He paused when he saw my sad, pathetic body on the couch. “I brought pizza and booze.” He lifted a six pack of craft beer and a brown pizza box.

We turned on the Avalanche game and gorged ourselves on greasy pizza and beer.

“So, you broke up with Olive then,” he said without looking up at me.

“How did you know?”

Coop shrugged and tilted his head. “Word travels fast at the lodge.”

I lowered my eyebrows in confusion. “Alea told you?”

He shamelessly nodded. “Maybe.”

Of course she did. “It’s not really a break up if you never actually dated in the first place.”

Coop set down his beer and looked me straight in the eyes. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

He pointed at me. “Make it seem like it was nothing. It’s not like you guys just slept around.”

No, but maybe we should’ve. It would’ve been easier than this. This was why I was the fun guy, the guy you had one wild night with and told your friends about the next morning. I wasn’t the relationship guy or the one you did long distance with. And I should’ve made that clear to Olive from day one. Instead, I stuck my nose where it didn’t belong and broke both of our hearts.

“It’s not like we were serious. We just met,” I said bitterly.

Coop sighed. “You know, just ‘cause you guys just met doesn’t mean it wasn’t serious.”

I leaned back and studied him. “You sure are a love expert for someone with no girlfriend.”

Cooper was the most single guy I knew; he was the definition of a bachelor. Since the day I met him, I watched as he left a long trail of broken hearts behind him.

“I don’t have a girlfriend because I don’t want one. And one day if I ever do, she is gonna be so damn lucky. I’d be the perfect boyfriend. But it would be a crime against the world for me to settle down. And I can’t give all of this away just yet.” He leaned back into my couch with his arms crossed behind his head.

“Well, either way, Olive and I are done. She is more complicated than I thought, and I don’t want to do long distance. She’s better off just going back to Florida.”

Coop scoffed and took a sip of his beer.

“What?” I asked.

“I just didn’t take you for a quitter.”

I shot up from my seat. “I am not a quitter.”

He shrugged. “Okayyy, but you seem awfully lazy for letting a girl you love go just ‘cause she’s complicated.”

“I am not lazy, I’m smart. I’m making the right decision by letting her go back. She’ll realize it when she gets back home.”

Without moving his eyes off the game, he said, “Whatever you say, man.”