Chapter Twenty-Five
Twenty-Five
I WENT AFTER him, of course.
But I had to change into sneakers first.
Not because he told me to.
But because, at the sight of the barrette, it hit me at last.
No more resisting. No more refusing to comprehend.
It had been Cooper all along.
Cooper was the person I’d imprinted on. Cooper was the reason I couldn’t make anything work with anyone else. Cooper was the one who’d ruined my life.
Everything was Cooper.
And if I was going to chase after him right, I’d need some shoes I could run like hell in.
Dammit.
How long does it take to put on a pair of sneakers? Whatever it is, I halved it—and then I flew out the door in the sundress I’d slept in, and I sprinted down the hall.
But Cooper, I may have mentioned, is a pretty fast walker.
He was almost to the elevators before I even made it to the hallway. “Cooper! Wait!” I called—but he didn’t.
He wouldn’t get on the elevator, of course. I could catch him on the stairs.
But guess how badly that guy wanted to get away from me?
At the elevator bank, he glanced back and saw me running—and then, against his entire personality and his lifelong cleithrophobia, he slipped through the elevator doors just as they were closing, and he disappeared.
I TOOK THE stairs two at a time. I told myself to stay focused. I had to catch him before he disembarked. Cooper could not leave this ship before I explained that I hadn’t slept with Finn.
I mean, what right did Cooper have to be mad at me for anything I had or hadn’t done with anyone?
Yes, I was swooning over all the realizations, and yes, he had just kissed me senseless—but let’s not forget that he “didn’t sleep—at all—even for one minute” last night with my least favorite person on the planet.
Nothing he could be imagining about me was worse than that.
Of course, if he’d slept with Sock Girl only because he thought I was off canoodling with Finn … maybe that made it better?
Or maybe that made it so much worse.
I mean, at least tell me the truth about my destiny before you give up on me forever!
Right?!
If that was even what was going on.
Because I had no idea what was going on.
All I knew was I had to catch him. Everything rested on setting the record straight—about Finn first. And then about this: When I’d said that kiss Cooper gave me just now was “not even close” to the same, I meant that in a let’s-get-married way.
Though maybe I wouldn’t put it like that.
Look. Did that smoking-hot-to-the-melting-point, blindfolded, deeply adult kiss Cooper had just bestowed upon me resemble in any way the chaste little peck I’d received on the playground as a kid?
No. Obviously—no.
But I didn’t need a replica kiss for proof. I didn’t need proof at all.
I believed Cooper.
I could always tell when he was lying, for one thing. But—more important—he would never lie about something like this. Something that mattered.
It was true because he said it was true. And that was it.
More than that, I wanted it to be true.
Did it mean the entire story of my life had been built on a lie?
Maybe. There was a lot to unpack there.
But I had my whole life to process that. Right now, I just had to stop Cooper.
WHEN I MADE it to the gangway, Cooper was nowhere in sight, but I didn’t slow down. In fact, I upped my speed.
But just as I launched into a full sprint, my dad intercepted me. Physically. He hooked his arm around my waist as I was running past him—restraining me like a seat belt before letting me drop to a full stop beside him.
“Whoa, whoa—slow down!” my dad said.
I turned to face him. “Dad!” I said, breathless. “I can’t stop!”
But my dad pointed at me. “Stay right there.”
Was it not obvious that I was mid mad dash? “I’m in the middle of something here.”
“Well,” my dad said, “your sister’s in tears. So she’s in the middle of something, too.”
That got my attention.
Ashley was never in tears. Tears were not Ashley’s thing.
This was serious—whatever it was.
“What’s going on?” I asked, regaining my breath.
My dad pulled me off to the side like he had something truly top secret. Then he lowered his voice to a whisper I could barely hear, and he said, “There’s an issue with the bridal gown.”
An “issue”? Had she forgotten to bring it? Spilled coffee on it? Ripped the train?
“What’s the issue?” I asked.
“You know she got it a year ago on sale at that bridal expo.”
“Yes,” I said. It had been half off—which, in the world of wedding expenses, was practically making money.
“Well, apparently, it’s been a while since she tried it on…” my dad said.
“And?”
He looked around like we were spies. “And it no longer fits.”
“That can’t be right,” I said, shaking my head. “She must’ve checked before we left.”
“She didn’t.”
“This is Ashley,” I kept protesting. “She would never have left her bridal gown to chance.”
“Do not say that to her,” my dad cautioned. “She will tear you limb from limb.”
