Sessions Chapter 46

South Beach - West Harbor Place



Blade was late. The date had been casually arranged, whenever he finished at the studio, but whenever had a limit and he'd passed it by half an hour. Elise wandered from store to store and restlessly picked up and discarded sweaters, dolls, cheese graters, an 'as seen on tv' thing that steamed the wrinkles out of your clothes, a purple bed-in-a-bag, finally stopping to examine a tray of silver rings. She had done her Christmas shopping. She shouldn't be looking at rings and thinking about how they'd look on Cooper.

She shouldn't be doing a lot of things. She shouldn't be hunkering down with her laptop at 2 a.m. googling Cooper to find out what he was doing and who he was seeing. She shouldn't be waiting for another man who was late.

Sessions Chapter 44

South Beach - The Harbor

 

Blade drew breath and listened to the voice on the other end. It was late morning, the ocean was calm and the skies were clear although in South Beach you never knew when a rain shower would breeze through. He stood on the deck, shirtless, wishing he’d had another cup of coffee before calling her.

Sessions Chapter 43

South Beach - The Peninsula



Elise opened the front door and welcomed the embrace Cooper offered. He held on tight breathing deeply, trying not to let the anguish he felt bleed through his arms. He was going to hurt her, he knew it, and there was nothing he could do to prevent it. That moment had come and gone the morning he came home and kept his mouth shut while she held out her pain and guilt in open hands.

Reluctantly, Cooper released his hold running his hands along her arms. "Where are the kids?"

Sessions Chapter 40

South Beach - The Harbor

 

Blade threw another bag of trash out the back, missing the pool by inches: a good thing since he hadn't found anything resembling a pool skimmer. Slamming through the door back into what passed for a living room, he glanced around it again. Nothing much more he could do to make it presentable.

Sessions Chapter 38

Here we stand
Somewhere in between this moment and the end
Will we bend?
Or will we open up and take this whole thing in?

South Beach - The Peninsula







Cooper awakened disoriented and exhausted. Dealing with Nate's arrogance, Eric's quiet defiance the previous night he'd struggled not to lose his failing patience. Hugs' wide eyed trepidation at the chaos along with the raging storm had prevented him from sleeping and it hadn't helped that the opposite side of the bed had been empty, a situation he intended to rectify soon. Enforcing his parental authority that morning, and that had been a lot harder than he expected, insisting the twins come directly home from school and scrambling to find Ericca to watch Hugs, Cooper headed downtown to meet with Elise.

Sessions Chapter 37

The Crossing



"Recalculating..."

Blade punched off the GPS and sat in his car and looked at the restaurant. It wasn't what he expected. Iron Gate, he'd thought that might be something private, some private club he'd have to crash, but it was just an Italian place on the bay with some kind of gate in the middle. She was here, that was the same car he'd shoved out of the mud, and he didn't see any other cars. Cooper wasn't here.

Sessions Chapter 36

South Beach - Coast Road



The first kick landed squarely on the door. The second didn't.  Elise shouted at the car as if it were to blame for sliding down the hill next to the bay.  She'd hydroplaned, run off the pavement and dug herself even deeper trying to get back on the road. And she'd dropped her cell. It was lying somewhere down there in the rocks and the heavy surf, and if she didn't rein in her temper, she'd be down there with it.

She'd known about the storm.  Storms weren't unusual this time of year.  She should have stayed home.  No, she should have driven a different way.  Or slower. Or something other than what she'd done. 

Sessions Chapter 33

"He's outside." Melinda shut the door and looked at her warily. It had been a long drive from South Beach, raining all the way, and Elise had that dinner date tonight looming. She hadn't slept. She was nervous. She was irritable. She was scared. She was going somewhere she should not go to open something she should keep closed. And the door was open and it was too late to run away.

Sessions Chapter 32

Oceanside - Palms Hotel: 2 PM



Kicking sheets aside, Cooper struggled up out of that old dream, sucking for air through suffocating dream smoke, fighting for breath, fighting past the fire it caught him burned pain god he was burning.... there was no smoke. He could breathe. The room was cool. A hotel. His thoughts blurred, where the hell was he, on tour, in a room he couldn't for the moment recognize. He'd dreamed it, it was another nightmare, he didn't go there in his dreams, hadn't gone there in years, she kept him from going there, she stood in the way.

Sessions Chapter 31

South Beach - The Peninsula



Cooper left his bike at the curb, stumbled as he stepped away from it, his vision still blurred, the headache a relentless web of pain. He put his hands to his temples and tried to work through this. He could fix it. Make apologies for the misunderstanding, put it back together. No reason she ever had to know about Gemma. 

Sessions Chapter 29

The Crossing



"Stay down," Ryan ordered, watching Stanfield walk off, not one damned look back. He kept his hand on Elise's shoulder, slid it up through her hair, taking a deep fistful of her hair and clenching his hand around it. She was shaking. She landed a good one across his back, something he was going to feel tomorrow, something he was already feeling, but she'd fallen hard, and hearing that asshole rip into her, he knew it had taken whatever breath she had.

Mel knelt down, quietly questioning her, something Elise didn't appear to understand or hear. "I'm all right," she said it in a strange thin voice, and shifted, trying to get to her feet. "I have to go. I have to explain."

Sessions 22

The Crossing - Wildcat Stadium - Benefit for Performing Arts

Pacing between the stacks of equipment, Cooper watched Storm Warning as they moved into the last set. If they hadn't booked the benefit concert months ago and featured Storm Warning as the opening act Cooper would have found another band. The energy in their music was gone; they were doing nothing more than phoning it in and even that sucked. "Everything all right Coop?" Slim had walked up quietly behind him.

Sessions 15

Ocean View

Everybody expects me to break
but I'll never break down again
Everybody expects me to give up
but you'll never see me giving in
Everybody wants me to lose
but I'll never lose who I am

-Sacrifice-Theory of a Deadman