up with a solution. “Um, I’m not sure if—”
“I was just about to go to breakfast.” Coop interrupted me. “Have you two eaten?”
I spun around and looked up at him. Had he just asked my mother and her boyfriend out to breakfast?
What was he thinking?!
CHAPTER 25
Coop
“Breakfast sounds lovely!” Mrs. Cupid enthused.
“I could eat,” Mr. Rojas added.
I didn’t need to be a mind reader to know that Vanessa was telepathically asking me, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
I wanted to pull her to the side and assure her that everything would be fine but I knew that would only make things worse. She’d made sure to introduce me as Jade’s friend from Wishing Well. It was clear she did not want her mom to know that there was anything going on between us.
Not that I blamed her for that. Why would someone want their parents to know about a fling?
A “fun fling.”
That’s not what the time that we’d spent together was to me and I planned on doing everything I could to show that to her.
“I thought that you had that meeting.” Vanessa’s tone sounded pleasant but her eyes were another story entirely. If looks could kill, I’d be fatally wounded. “With Liam.”
“It’s not until this afternoon.” I replied honestly, skipping the part that the reason I’d pushed it was because I’d wanted to surprise Vanessa and attend her morning wrap-up session. Even if she didn’t need me as a volunteer, I’d wanted to see her in her element and spend every last second I possibly could in her presence.
“But don’t you have other things to do? With your product launch?” Her face was twitching as she desperately tried to communicate that she did not want me spending time with her mother.
“Nope. I was going to grab some breakfast and I’d love some company.” I smiled at Mrs. Cupid and Mr. Rojas.
“Well, we were going to sit in on Vanny’s session, but all I’ve had today is coffee.” Her mother was obviously giving her daughter two options: she could have breakfast with me or she could go to Vanessa’s seminar.
I could see the battle that Vanessa was having with her Sophie’s Choice decision. It was obvious that she didn’t want her mom and Mario to attend the session, but it was equally evident that she didn’t want them to have breakfast with me. I waited to see which she wanted less.
For some reason I sensed that a lot rode on her decision. I wouldn’t say that it decided whether or not we had a shot at the future, but it would be a good indicator of where we were at. It would definitely be a clear indicator of how much she trusted me.
Madison’s phone buzzed and she quietly said, “That’s the five minute warning.”
Vanessa closed her eyes and nodded her head. When she opened them, she was staring right at me. Then she turned to her mom. She exhaled and her shoulders relaxed. “Okay, um, I have to go. Why don’t you go ahead and get something to eat.”
Yes! Internally, I spiked the ball and did a touchdown dance. I may not have won the game yet, but that was a critical score.
“My session is about three hours so I guess…”
“After we eat I’ll take them on the grand tour.”
“Grand tour?” Vanessa’s brows winged.
“Oh, I saw on the website that they have an award-winning spa.” Mrs. Cupid’s eyes lit up.
“They do. If you’d like, I can arrange for you both to have a massage or any other spa treatment,” I offered.
“That would be lovely.” Mrs. Cupid clapped her hands together before pulling Vanessa into a hug. “You go and give your talk. Cooper will take good care of us.”
“I’m sure he will.” Vanessa hugged her mother back but kept her eyes on me.
I smiled at her as she walked away with Madison, who was talking a mile a minute as the two of them headed to the Sunset Room.
“So, you’re Jade’s friend?” Mrs. Cupid jumped right in to grilling me. “Did you meet Vanny in college then?”
“No. I didn’t go to school with Jade and Vanessa. I went to the University of Alabama,” I explained as I ushered them to the bistro-style restaurant.
It was a short walk across the lobby. A bright-eyed hostess was standing behind the podium waiting to greet us.
“Hi, table for three please.”
“Of course, would you like indoor or outdoor?”
I deferred to my guests, who both opted for outdoor.
As the hostess led us through the Spanish-style patio, Mrs. Cupid commented on how beautiful everything was and I agreed. For some reason, I’d never associated desert landscape with beauty. I’d always thought of it as being dry and brown, with the only color coming from cacti. But I couldn’t have been more wrong. The New Mexico desert was full of life. There were colorful, exotic flowers blooming with splashes of yellow, blue, purple, orange, and red.
