Chapter Twelve #3
THANKS TO COOPER and me, we came in last place. Very last place. So very last place that when Finn saw our score, he threw his club down like a golfy John McEnroe having a tantrum.
But that wasn’t the worst of it.
The worst of it happened after the game.
After everyone had returned their putters to the rental desk, and after Brody had removed his one weird golf glove and tucked it into his pocket, and after Finn and Brody had tried to get Cooper and me retroactively kicked off their team—as we were all walking over toward the buffet.
The irony is that I was actually getting the hang of the whole walking-in-heels thing.
When I’d first started practicing, I’d mostly hobbled around on tiptoe like a kangaroo.
But now, almost like a lovely little apology from the universe, as I crossed the sports deck, I could tell I had the motion down.
The wind blew my hair. The sun shined affectionately. Heel-toe. Heel-toe.
I’ve got this, I thought. Could somebody hit “slo-mo”?
That short walk across the sports deck did a beautiful job of raising my spirits, in fact. I might be destined for the mini-golf Hall of Shame, but at least, as of this moment, I could officially walk in heels.
A much more valuable skill.
I decided to enjoy it. I was even considering throwing in a hip bump or two.
And then?
I hit a slick patch.
I went heel-toe, heel-toe, heel—splat.
My legs flew out ahead of me—just exactly like a cartoon character slipping on a banana peel—and I landed smack on my tailbone.
Which is even more painful than it is humiliating.
And it’s pretty frigging humiliating.
I must have made a loud noise—because every single wedding guest turned to look, and for a moment, I was suspended in time in the birthing position with my unicorn underpants on full display, Sharon Stone style.
A moment that lasted a thousand years.
Next, Cooper arrived behind me and hoisted me to my feet—but as soon as I tried to turn around, he yanked me back and clamped my backside to his front.
I tried to turn again—but he clamped me tighter.
“What’s going on, Cooper?”
“You are having,” Cooper said then, “a wardrobe malfunction.”
I squeezed my eyes closed. “Is it the dress?”
“Yes.”
“Did it split?”
“Yes.”
“Can everybody see my…”
“Unicorns. Yes.”
At that, I sighed in a way that felt more like a cave-in.
“If I let go of you,” Cooper said, “will you stop trying to turn around?”
Like a hostage, I nodded.
“Okay,” Cooper said, slowly loosening his clamped arms. “Stay.”
I stayed.
Next, I felt some air between us, and then I heard a rustle of fabric. And then, from behind, he reached for my hand, threading it into the sleeve of his suit jacket before shifting sides to do the same thing to the other.
This dress really must have been short—and Cooper must have been taller than I realized—because Cooper’s jacket grazed my mid-thighs as he turned me around to button it.
“There,” he said, looking pleased, like everything was fixed.
But nothing was fixed.
He read my face as it all started hitting me.
“No, no,” Cooper said, clamping me into a hug.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m distracting you,” Cooper said. “So you don’t start crying.”
“I’m not about to start—” I started. But then I realized he was right.
“And now I’m giving you a pep talk,” he went on, still hugging.
“I don’t need a pep talk,” I said. “I just need to go back to your fancy cabin and not leave for the rest of the cruise.”
“You’re not doing that,” Cooper said. “You’re coming with me to the welcome lunch.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s your sister’s wedding,” Cooper said. “But also because you are unstoppable.”
At that, my head shook itself. “I’m pretty stoppable, actually.”
But Cooper disagreed. “Maybe you just took the most humiliating pratfall I’ve ever seen in real life.
Maybe this day hasn’t gone at all how you planned.
Maybe Brody and his Michael Jackson glove were total douchebags all through the game.
But … you’re JoJo. You’re the best person here.
You look genuinely hot in that dress—and those underpants are the sexiest thing about it, by the way.
You’re not going to scuttle away and hide.
You’re going to come eat lunch, and sit with me, and I’m going to bring you all the desserts until you completely forget to be unhappy. ”
Forgetting to be unhappy sounded okay.
Then I asked, like this might be the deciding factor, “Do you actually think I look ‘genuinely hot,’ or are you just saying that to cheer me up?”
