Chapter 23
AMARA
The freezing air hits our faces as the wind blows, and I turn, letting it warm up in the heat of the fire.
“Take another drink, it’ll warm you up,” Natalia says, handing me another red cup of mystery liquid.
“I feel like my mom told me this is how you get frostbite and die,” I mumble, taking it.
Natalia rolls her eyes. “We’re wearing coats, mittens, scarves, and hats. We’ll be fine.”
I down the drink in one sip, watching everyone.
When Sam invited me to this party, I wasn’t sure what we were getting into or why we weren’t sitting inside, in the comfortable heat of her home. Instead, we’re all huddled around her parents’ fire pit in the backyard, drinking watered-down alcohol.
I haven’t really been drunk before, but the warmth it brings to my stomach is welcome.
“Oh god, do you see that?” Natalia whispers.
I watch from across the fire as Sam leans into Cooper, her fingers playing with the collar of his coat.
She looks at me from the corner of her eye, a sly smile gracing her lips.
“What the hell?” I whisper.
Although I haven’t come out and said, point-blank, that I have feelings for Cooper, it’s not exactly a secret. Especially within our little friend group. In fact, Natalia has been pushing us together forever, and everyone knows it.
A white hot, jealous burning starts in the pit of my stomach, and the more I watch them, the more Sam does to piss me off.
“What did I do to her?” I mutter.
Natalia takes a bite of a carrot from the random vegetable platter thrown haphazardly on the table next to us. “No idea. Maybe you pissed her off when you told her to stop cheating on all her boyfriends.”
I look from my best friend to her brother. “And now she’s flirting with your brother. Are you going to do something?”
A look of sheer confusion replaces the smirk she had. “Why would I do that?”
I shrug incredulously. “You’re fine with her dating your brother and cheating on him?”
Sam and I have been friends for a long time. Almost as long as Natalia and I. But while she’s an okay friend—or so I thought—she’s what my mom called boy-centered.
“Some women have been taught their whole lives that validation from men comes before anything else,” she had told me.
“It’s not necessarily someone’s fault that they were taught that, but at some point it’s their responsibility to grow from it and realize that it won’t actually get them anywhere in life. ”
Natalia shrugs it off. “I’m not worried about it at all. He’s not going to go for it.”
I pout. “How do you know?”
A short snicker escapes her. “He’s my brother. I know him. He does not have eyes for that girl, I can promise you.”
I spent another half hour watching Sam flirt with Coop, and Coop act completely oblivious.
And when she tries to sit on his lap, I make an excuse to go home.
I’m being unreasonable. I know that. But it’s one thing to suck it up. It’s another to stay in an uncomfortable situation longer than you have to for the sake of what? Making yourself even more miserable?
I’m halfway down the driveway when he catches up to me.
“What are you doing?” Cooper asks, grabbing my arm.
“Going home.”
I don’t turn to him.
“Why?”
“Just not feeling great,” I lie.
Cooper scratches the back of his neck. “I was thinking we could go to the beach.”
Snow has started falling again, and while the skies are gray, the sun will be going down soon.
“Why? It’s so cold.”
“It’s so snowy,” he says, and when he looks up at the sky, his face lights up in the most dazzling smile.
“Sure,” I agree quickly.
It’s a quiet walk, with only the light crunching of snow and ice under our feet; the sound of the waves feels like it fills my skull.
I let Cooper take the lead, walking along the wooden path until we were on the main beach. My foot slips on the slick layer of snow covering it.
The setting sun casts an eerie, bright, golden glow behind the thick gray clouds, lighting up the snow on the sand just slightly. The waves continue to crash. It’s a weird feeling, being out here with no one else.
“How often do you come out here during the winter?” I ask Cooper.
He sits in the snow, looking up at me. “I love it here. It’s so different than in the summers. And the ocean feels, more. I don’t know how to describe it.” He smiles as he looks out into the waves, and I take a seat next to him.
“It really is beautiful, I agree.
“I’d stay here forever if I could,” he admits. “So, what had you walking out?”
I don’t want to answer that.
“It was nothing,” I tell him, pulling my legs up to my torso and wrapping my arms around them.
“You’re such a liar,” he smiles. “I could tell you were upset.”
I roll my eyes. Cooper has always been able to read me like a book. “It was nothing.”
Cooper lies down, the snow crunching underneath him. “You’re kinda cute when you’re jealous,” he says with a smile.
“And you’re kinda ugly when you’re a dick.”
I lay down next to him, closing my eyes as little snowflakes hit my freezing face.
Cooper suddenly spreads his arms and legs, kicking me. “I don’t think I’ve ever made a snow angel,” he says suddenly. “I feel like that should be a bucket list item, don’t you? Making snow angels on the beach.”
I look at him suspiciously. “That’s what you’re putting on your bucket list?”
“Why not enjoy the little things? Not all of us are going to grow up to be rich and famous, Amara,” he grins, pushing me to the side.
I laugh, the sound eerie along the silent beach. There’s something, I don’t know. Beautiful? Scary? About such a quiet beach, but at the same time, the waves sound so much more intense as they lap at the shore.
“What am I going to be famous for?”
“I don’t know. Inventing something. Being you. We all know that you’ve got what it takes. Me? I don’t see myself leaving this place.”
The snort leaves me before I can stop it. “I think it’s the opposite.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
The silence wraps us in a cocoon, and a moment later, Cooper starts to make his snow angel.
I scoot up so that I don’t hit him, and start making my own, my thigh hitting his arms as we go.
Suddenly, Cooper is in a fit of laughter, and there’s nothing I can do other than follow him.
“What are we laughing about?” I ask between giggles.
“Anything!” he sings. “Why not. We’re alive here.”
He sits up, rolling to his knees. I prop myself up, blowing the hair out of my face.
“Are you okay?” he asks, his green eyes burning into mine.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“It looked like you were drinking a lot.”
“Your sister was just handing me drinks the whole afternoon. But I mean, it was mostly water.”
“Still had alcohol in it.”
“I’m okay,” I assure him, starting to get curious about why he was asking.
“You just seemed really jealous back there,” he teases, his face transforming again with a giant smile.
“I was not!” I yell, throwing snow at him.
“Cooper crawls closer to me, and my breath stops.
I think my heart does too.
He comes to a stop right in front of me, his lips only inches from mine. “What if I liked a little bit of jealousy?” he asks, his warm breath on my cheek.
“I think that makes you a bit of a loser,” I whisper, my eyes flickering down, willing him to kiss me.
His tongue darts out to lick his lips, his eyes never leaving mine. “What if I told you all I want to do is kiss you, Amara?”
“Then I’d tell you to do it already.”
His lips feel like a warm pillow; the kiss is more of a shock to my system than any fire on a snowy day.
Happiness runs through me like a rip current, pulling me under in seconds and out to sea, and all of a sudden, I’m drowning in Cooper Henry. Utterly gone for a boy I’ve spent most of my life loving.
He rolls over, grabbing the side of my face to angle me into a deeper kiss, his tongue trailing a hot trail over my lips.
I let him in.
For what felt like hours, all we did was kiss. In our own little bubble, in our own little piece of happiness. At least for now, on this snowy beach, there’s no one else but us.
And when I get home that night, my back against my bedroom door as I place my fingers where his lips kissed mine, I can’t help but dance in the glow of my alarm clock, happiness flowing from every inch of me.