The hostess smiled pleasantly as she showed us to our table. “Are you a guest at Oasis?”
“Yes.”
“What room?”
“The Paradise Suite.”
She nodded as she typed into the electronic pad in her hand. “Thank you for joining us Mr. Briggs. Please let me know if there’s anything else I can help you with.”
“Briggs! Cooper Briggs. Alabama.” Mr. Rojas snapped his fingers. “It’s been driving me crazy. You’re a football player.”
“I was a football player. I’m retired.”
“I knew that you looked familiar. And that name. Your brother’s a baseball player, right. What’s his name?”
“JJ. Yeah, he’s retired, too.” My brother had been a major league pitcher for the Long Beach Waves, but he retired after having Tommy John surgery on his shoulder.
“Wow. A professional football and baseball player. Your parents must be so proud.” Mrs. Cupid commented sincerely.
“They are, but not because of our professions. My parents claim that all they ever wanted was for their children to be good people that treated others well and gave back. But when we were growing up, there were so many of us they would always say that they’d be happy if we all survived and didn’t end up in jail.”
Our conversation was briefly interrupted by our server coming over to take our orders. The young man inputted it all into a handheld device. I remembered when I was a waiter in high school and my first two years in college, we’d had to write everything down. It was crazy how things had changed and so fast.
“You mentioned that there were so many of you, how many children are in your family?” Celia sipped on the lemon water that the server delivered before taking our orders.
“Nine.”
“Nine?!” Celia and Mario chorused.
It was not an unusual reaction. Shock and questions about whether I was Mormon or Catholic usually followed. “Yep. Eight boys and a girl.”
“Wow,” Celia shook her head. “I always wanted four, but nine…I’m tired for your mother.”
I chuckled. “She’s a pretty incredible woman. And my father’s no slouch.”
“Are any of your other siblings in sports?” Mario asked.
“Nope. Just me and JJ.”
“Are you close to your family?” Mrs. Cupid’s tone was light and breezy but I could feel the intensity behind it. This was no casual question. This was an interrogation.
“Yes. Very. We have dinner together at my parents’ every Sunday. Well, whoever’s in town does. I’m going to miss it today because I’m here. I’m a little bummed because my oldest brother, Sawyer, is going to announce that he and his wife are expecting their first.”
I could see that Celia was assessing my answer. Her eyes narrowed slightly. “You sound like family is very important to you. Do you have children?”
“No.”
“Do you plan on having children?”
“I do want children, yes.”
“What are you waiting for?”
“Celia, give the boy a break.” Mr. Rojas covered Mrs. Cupid’s hand.
She moved her hand out from beneath his and pointed her finger at him. “Oh and you were so much better when we met Melina’s boyfriend.”
I knew if Vanessa were here she’d point out that I wasn’t her boyfriend, but I felt very comfortable with that characterization. It hit me then that I’d never “met the parents” before. None of my relationships, and I use that term lightly, had ever been serious enough. I was actually enjoying the third degree, probably because I had nothing to hide. I loved Vanessa and I’d meet her at the altar and make it legal today if she was ready.
Mario’s response to Celia calling him out was one I’d seen my dad have so many times I couldn’t count. He smiled as if she were the cutest thing in the world and shook his head. That was couples’ code for conceding.
Over the weekend I’d observed so many couples working on their relationships, working on intimacy, working on connecting. And I’d seen that through that work some had made breakthroughs. But to me, that look of adoration when the person you’re with is calling you on being wrong was something that couldn’t be taught.
That was love. I knew now, because it was exactly what I felt for Vanessa.
CHAPTER 26
Vanessa
Cooper Briggs is having breakfast with my mother and her new boyfriend.
I was doing my best to concentrate on my seminar but I kept losing track of what I was saying and having to look down at my notes. Seeing my mother had thrown me off, but seeing the way she responded to Coop and him offering to take her and Mario to breakfast was making me spin out completely.
