Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
COOPER
Elliot is leaning over the counter, eating ice cream out of the container, when I waltz into the kitchen giddy. I’m fully clothed now, but when the cotton-polyester shifts against my skin, it’s Sutton’s fingertips I feel. Nails scratching into me, explorative and selfish.
Elliot’s mouth makes a popping noise when she drags the silver spoon out of it. She lets it dangle between her pointer finger and thumb.
“Nothing to say?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” she replies smugly.
“Hey, Elliot. Do you have any moisturizer? I’m out,” Sutton calls from her bathroom.
“Top drawer in my bathroom.”
“Thanks!” Sutton’s feet slap against the floor in a scurry to Elliot’s room. I’m frozen in the archway, steadied by the sound of her voice.
“You like her, don’t you?” Elliot spoons another bite of vanilla.
“Since the day I met her.” Something settles in my chest. Different from the dread that’s been there. Different than when I showed up here earlier. It’s smothered by…by…no, that’s just quietness. Peace. “Have a good night, Elliot.”
“Yeah, you too, Coop.” Her mouth moves to the side in way as if she’s calculating tonight and the years prior.
“Cooper!” Madeline, Beck’s little sister, bounces off the couch to me. “I kept asking Beck where you were.”
“I was visiting a friend, but I would have been home sooner if I knew you were going to be here.” I drop to my haunches to put us at eye level and let her lanky arms wrap around my neck.
She’s nine, but petite for her age. Arms secure, I scoop her up in a hug and spin her around in a circle. Madeline laughs, and I see it rejuvenate her brother.
There’s very little that makes him smile. I honestly don’t remember the last time I saw a smile break through his steel of a face. Not even when we won our conference last year, or when he was named conference MVP.
Madeline makes him smile, though. Not a fake one. Real. Big enough that it makes all his other facial features relax and brighten.
When I set her down, I ask, “What have you and your brother been up to?”
“He made homemade chicken nuggets. Then I painted his nails. And—” She pauses, contemplating something. “He was going to let me paint your nails while we watched a movie.”
“Is that so?” I let out a ha, flick my brows up at him over my shoulder.
Luckily, the remainder of my roommates walk through the door.
“Are you sure you have time for my appointment?” I ask, pointing at the guys over my shoulder.
“Wow. Madeline’s salon is going to be busy.” She giggles. A dangerous glint to her cobalt eyes.
One after another, we take turns getting our nails painted in various shades of the rainbow. My fingers are an alternating shade of orange and green. The colors are horrific, but her work is pretty clean for a third grader.
“You are good at this, Mads,” Dawson tells her, checking out my nails. His are sparkly red.
“I know.” Her head bobs, eyelashes fluttering like a little princess.
“Mads.” Her brother pokes his head in from the kitchen. “What do we say when someone compliments us?”
“Thank you,” she groans. Then turns in the direction of Dawson. “Thank you, Dawson.”
“Anytime, Mads.”
“You’re supposed to say you’re welcome.” In the kitchen, you can hear her brother relent a sigh. “It was career day at school this week. When it was my turn to present, I said I want to work in a salon when I grow up. Or be a singer.”
“You can be both,” I encourage. Maddie smiles, finishing my topcoat.
An hour later, the five of us are learning a dance routine to “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” from Mulan.
I love these nights.
I love these guys.
Kissing Sutton was a reset. At least that’s what I keep telling myself. Coming home, participating in this isn’t a struggle, but it was before. Finding the energy. Finding a reason to laugh.
“No.” Madeline grabs Dawson’s hand, dragging him to the front of the group. “You are supposed to do it like this.” She demonstrates a dance move that feels more advanced than what a third grader should be doing. Maybe she should add dancer to her career list.
Beck is next to me, hands on his hips, uncoordinatedly gyrating. I bark out a laugh.
“Watch it, Carmichael. You’re not much better.”
“Watch this.” I circle my hips, take a crack at a move I saw on Jaxon’s social media.
Jaxon is the best dancer out of all of us.
He doesn’t know that we’ve seen his secret social media account where he dances and lip-syncs to trending songs.
Shirtless, in the campus parking garage, when the rink is empty.
He has thousands of followers and the comments on his posts are probably why his ego is always inflated.
“No wonder you haven’t won Sutton over yet,” Beck jokes.
“All that matters are my moves in bed,” I tease, but change the subject. “Have you thought about putting her into dance classes?”
“Yeah, but Mads wants to try soccer next.”
We were finally dismissed from dance class when Madeline yawned. It was already past her bedtime. Beck carried her up the stairs to his room—she sleeps over enough that he has a trundle bed for her.
Dawson and Chase are in the kitchen making a second dinner. Jax flops onto the couch next to me. “Where did you go after the game?” he implores.
I shake my head, declining the beer he hands me.
“Nowhere.”
“I tracked your location. You were at Elliot and Sutton’s.”
“Then why’d you ask?”
He’s a sad puppy, has been since he got home. I could see through the mask he slipped on when he walked through the door and noticed Madeline. “Wanted to see if you’d tell me the truth. I don’t get what’s going on, Cooper. Why won’t you tell me why you went there?”
“Oh, it was nothing, Mom had sent me something I was supposed to give them,” I lie.
“What was it?” His tone is stern, inquisitive.
“What is this? Twenty questions?”
“No, because you won’t even answer more than five questions, and when you do, I know you’re lying.”
“Fine, but promise me this stays between us.”
Jaxon raises his pinky to me. I loop mine with his and then I tell him everything.