The Shippers

Chapter Nine

Nine

AT THE BACK of the line, where I intended to stay, I couldn’t stop staring at Cooper.

“What the hell did you do to yourself?” I asked, peering at him. “Last time I saw you, you were feral. And now you’re some kind of English lord?”

Cooper smiled and looked down.

My tone was pure outrage. “And not some old, fat, snaggletoothed English lord, either! A hot English lord!”

Now Cooper gave me a look like I was irresistibly absurd. “My apologies.”

“What’s with the pectoral muscles?” I asked, poking one with my finger. “You can see them through the vest.”

“Hey,” Cooper said, covering his chest protectively.

“And who told you to roll your shirtsleeves back like this?”

“Is that a rhetorical question?”

We both looked down. You could see everything below the elbow. Specifically, Cooper’s muscled, smooth, tauntingly naked forearms.

I almost lost my train of thought.

Those forearms were going to be a problem.

I pushed on: “And what’s with this outfit? Is that tweed?”

“It’s gabardine.”

“It looks like tweed.”

“I just flew in from London,” Cooper said, like that was an excuse.

“Well, London wants its tweed back.”

“What is your problem?”

“Look around you! This is hardly cruise wear. You’re wearing wool to the Bahamas?”

“You’re just mad because I look good.”

“Tweed vests are my kryptonite. Did you know that?”

Cooper met my eyes. “Yes.”

“Take it off,” I said.

“No.”

“You can’t just prance around here in that thing.”

Cooper looked me up and down. “If anyone’s prancing, it’s you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means don’t give me shit for looking good when you look like that.”

“I look the same as always,” I declared.

But Cooper made a face like Oh, really? and then dropped his eyes, quite deliberately, to my cantilevered chest.

In defiance, I pushed it out further.

“And don’t get me started on that miniskirt,” Cooper added.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s like they ran out of fabric and had to use a dinner napkin.”

“It’s not even a miniskirt,” I said, resting my case on semantics. “It’s shorts disguised as a miniskirt.”

Cooper tapped his chest and then nodded at my skirt. “I’ll take off this when you take off that.”

I gasped. How dare he? But I doubled down. “Men in vests is my thing.”

“Well, I’m a man. In a vest. So I guess it’s my thing, too.”

“You’re not a man,” I said, still trying to win. “You’re Cooper.”

“Sorry to shock you, but I am both.”

It did shock me, in a weird way. Cooper had never been a man before. Who even was he now? I shifted back to my original point. “This outfit is tonally inappropriate. Do you see any other members of the Downton Abbey cast in this line?”

“Stop complaining.”

“I haven’t even started, pal.”

But Cooper didn’t accept the legitimacy of my anger. He shrugged. “It’s not illegal to wear a vest,” he said. Then he added, “Or get a haircut.” He looked me over. “You got a haircut, too.”

“Yeah. I did. Before you messed it up.”

“Anyway,” Cooper said. “You were so traumatized by my beard last time—”

“Your pigeon nest,” I corrected.

“I thought I’d come back looking better.”

“Yeah, but now you look too good.”

He did look too good. I wondered what the math must be on that. Was it symmetry theory? The golden ratio? The exponential benefits of basic grooming?

There was no mathematical formula I could see that explained why Cooper’s glow-up had made him so extra handsome. He would have to remain, on this point and many others, an unsolved mystery.

“You sure are hard to please,” he said.

“I can’t relax around”—I gestured with my hands at his general vibes—“all this.” Then I squinted at him. “Didn’t you bring any T-shirts that say ‘Let’s Get Ship-Faced’?”

“I saw those guys ogling you, by the way.”

“Yeah, well. At least they didn’t mess up my hair.”

Why were we fighting, exactly? Seeing Cooper again at my failed wedding had been strangely lovely—despite the fact that we were, technically, estranged at the time.

And despite my life collapsing all around me as it happened.

We’d gotten along so easily—just like always. He’d been a refuge in the storm.

But today, I felt irritated with him. For not turning out to be Finn. For showing up even better looking than last time. For claiming his right to wear a vest. And maybe, deep down, for being the reason that I’d be the maid of honor at my sister’s wedding this week instead of the matron.

“Are you mad at me?” Cooper asked then.

“I’m not mad. I’m just wondering why you’re even here.”

Cooper shrugged.

“You RSVPed no to this wedding,” I reminded him, “just like you did to mine. Though a bit more politely on Ashley’s card.”

“I changed my mind.”

“Why?”

He squinted, watching to see if his words rang true. “Because I thought you might need me.”

“What?” I demanded. “Why?”