Coop and I had had a fun weekend together, but we hadn’t talked about anything beyond that. Would he give her the impression that it was more than that?
Ha, what was I saying? The mere act of offering to take her and her boyfriend to breakfast was giving her the idea that it was more.
But it wasn’t. There might’ve been a few moments when I’d fantasized that we might have a future, but then he’d do something like, well, just look at me, and I’d know it was impossible. The way I felt with him was just too overwhelming. Too much. Maybe some of it would wear off over time, but I’d seen the way my mom had been addicted to even the slightest bit of my father’s attention, and now would probably be the same way with Mario.
There was no way I was going to let a man dictate my life like that. I wasn’t going to strap myself into a roller coaster and then hand the controls over to Coop.
Do you really think Coop would ever use them to hurt you? A niggling voice in the back of my head asked.
No. I didn’t. But that was even more reason to nip this thing in the bud. I’m sure if I asked my mom if she’d thought my father would ever hurt her intentionally at the beginning of their relationship, she’d say no, she hadn’t thought he would have.
I noticed a hand rise in the crowd and I blinked twice before glancing down at my notes and back at the projector that indicated it was Q&A time. This was ridiculous. I hadn’t been at all present and these people paid good money to come here today. They trusted me and I was betraying them by being so wrapped up in my own world.
Get it together, I reprimanded myself.
Determined to move forward fully in the moment I called on the woman that lifted her hand. She stood, and I could see the man beside her putting his head down.
Oh boy, this should be good.
“In your book you have a chapter on rebuilding trust. You say that it can be rebuilt, but I don’t think it can. How can you trust someone after they’ve been disloyal to you?”
A version of that question was asked at every seminar I’d ever given. I received similar emails on a daily basis. I had several stock answers that I could respond with, but for some reason I found myself going off book.
“Trust is a very personal decision. A lot of people think that trust is a feeling, but that’s not true. Hurt is a feeling. Pain is a feeling. In my opinion, trust is an action. Trust is a choice. When I say that trust can be rebuilt, it’s because some people choose to trust their partners after that partner has been disloyal in some way.
“Not everyone can do this and let me be very clear, not everyone should. No two relationships are the same. There is no blanket ‘right way’ to handle things. It’s a very individual and personal path, and no couple takes the same one or is going to the same destination.
“But I will say this, there are some universal principles and truths that apply to every relationship. To be in a healthy relationship with someone else, you need to have a healthy relationship with yourself. Sometimes, when we stay with a partner that has hurt us, we say that we forgive them but then every chance we get we throw that person’s mistake back in their face. We also torture ourselves with that person’s past actions and the what-ifs of the future. That’s not a healthy relationship, and I don’t mean the relationship with your partner, I mean the relationship with yourself.
“People that stay in relationships after they’ve been hurt that continue to be unhealthy, are often more angry at themselves than they are at their partners. Because the truth is, by staying in a toxic relationship you are betraying yourself.
“So my answer is, the choice to trust is more about trusting that you know yourself. Do you trust that you can be in a healthy relationship after it has been damaged? Do you trust that you can emotionally handle things if they don’t ultimately work out? Do you trust yourself to walk away if your partner continues to behave in destructive ways?
“People are going to hurt you. Not just in romantic relationships, but in every relationship you have. Family, friends, and co-workers are going to let you down or hurt you. You are not responsible for their actions. You’re only responsible for your own.
“So can trust be rebuilt? Only you can answer that for you, but first you have to trust yourself.”
Holy crap.
I didn’t trust myself.
Talk about an Oprah-aha-moment. I was what was holding me back from Cooper. I was what was holding me back from every relationship that even felt slightly out of my control. Of course, that wasn’t news to me. I’d been aware that was what was going on, but for some reason it never really sank in.
There were several sayings and jokes in the mental health field that the most screwed up patient you’ll ever have is yourself. If anyone took a close look at my relationships, aside from a few friendships, they’d be shocked that I was a relationship expert.
