Chapter Text
Lavender Haze
Cooper
I’m sitting in my car plotting my escape route back inside. There are media trucks damn near swarming the entrance to Kris’s building and I have to assume they saw my car pull into the parking space outside.
I always liked my Jeep but now I’m cursing myself for getting a car that’s so fucking recognizable. I should have gotten something like Luis’s beat up Honda. There’s a million and one cars on the road like that.
I squint across to the entrance, bringing up a hand to shield my eyes from the flashing cameras that are beginning to turn my way.
Damn it. Caught.
If I’ve learnt anything over the past few months it’s that the only way out is through at this point. Even if it means another encounter with Liz from Channel Seven news who has taken entirely too much of a liking to me for my own comfort.
I try to school my expression into something that looks a little less like a scowl. I may not be a murder suspect anymore, but I also don’t think that MLB teams are looking for players that can’t play nice with media. Besides, absolute neutrality is the best way to prevent my face becoming another Twitter trend. Last week someone made a meme of Nate flipping off some photographers and Addy has not stopped spamming the group chat with edited versions of it. I am not looking to meet the same fate.
I don’t say anything to the cameras, ignoring their questions with a polite, detached smile as I make my way through the thick of people to the door. A girl I vaguely recognize as one of Kris’s neighbors gives me a dirty look as she pushes past to exit the building at the same time. I can’t blame her, really. It’s not every day your apartment building becomes a meeting ground for journalists salivating over a story. I allow myself a wry smile after she’s out of sight, though. If she thinks this is bad, she should see Nate and Addy’s houses. Now that’s a media circus.
I finally push past the throes of people to the inside of the building, slamming the door definitively shut behind me. The reporters won’t follow me in, the landlord has already had several, increasingly angry conversations with them about that. I swipe my card to gain access to the elevators, riding it straight to the top as I crash against the side of the wall. I hang my head low, catching a glimpse of my own glittering eyes shattered in the crossing reflections of the elevator mirrors. I suck a deep breath in, hold, then release, just like that YouTube video I watched instructed. It loosens the knot in my chest only a little, just enough to get moving again when the door opens.
This media cycle is so exhausting. It dies down occasionally but it rarely stops; especially in Bayview where, let’s face it, there’s not much else to talk about.
It seems like every time there’s a lull in coverage, something new stirs it all up to a frenzy, reaching fever pitches it never did before.
Simon’s death was the biggest news until it was Addy cheating, until that became our secrets, until I was outed, until Nate went to jail, until Kris figured everything out, until now with Jake’s trial. I didn’t even know there were this many news channels in our area. Let alone the “crime reporters” of Spotify and YouTube, who take themselves very seriously, and also tend to peddle wild conspiracy theories. Kris had to call the police on one the other day who got in somehow and spray painted “LIAR” across his door. That charming dude had hour-long videos dedicated to breaking down every reason Kris was wrong about Jake’s involvement.
Sometimes I wish Eli had never given him the credit for solving everything. As much as he deserves it, it brought a whole new level of vitriol to his world. It feels like the entire world is invested in our relationship in some way. Like everyone has an opinion, that they feel the right to broadcast. I just want them out. I want to stand up on some platform and scream out that they don’t know us. They don’t see us on our own, don’t see the way we fit, how we work. They don’t understand.
Of course that would be bordering on a psychotic public statement to make so I don’t, I can’t.
But I think about it all the time.
I get to Kris’s door with some baffling mixture of exhaustion and anger. It all melts away when I see his face. He doesn’t let me in at first, cradling my face in his hands and pulling me in for a kiss.
His kisses are life-altering, sometimes. I can feel my perspective shift, priorities clicking back into place with the trajectory.
“Hi,” he whispers, pulling me in again for another soft brush of lips.
I melt against him. “Hi.”
I almost forget everything when he lets me inside. He’s wearing one of his dark tops, the one that’s a tiny bit too small and hugs his biceps like cling wrap. It’s enough of a distraction for anyone, until my phone beeps with an alert.
It’s a news article, one of those DailyMail pieces that seems obsessed with tracking every tiny movement of my life, titled “Ex-Suspect Cooper Clay visits his Case-Cracking Boyfriend amid Jake Riordan's Trial”. I almost scream as I throw my phone as hard as I can at Kris’s couch.
He gives me an unimpressed look. “What did your phone ever do to you?” He asks lightly as he crosses the room to examine it. It doesn’t look cracked, though that’s the least of my worries right now.
I move to the window to see some photographers still milling around outside, and gesticulate to it with wild movements that make Kris push his lips together to stop himself from laughing. “Look at this!” I bemoan. “This is insane! How is visiting my boyfriend news? I mean, what else would I do with my time!”
Kris puts my phone down on the coffee table, understanding softens his features as he moves toward me.
“Every tiny thing I do is under a microscope, and everything you do is under one too!” I can feel the wave of anger morphing into something closer to frustrated tears and I swallow frantically to rid them. “I just want to stay here, with you. I just want it to be easy. Don’t you think we deserve easy?”
Kris’s hands find my shoulders as he guides my eyes away from his window. “Of course we do,” he says gently.
“Have you heard some of the things people have been saying about you?” My voice catches as my mind spirals over all the horrific tweets I’ve seen. My own social media is on a hard lockdown, but it doesn’t stop other people from using theirs to spread their messaging. “What they’re saying about us?”
Kris shrugs, moving a stray piece of hair off my forehead. “I don’t listen, you know that.”
My eyes snap up from the floor to meet his. He’s steady, unbothered. It seems to good to be true. “Don’t you think it would be easier if…” I swallow hard. “If you weren’t with me.”
My heart is thudding in my chest, ice cold panic in my veins as Kris frowns, considering.
Then he bursts into uncontrollable laughter.
“Why are you laughing at me right now?” My voice comes out incredibly indignant and it only makes him laugh more, wiping the tears that escaped from my cheek.
“I’m sorry, I’m not meaning to, it’s just.” He cradles my face, smiling softly. “Oh, baby, this is ridiculous. Okay? In no world would I ever want to date anyone else.”
“But wouldn’t it be easier—“
“Shut up,” Kris murmurs, a small smile breaking across his face as he lifts his hands up to cradle my cheek. He presses into me until my back is flush with the window. I dig my hands into his hair and kiss him back furiously until we break for breath.
“I just think—“
“Cooper.” He brushes his nose against mine. “You just proved you aren’t very good at that.”
My offended noise gets lost in his next kiss. I lean against the window and let him take control until a thought occurs to me.
“Do you think they can see us?” I ask, referring to the photographers below.
“Do you care?” Kris responds evasively.
I blink owlishly at him for a moment. Then, twin smiles spread across our faces. “No.” I pull him back against me. “I don’t. But this is ours, no one else gets to be here.”
Kris grins at me like I’ve solved a puzzle I didn’t even know I was working on. He tugs me close to him just long enough to send his blinds fluttering to the ground, cutting us off from world view.
“This is ours,” he says like a promise.
I wind my hand back into his hair, and he grins against my throat. I press my smile into his shoulder, content to just stay here, surrounded in the bubble of our own world; just us and our love.