Cooper tilted his head. “You’ve had a rough few weeks.”

“Are you pitying me?”

“I’m definitely not—”

“Because I’m fine. I’m great.”

“Okay,” Cooper said, the way you acquiesce to a crazy person.

“I’m better than great, in fact. I’ve got a plan to fix my whole personality.”

“Wow,” Cooper said, like that was a tall order.

I nodded. “Better believe it.”

“And can I ask what this plan might be?” Cooper asked.

“You can,” I said. I was going to have to tell him at some point. Might as well be now. I took a step closer and looked around for potential eavesdroppers. Then I said, “I’m going to fall in love on this cruise.”

In reaction, Cooper had no reaction.

His face stayed so still, in fact, that it prompted me to say, “Hello?”

Cooper shook his head, by all appearances trying to regroup. “Is that a plan?” Cooper asked. “Or … more like … a fantasy?”

“I know what words mean,” I said. “It’s a plan.”

“Okay,” Cooper said, lifting his hands.

“It’s an Ashley-approved plan,” I added, for legitimacy. “And she’s a marriage and family therapist.”

Almost, anyway.

Cooper didn’t argue.

I went on, “And you’re a central part of it now.”

Cooper took that in, studying my face. “Am I the one you’re going to fall in love with?”

“Oh, my god,” I said, smacking his shoulder. “Cooper! Focus!”

But Cooper shrugged. “I’ll do it.”

“Of course not,” I said.

Of course not. Cooper was the last guy in the world I could conquer.

And I guess now is the moment when I have to unearth a half-forgotten moment in our friendship to explain why.

Because the truth was—back in our senior year of high school, I’d allowed myself to harbor a little crush on Cooper, and I’d delusionally wondered if he might be feeling the same way about me.

That is, until I had to take a shift at the kissing booth at the winter carnival.

There had been a literal line for the girl on shift before me—but once I stepped into the booth? Crickets.

It was beyond humiliating.

I stood there like the most pathetic, unkissable person in all of human history for as long as I could bear it before I texted Cooper and told him to report to me, stat.

“I need you to kiss me,” I said when he showed up with a half-eaten corn dog.

At the words, Cooper promptly coughed out the bite he’d just taken.

We both watched it hit the asphalt and roll a couple of inches.

“What?” Cooper said.

“I’ve got twenty minutes left on my shift, and no one is kissing me.”

“So?” Cooper asked.

“So,” I said, like Duh, “I need you to get things rolling. Start the stampede!”

But Cooper’s head was shaking itself.

“I can’t just stand here until the end of my shift totally unkissed. Gretchen Barnes had a line out the gate.”

But Cooper just stared at me, his corn dog at half-mast.

“Ten seconds—that’s all I need.”

“I don’t feel well.”

“Five seconds! Three! A peck!”

“I really don’t feel well.”

“You were fine when you walked over here,” I said, putting my hands on my hips.

“That was before you wanted a kiss.”

“Cooper, this is not hard. Pretend I’m your grandmother.”

“You’re the opposite of my grandmother.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I can’t.”

“Are you really going to leave me here like this?”

“I’m honestly feeling sick. I’m not joking.”

I let out a sigh that felt like the collapse of all my self-esteem. Then I said the only thing I could say: “Fine. I guess I can’t force you.”

“I’m sorry,” Cooper said.

“Yeah,” I said, with free-flowing bitterness. “So am I.”

That could have been the end of it. It should have been the end of it.

But it wasn’t.

Like a classic dummy, I took a bad situation—and made it worse.

What happened next resulted from a number of factors: One, I didn’t believe that Cooper really wasn’t feeling well.

Two, my teenage ego really, desperately didn’t want to come away from a shift at a kissing booth without getting even one kiss.

Three, I’d been ignoring a manageable but growing secret crush on Cooper ever since Finn had left for college.

And four, I kept getting the feeling that Cooper had a secret crush on me, too.

All to say, once Cooper was off the hook, he told me he was going home.

And then he spotted a trash can behind me to lob his leftover corn dog into, and as he leaned forward across the booth to toss it in …

I did something deeply ill-advised.

Because as he leaned closer, he was right within grabbing distance.

There was no time to think better of it. You know how reflex actions never make it to your brain? Your hand just yanks itself back from the fire without waiting for permission?

That was me right then. My body acting without my brain: reaching up, grabbing the collar of his T-shirt, and pulling his face to mine.

I know, I know.

I kissed him.

I fully ignored his very clear no. And did it anyway.