At that, Cooper pulled back to look me over and make an official assessment.
Was it my imagination, or could I feel the sweep of his eyes over my skin?
“I actually think you look genuinely hot,” Cooper said.
“Even in this jacket?”
“Especially in that jacket.”
That helped. A little. I turned to face the lunch buffet like I might start walking.
But then I hesitated.
“Today was a disaster,” I said. “I’m worse off than I was before.”
“Not entirely,” Cooper said. “At least Finn knows who you are now.”
“Not in a good way.”
“All publicity is good publicity,” Cooper said.
Was that true? “I didn’t know it was possible to get so enraged about mini golf,” I said.
Cooper shrugged. “You don’t become captain of every varsity team by liking to lose.”
“Thank you for being as bad at mini golf as I am,” I said.
“You’re welcome.”
Everybody was still watching me. Time to do—anything. On instinct, I waved and smiled like we were on a parade float.
Then, before we took our first step, Cooper reached down and clasped my hand.
Then he said, “Be the unicorn.”
And this time, I knew what he meant.
LATER—AFTER I’D CHANGED into sweatpants and flip-flops back in Cooper’s luxury suite and then stalled as long as I could—it was time for me to go back to my official cabin and begin the journey of rooming with Harmony.
Cooper carried my suitcase back down the stairs for me on a trek that felt distinctly like descending into the underworld.
“Come back anytime,” Cooper said as we reached my floor, like he felt guilty that his fate was better than mine. “My balcony is your balcony.”
But it wasn’t his fault I had to room in a sex dungeon.
I decided to focus on the positive. “Thank you for the pep talk, by the way. And for all the nice things you said about me—to everyone. And for hoarding all the Oreo cupcakes off the dessert tray.”
“My pleasure,” Cooper said. Then, as we peered down the hallway in the direction of Harmony’s lair, he added, “You don’t have to do this, by the way.”
I sighed and started walking the final hundred feet toward the cabin.
What choice did I have?
Cooper followed and kept talking. “You can just stay with me.”
“I can’t stay with you,” I said.
“Because there’s only one bed in my room?”
“Among many other reasons.”
“We slept in the same bed sometimes as kids.”
“Yeah. As kids.”
“It wouldn’t be that weird, is all I’m saying.”
“It would be weird enough.”
But as we pulled up to the door of Harmony’s room, we got a new comparison point for weird.
Because Harmony’s lei was on the doorknob, and she was … putting it to good use.
Loudly. Gymnastically. To be clear: Anyone walking by would know with certainty that Harmony’s lei was not, in any way, going to waste.
We stood there a second, averting our eyes from everything, before Cooper finally said, “Sounds like it might be a while.”
I closed my eyes, fully defeated.
Then Cooper asked, earnestly, “Would you like to … wait here?”
I kept my eyes closed and shook my head.
“Come on, then,” Cooper said, like that was that.
He grabbed my suitcase and walked it back the way we’d just come.
And as I watched him go down the hall, I saw the future clearly.
The immediate future, anyway.
Maybe Cooper had mysteriously stopped talking to me for four years and never told me why.
And maybe he’d RSVPed no to my wedding and to this one before showing up last minute to both.
And maybe teaming up with him felt exactly like old times—but better.
And maybe he was being far too nice to me.
And maybe this whole day with Cooper had made me miss him worse, somehow, now that we were together again.
And maybe he’d brought a whole steamer trunk of gabardine vests.
And maybe I had more questions about Cooper now than answers.
But one thing was clear.
He was rescuing me from the underworld right now.
He was rescuing me, and taking me back to his room—and we were going to share his balcony, and his one bed, and all the contents of his mini-fridge, until he kicked me out. And I really didn’t have any other options.
And it was actually okay.
Because after this long, mortifying, soul-crushing day … Cooper’s cabin turned out to be the only place I wanted to go.
And so when he turned, saw I hadn’t moved, and said, “Hey! Let’s rock! Those stairs aren’t going to climb themselves!”—what happened next was easy.
I just did exactly what I wanted, and I followed him home.