Chapter Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Eight
THAT NIGHT, ALONE in Cooper’s cabin, I couldn’t sleep.
As hard as it had been to fall asleep with Cooper in the bed, it was a hundred times harder without him. The room was too quiet. The pillow was too lumpy. People in the hallway were too raucous. The moon was too bright. Also—was I itching?
He’d left. He’d really left. He’d kissed me like that, and ruined my life … and then just left.
And then I’d asked him for help—in a real moment when I actually thought I was going to truly die, or get mauled by Pork Pie, which, arguably, would’ve been worse than death—and Cooper never showed up.
It’s one thing to be mad. It’s quite another to abandon your dearest friend in her moment of darkest need.
Anyway, that was it, I decided.
Keys or no keys—if he was done, I was done, too.
Cooper wasn’t the only person in this friendship who could quit!
“I quit!” I declared out loud over and over before thrashing my legs out from under the covers because I was too hot—and then shoving them back under when I got too cold.
As I shuffled through all my regrets, one in particular just kept coming back. I should have asked Cooper about why he went to London after college without telling me. I’d wanted to ask him for so long, and now I’d missed my chance.
But it was too late now. Who cared?
He was done, and I was done even harder.
Or, at least, I was trying to be.
NIGHT WAS BAD, but day was even worse.
We had two at-sea days as we crossed the Gulf to our final stop in Cozumel.
Two at-sea days where every person I ran into could not fathom the sight of me without Cooper. “Where’s Cooper?” the whole boat asked—endlessly.
“He missed the boat,” I said, letting people reach their own conclusion about whether he’d wanted to or not.
“Oh, that’s too bad,” Mrs. Vargas said.
“It really is.”
“Seriously, though,” she prodded. “How did that happen?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Traffic? Work call? Flat tire?”
“I mean,” Mrs. Vargas went on, “the rules are just so clear. They really will leave you behind!”
“Guess he knows that now.”
Grandma Dodie remained convinced that Cooper would find a way back to the boat, and I didn’t have the heart to set her straight.
I don’t know how many of these conversations I’d had by the time Ashley asked me. Infinity?
“Are you okay?” she said, steering me away.
“Not really,” I said.
She patted me on the shoulder. “You lost your wingman.”
I shrugged. “It’s okay. Operation Conquest is over.”
“Wait—it is?”
She’d really missed everything, hadn’t she? “Yeah. Terminated.”
Ashley put her hand over her mouth. “Did Finn reject you?”
I straightened my shoulders. “I rejected him, actually.”
Ashley frowned, like that idea was really doubtful.
“Is that so hard to believe?” I said, my throat feeling tight.
“No, I—just thought it was going so well.”
“It was. And then it wasn’t. And then everything fell apart.” At those words, my eyes filled with tears, and Ashley steered me by the shoulders outside to the deck.
“JoJo,” Ashley said, “what is going on?”
I shook my head, but the tears spilled over.
“Talk to me!” Ashley said. “Why won’t you talk to me?”
I wanted to talk to her. Ashley was my number-one person for processing anything. But that was before the confounding variable of her, ya know, merging her life with Brody. Finally, I sighed. “If I tell you—you have to promise me you won’t tell Brody, okay?”
She shook her head like she couldn’t fathom why that would be a condition.
“Because this is very personal,” I said, “and very private. And it’s the kind of information you share with your beloved sister—but it’s not exactly something you’d share with a guy you dumped in high school who’s still irritated about it.”
“You guys are going to have to get past this,” Ashley said, like we were both equally at fault.
“I agree,” I said. “And I’m sure we will. But we’re not there yet. So if you could just keep all this to yourself, that’d be perfect.”
Ashley sighed and said, “Okay.”
But then, with the coast clear to share, I wasn’t sure how to begin. I let out a long breath and then said, “The thing with Finn is off because it turns out he wasn’t my first kiss after all.”
Ashley’s eyes went wide. “The playground kiss wasn’t Finn?”
I shook my head.
“Who was it?”
“It was Cooper.”
“Cooper!” Ashley shouted.
“Shhh!”
She shifted to a whisper. “The person you imprinted on was Cooper?”
“Apparently.”
“How did you find this out?”
“Cooper told me.”
“But Finn was supposed to do it!” Ashley said.
“He ditched me. And then Cooper came to find me and explain—but I guess then he felt sorry for me, and so he took Finn’s place instead.”
Ashley took it in. “All along … it was Cooper.”
“All along, it was Cooper,” I confirmed.
“But isn’t that a good thing?” Ashley asked. “You guys are fantastic together.”
“Yes,” I said. “Except.”
“Except what?”
“Except when he told me, I didn’t believe him.”
“You didn’t believe him?”
“I guess I just couldn’t shift my thinking that fast.”
“Did you fight?”
I nodded. “We fought. And then he kissed me to prove it. And then he stormed off the boat.”