I don’t know what my rebellious body was thinking. Maybe that he just needed a little help over the hump? That once it was happening, he’d change his mind? Decide he liked it? Bring his arms around and clasp me tight as we gave in to the bliss of shifting from friendship to love?

Yeah. Well. That’s not what happened.

What did happen … was something Cooper and I had never talked about again—not once—since the actual moment.

It was all over in an instant: I grabbed him by the collar, planted a kiss on him, released him, saw the shock on his face …

And then I watched him throw up corn dog all over the kissing booth.

No need to quantify: It was a lot of corn dog. They had to call out the hazmat team and shut down the booth for the rest of the carnival. Come to think of it, I don’t think the school ever attempted a kissing booth again.

I was mortified then, and I was still mortified now—and I had no doubt I’d continue to be mortified well into the afterlife.

Of course we never talked about it. What would there even be to say?

The next time I saw Cooper, we just pretended nothing happened.

Other people talked about it, of course.

I became the girl who had kissed Cooper and made him throw up.

Cooper, to at least a few delightful people, became Corn Dog Guy.

The school newspaper even featured it as a bullet point under the main headline THE KISS-OFF in their reportage on the carnival.

So, yeah. That settled any questions I might’ve had about whether Cooper found me attractive. I don’t think you can get more rejected than that.

Right? Case closed.

Here on the dock, all these years later, I wasn’t sure how Cooper could even imagine being a candidate for Operation Conquest. If kissing a guy makes him throw up, he’s not going to top your list of potential true loves.

Apparently, though, Cooper had not intuited this. “‘Of course not’?” he asked. “Why ‘of course’?”

I would not be rehashing any of this with him today. “Because you’re Cooper.”

“That’s your whole reason?”

“That’s the only reason I need.”

“Who is it, then?”

Now we were back on track. But I suddenly felt weird about saying it. “It’s someone else,” I answered.

“Who?”

“Just—someone.”

“Am I supposed to guess?” Cooper asked. Then, lowering his voice like it might be a secret: “Is it the captain of the ship?”

“Cut it out, Cooper. This is serious.”

“I’m being serious,” he said—unseriously.

“It’s someone viable. It’s someone who might be able to break this curse I’ve been living under my entire dumb life.”

Cooper shook his head. “What curse is that?”

I looked him dead in the eye. Then I said, “Only loving men who don’t love me back.”

Once again, Cooper’s reaction was no reaction.

Was he holding his breath?

Something about his face made what I’d said seem even sadder. I felt the truth of it in a way that pressed at my throat. My eyes stung with uninvited tears, but I squeezed down to get rid of them.

When I opened my eyes, after all that, we weren’t really fighting anymore.

The tone of everything shifted.

Now I was saying something true to one of the only people on earth who might have a shot at understanding it. “Right?” I said, meeting his eyes, my voice softer. “It’s bad. It’s really bad. I called off my wedding—and even though Pearce wasn’t the right person for me—”

Cooper jumped in: “Pearce was a total douchebag.”

“Exactly,” I said. “But I picked him. I picked him, and I fixated on him, and I demanded that we get married. Why did I do that, Cooper? I’m really worried something’s wrong with me.

I’m really scared I’m going to spend my whole life…

” I thought back to what it had felt like to be with Pearce, and then I finished with: “lonely.”

Cooper let out a long breath at that word. I had his attention now.

“This is not a joke to me,” I said. “I’ve spent the last six weeks feeling incomprehensibly disappointed in myself. I think I might really be cursed. And I’m working like hell here to change my life. I need to get this solved. And I just really need you on my team. Can you be on my team, Cooper?”

He held my gaze for a second before saying, “I’ve always been on your team, Joey. Since day one.”

“Great,” I said. “Perfect. Because Ashley’s a little busy right now, and I can’t do this alone.”

Cooper was looking at me like he was still on the fence. But his voice sounded like he’d given in. “So what is the plan, exactly?”

“I need to make an unsuspecting man fall in love with me before this cruise is over.”

Cooper dropped his shoulders, like Of course you do. “You want me to help you seduce one of the other passengers.”

I lifted a finger to take issue with seduce. “I prefer conquer. Or maybe even woo.”

“Nobody says woo,” Cooper said.

“Conquer it is, then.”

Then, like he already knew he was going to hate the answer, he closed his eyes and said, “Spit it out. Who are we conquering?”

He was going to hate the answer. But that didn’t change anything.

So I took a breath and just said it: “Finn Turner.”

At the name, Cooper’s head fell forward in exasperation.

And when he lifted it again, he looked right into my eyes and said, “That’s the worst idea you’ve ever had.”