CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE Cooper
“He’s acting weird.”
“You’ve mentioned that ten times already, Cooper,” Hastings stated before leaning forward and placing the straw in his mouth. After a sip of Coke, he added. “So, why dontcha narrow it down for me?”
Michael Hastings was hot. He’d been the new kid last year and every girl wanted him the very day he’d arrived in math class. I was preoccupied with being lovesick over my best friend Mike Hill, so I hadn’t noticed at first.
“I can’t,” I began. “I know Mikey so well that I can see when he’s got something on his mind, but this was different. He looked lost,” I added. “Like he was new to earth or something.”
“New to earth?” he asked, looking at me confused or bored. Maybe both. “Like an alien?”
I waved a dismissive hand at him and turned to the parking lot in time to see Mikey’s girlfriend, Jennifer James, getting out of her BMW convertible.
Megan Wright, cheerleader, co-diva, and second hottest girl in school followed from the passenger side.
The sight of them turned my stomach. I’d never met a pair so in love with themselves.
“I’ll ask Jennifer,” I said, gesturing outside and waiting for the gruesome twosome to walk into the McDonalds we were in. “She keeps him on a short leash. She’ll know.”
We stared as they sashayed through the fast-food joint, most eyes following them.
“Boys,” Jennifer cooed. “Another date? Megs and I are soooo jelly of you two.”
Jennifer looked ridiculously hot as usual. Her toned midriff was visible above a skirt so short I thought I could see her pubes. Hastings took a second look, making me wonder if he was actually as gay as he said he was.
“We’re friends, Jen,” Hastings corrected, sending an alert to my brain. Like I said, Hastings was masculine in that traditional square jawed sorta way but I wondered if he played both sides of the field. “Buddies. Right, Coop?” he added.
Jennifer feigned shock and covered her perfectly painted mouth. “Nobody is allowed to call him Coop,” Jen pointed out. “That’s reserved for Mike Hill.”
I was surprised Jennifer knew my feelings about my nickname. However, she was correct.
Hastings was nonplussed. “Even if I was Coop’s boyfriend?” he dared.
Jennifer looked from him to me, in search of a headline news story for her cheer gossip fest. “Is this true, Cooper?” she asked.
“Yeah, Cooper,” Megan chimed in, right on cue as Jen’s parrot. “Are you boys officially an item now?”
“We are not,” I stated. And truthfully, I was as confused as they were.
Hastings came out after every girl in school chased him for two weeks. We were all attracted to his dark and brooding good looks. High cheekbones, a square jaw, full lips, and a nose almost too big. His jet black hair hung in waves and crowned his olive-skinned face.
“We are not, yet,” he corrected possessively, giving me a look that once again made me feel a tad weak-kneed.
But I knew I was in love with Mikey. I also knew Mikey didn’t have the same feelings for me.
I knew he loved me, just not in the way I wished; so here I was, finally giving other possibilities a shot.
“I think the two of you are so hot together,” Megan announced, tugging at her miniskirt and flipping her hair back simultaneously, not an easy thing to do while trying to maintain a teasing pose in six-inch wedges. “Right, Jennifer?”
“Well at least it keeps Cooper from wanting my man,” she stated. “That Michael is off the market. No offense, Michael,” she added, looking at Hastings.
“Why don’t we quit with all the Michael references,” I said.
“You have Hill and I have no one,” I added, glancing at Hastings and reminding him that two can play his game.
I didn’t want to play games but I also hated not having a guy of my own.
If Mikey only felt the kind of love reserved for a best friend, I could accept that.
Besides, Mikey and I were closer than any of these teenage fantasies.
“Just one more,” Jennifer stated. “Have you seen my Michael today? Or better yet, last night?”
“I saw him earlier,” I said, leaving out that he was acting weird.
“Cooper said he was acting strange,” Hastings said, making my eyes widen. “Like from outer space or something.”
“I didn’t say outer space,” I argued. “Just a bit off.”
Jennifer slid next to me in the booth. Mimic Megan did the same and slid in next to Michael, her wide eyes telling me she was anticipating for Jennifer to make an all-important statement or perhaps drop a juicy piece of gossip.
“He didn’t text me after he got off from work,” Jen began. “I texted him like forty times until two in the morning.”
“Sounds like he’s sneaking around,” Hastings added.
“Mikey doesn’t sneak around,” I defended. “Not his style.”
“Then where was he?” Megan pitched in. “Sounds super sketch in my opinion.” She interpreted the pause in conversation as her invitation to add more BS to the chat.
“Missy Lyles’ boyfriend did the same thing last month.
Several disappearing acts and stuff like that. He was cheating with Symmie Johanson.”
The comment woke Jennifer up from her musings.
“You think?” she asked, pursing her lips.
“That would be totally fatal to our relationship,” she announced, regaining her confidence.
“Michael would never be forgiven,” she added, making sure to maintain her poise at the first sign of any news that could affect her status as queen.
“Mikey doesn’t cheat,” I reminded anyone listening. “Not even a possibility.”
“You seem so sure, Cooper,” Hastings added, gazing at me as he tested my allegiance to Mikey.
“Well, he wouldn’t,” I stated.
“Accept maybe with you?” Jennifer asked half joking or maybe not joking at all. “You seem to know everything about my boyfriend, Cooper.”
“I know he wouldn’t cheat on you, Jennifer. Period. With no one,” I said. “And you should know that too,” I added, glaring at her and daring her to add another shitty comment like the one she’d just dropped in front of our friends.
People had been suggesting that Mikey and I had something going on since we were sixth graders.
The noise only got louder after we started high school and our close friendship was so obvious.
Mikey never entertained the gossip and I followed his lead.
We were each other’s world and he didn’t give a rat’s ass if anyone didn’t like it.
I loved that about him. That, and so many other things.
“Then where was he?” she asked, looking directly into my eyes like she had the ability to catch me in a lie.
“He doesn’t fucking cheat, Jen, and I don’t know,” I said firmly.
The other two sets of eyes watched us closely. The girlfriend and the best friend. Who held the most power?
I often wondered if Jennifer resented me. I held no ill will toward her even though I wished the roles were reversed; even if that meant I was the girl. Of course I was jealous of her. She was everything to Mikey that I couldn’t be.
“I believe you,” she finally admitted. “I’m not happy, but I believe you, Cooper. Now when are the four of us going on a double date?” She gestured between me and Hastings with her lacquered nails waving in the air.
“What about Greg and me?” Megan cried.
We all turned to Megan but it was Jennifer that went for the jugular. “That isn’t going to last, Megan.”
I watched as Megan withered like a spring plant in a severe drought. I wondered where Mikey had been. He hadn’t been home by the time I finally fell asleep around two or three in the morning while waiting for our goodnight wave. Where had he been?