“But…”
“Look, she and Mom already went over this. It’s been a busy year. It fit perfectly when she bought it. She meant to double-check, but she wasn’t worried. And then, with everything else she was doing, much of it for you, apparently, she just—never got around to trying it on.”
I sighed. “And now?”
“Now she’s having a little trouble squeezing in.”
“How much trouble?” I asked.
At that, my dad looked torn—like he couldn’t decide between being kind and being accurate. Finally, he said, “She looks like somebody stuffed a Honey Baked Ham into a tube sock.”
“Dad!” I scolded.
But he just shrugged. “Hence, the emergency.”
“So—what’s the plan?”
“Your mom worked it all out,” he said, crooking his arm behind me to start leading me toward their cabin. “We’re docked at Bishop’s Cay today.”
“Yeah?”
“And, lucky for us, there’s a tailor on the island who can let the dress out before we set sail again this afternoon—if we can get it there by ten in the morning.”
“Wow,” I said, checking the time. “That’s tight.”
“Yes, it is,” my dad agreed. “And that’s where you come in.”
“Me?” I glanced again at the Cooper-less gangway.
I really don’t want to sound like I wasn’t a team player—but given the whole urgency of the Cooper situation, I was just about to ask my dad if he could take the dress to the tailor … when he put his arm around my shoulder and started walking us back toward the elevators.
As soon as the doors closed, my dad lowered his voice and said, “She took me back.”
My brain was still a little addled. “Who?”
My dad looked at me, like Who the hell else? “Your mother.”
Wait—this was huge! “She did?”
He nodded. “On a trial basis.”
I held out my hand for a high five. “Did you go full Odysseus on her?”
“Does ‘going full Odysseus’ mean bursting into drunken tears and begging? Because that’s what I did.”
We stepped out onto my parents’ floor. “Hey,” I said. “It worked, didn’t it?”
“It worked. For now. As long as I, and I’m quoting here, ‘prove to her that I can change.’”
“What does that mean?”
“Well, for one thing, it means you have to take the dress to town, and I have to stay here and tape up wedding decorations.”
Nothing about that was right. “But you don’t have any manual dexterity,” I said.
“She needs to see me trying,” my dad said.
“You’ve been trying this whole time.”
“But now she’s looking. And I have to make sure she likes what she sees.”
I gave my dad an appreciative nod. “Dad! That’s very emotionally astute!”
“I was quoting your mother.”
Ah.
As we reached my mom’s cabin, I got it. My dad going ashore—and being gone again, as usual—wouldn’t help his rebrand at all.
My dad knocked, and my mom threw open the door. “Oh, thank god!” she burst out. “You found her.”
“Caught her escaping,” my dad said, like he was the world’s best bounty hunter.
Ever frugal, my mother had assigned herself to a Harmony-like cabin: also below the waterline with no window. But she’d zhuzhed it up with some paper flowers and a pina colada–scented room spritz.
“Were you headed somewhere, JoJo?” my mom asked.
In the background, Grandma Dodie and Ashley sat on the foot of the bed. Ashley was slumped and defeated, her post-sobbing face still puffy, while Grandma Dodie patted her knee.
This really was a family emergency.
“I just—need to catch Cooper, and he went ashore.”
At that, Ashley started crying again.
“But I’ve got this,” I declared, meeting my dad’s eyes and giving him a nod. “I’m on it.”
“Great,” my mom said, ripping all her notes out of their pad and handing them to me.
“The address is here. The seamstress is Yolanda.” She glanced over at Ashley.
“Sweetheart, toss me that sunscreen.” Ashley tossed it, and my mom caught it one-handed without missing a beat, flipped open the cap, and started applying it to my shoulders.
“You know,” my mom went on, “you don’t have to stay at the tailor’s.
You could drop the dress off and then go find Cooper. ”
Sure. If he wasn’t already prop-planing his way across the Atlantic by now.
“Just as long as you make it back to the ship by four o’clock,” my mom said. “That’s when we shove off, and they won’t wait for you.”
“They won’t wait for you?” I asked.
She shook her head like she’d heard some horror stories. “They set sail when they set sail, and if you’re not here, they leave you behind. They’re very tough-love about it.”
“They really leave without people?” I asked.
My mom nodded.
“What if you’re literally running down the dock waving?”
But my mom just gave me a firm headshake, like we mustn’t even speak those words. Then she said, “Let’s not find out.”