“Hold on. Back up. He kissed you?”
I nodded.
“How was it?”
I tried to answer, but the words were half tears. “It was so good, I might never actually recover.”
“Ohhh, JoJo,” Ashley cooed like I was adorable as she pulled me against her shoulder and hugged me.
And then it all came tumbling out—everything I’d been wanting to tell her all along. Harmony’s lei, moving in with Cooper, sharing a bed, the hickey, the sunburn, the slow-dance contest—all of it.
“But this is awesome!” Ashley said. “You’re perfect together. Everybody agrees. The whole ship has been shipping you this entire time.”
“The whole ship has been shipping us?”
Ashley nodded—but then amended, “Except for Finn. And Mia Macall, of course.”
I frowned. “Who is Mia Macall?”
Ashley frowned back, with a slight air of What’s wrong with you? “My bridesmaid. The one I’ve been trying to matchmake with Cooper.”
Bridesmaid Two had a real name? “Huh,” I said.
“What?”
“I never knew her name.”
“The point is,” Ashley went on, “everybody else agrees. I was only Team Finn when I thought he was the first kiss. If Cooper is the first kiss, then I’m Team Cooper.”
I thought about it. “But guess who doesn’t agree?”
Ashley waited.
“Cooper.”
“He’ll get over it,” Ashley said. “He always does.”
But I shook my head. “I don’t think so. Not this time. I think he really hates me this time.”
“He doesn’t hate you. He couldn’t hate you.”
“Ashley,” I said, “I didn’t just accidentally get locked in a lighthouse back on Bishop’s Cay.”
“What does that mean?”
“I got menaced,” I said, “by a drunk dude. And I had to rack him and run to hide in the lighthouse. And then he locked me in.”
Ashley took that in.
“And I called Cooper and begged for help—while this guy was beating on the door, trying to get in,” I said, “and Cooper didn’t come.”
“That doesn’t sound like Cooper.”
I nodded. “I think he might be really done with me.”
“Maybe he couldn’t find a ride,” Ashley said, brainstorming. “Maybe he got lost. There’s absolutely no way that Cooper just left you there.”
“But there’s one other thing,” I said.
And I was just about to spill all the beans about the Sock Girl situation to Ashley when I looked up and saw the Sock Girl herself, with our brother, Pete, strolling toward us.
As I watched her approach, I relived the way my heart had collapsed in on itself when I saw that sock on Cooper’s cabin doorknob, and I found myself deciding that just because she had a name didn’t mean I had to use it. She’d always just be Bridesmaid Two to me.
Of course, her first question was about Cooper.
“How could he possibly miss the boat?” she asked us all, shaking her head.
How, indeed. “I hope you’re not too upset,” I said to her, not meaning it at all.
“Me?” Bridesmaid Two asked, frowning.
“Yeah,” I said, like Of course. “You two had such a very nice night together—and then the next day he was just gone.”
Pete looked down at Bridesmaid Two. “Did you have a ‘very nice night’ with Cooper?”
“No,” Bridesmaid Two said.
“You don’t remember spending the night in Cooper’s cabin?” I asked, calling her bluff.
Once again, Pete: “You spent the night in Cooper’s cabin?”
“No!” Bridesmaid Two protested again.
“Two nights ago?” I prompted, like You can’t remember two nights ago?
“Two nights ago,” Bridesmaid Two said, leveling her gaze at Pete, “I spent the night in your cabin.”
“Ah,” Pete said, looking up in reverie like a flood of heavenly memories was pouring into his brain. “That’s right. Yes, you did.”
“False,” I said, all gotcha, pointing at Pete. “You’re rooming with Dad.”
But Pete shook his head. “Dad moved in with Mom.”
Well, that was a development.
Now it was Ashley’s turn to point at Pete. “You were supposed to stay away from the bridesmaids,” she said then, like everybody had misbehaved. “That’s the whole reason we put Dad in there with you to start with.”
“Look,” Pete said. “This doesn’t have to be a thing. No bridesmaids were harmed.”
“So the person you liked,” I said to Bridesmaid Two, “was Pete? All along?”
Bridesmaid Two looked up at Pete all smitten and nodded.
And then the weirdest thing happened: I suddenly liked her.
“Mia Macall,” I said, considering it. “I love that name.”
She smiled. “You do?”
“I really do,” I said, riding a surge of affection. “It’s like a movie star name.”
“Too bad I’m an accountant, then,” she said.
A math person, too! Her stock was going up by the minute.
“You make it glamorous,” I said, and I meant it.
I FELT BETTER for a little while after that. But of course, if Mia wasn’t Sock Girl, then who was? Some other bridesmaid? Some random stranger? Good god—please don’t let it be Harmony.
I guess I’d never know.
Didn’t matter anyway.
Cooper had given up on me. And so I had no choice but to give up on him back.
Which I would totally be doing. Very soon.