Audrey and Cooper's First Kiss?

In season two, episode eight (#2.008, Drive With a Dead Girl), Audrey Horne visits Agent Cooper's room at night. It is the first opportunity the pair have had to speak in private and at length after Audrey's ordeal at One-Eyed Jack's. 

There is a lingering weakness visible in Audrey during their exchange. She is changed, now melancholic and serious. There is also a new sense of intimacy. Cooper opens the door with his shirt open; she mentions his bullet wound, seeing his bandage, his bare skin. He covers himself, but the feeling remains. There is something different between them. The script has Cooper remain shirtless throughout most of the scene, clothing himself only after he has answered the phone. Audrey is described as wanting to reach out and touch his wound. Before Audrey's arrival, a gust of wind wildly blows the curtains, as if a precursor; an elemental manifestation of their emotions.

She asks Agent Cooper if what she said about her father led to his arrest. Cooper, trying to be kind, replies, "Only in part."

Audrey then tells him she only ever wanted her father to love her. Cooper tries to comfort her, assuring her it must be true. Ben must love her. She says she believes he's ashamed of her. Audrey then crawls into Cooper's bed, telling him she never allowed anyone to be with her at One-Eyed Jack's. "I know," Cooper assures her, stopping her before she can continue. The phone rings, and, after receiving the news that another body has been found, Cooper instructs Audrey to stay in her room as he makes to leave.

Paying attention to Audrey's facial movements, her body language, and the general feeling of the scene, has made me wonder if she may have intended to kiss him, or actually did kiss him, and it was later edited out. The sound of the phone ringing may have been added later, creating an excuse to cut from Audrey and Cooper to a shot of the phone, shortening what may have originally been an extended moment between them before the phone rang.

I paused the scene frame-by-frame to better study Audrey. After the pair speak, she leans toward him, raising a little as if to meet him. She licks her lips. Her mouth opens before the scene abruptly changes to that of Cooper's bedside table, his ringing phone.

 

 

The script describes her as wanting to reach out and touch him, which may be all that was removed, but something seems to have been removed, nonetheless.

The first still is the frame before the cut to the phone. The last still is the first frame after the cut to the phone. When the camera returns to the two, Audrey has moved back slightly. Her lips are parted, though she has not spoken. 

The scene in the script:

 

In season one, episode three (Rest in Pain, #1.003), Cooper, after studying Audrey's handwriting, says the following, "The right-ward slant in your handwriting indicates a romantic nature, Audrey. A heart that yearns. Be careful." Viewing Audrey as a romantic, which she certainly seems to be, I don't believe she would want the first kiss with her first love to be stolen and as fleeting as it is. The only on-screen kiss Audrey and Cooper have is impulsive.

The kiss between Cooper and Audrey as seen in episode nineteen (The Black Widow, # 2.012) seems to have been performed for Denise's benefit, as proof of Audrey's feelings for Cooper, her design on him. It almost seems an act made on already established understanding. Before actually studying the scene, I was left with the impression that Cooper did not react to Audrey's kiss or at least reacted coldly. In my mind's eye, I saw his arms stiffly held to his sides. That, however, is not the case. We cannot see his or Audrey's face, but Cooper's hands do move to embrace her.

 

 

Is Cooper's reaction possibly indicative of a past we were not allowed to see, an embrace already shared?