Chapter Thirty
Thirty
IN THE END, we got a standing ovation.
Ashley jumped to her feet, pumping her arm and whooping wildly as soon as we were done, and the whole room followed her lead and stood up. Even Brody.
Okay, this was superior to just not dying.
I couldn’t help but feel a little good. Just try to feel bad when a full ballroom of wedding guests is cheering for an encore—I dare you.
It was Pete’s turn next, and as he took the mic, he said, “Well, that’s gonna be a tough act to follow.”
As all eyes shifted to Pete, I took Cooper’s hand and dragged him out to the hallway.
Out of earshot, I spun around, grabbed Cooper by the tie, pulled him in close, and said, “Where have you been?”
“Careful,” he said, disengaging from my grip.
“You literally missed the boat! Who does that? Even Pete didn’t miss the boat!”
Cooper nodded. “Yeah. It’s a long story.”
“Did you miss it by accident—or on purpose?”
Cooper looked up to think. “Little bit of both?”
“Don’t be infuriating,” I warned. “You quit! You left! You declared you were ‘done.’ What are you doing back?”
Cooper took a breath. “I changed my mind.”
“About what?”
“About quitting.”
Was that how it worked? He got to quit and then un-quit at random—and never experience any consequences? Were those the rules for Cooper? He could disappear from my life whenever he wanted and then just show back up like it was all fine?
No. He couldn’t say he was coming to rescue me—and then leave me to be murdered. He couldn’t offer to sing with me and then just disembark. He couldn’t move to London and never, ever explain why.
Not today.
“No,” I said then, turning and walking away.
“No what?” Cooper demanded, following me.
“No, you can’t change your mind. You can’t show up here with your mini banjo and your forearms and act like nothing happened. You left me. You said terrible things and walked off! You wouldn’t even let me explain!”
“Yeah,” Cooper said, nodding like he fully agreed. “I’m sorry about that.”
But I wasn’t done. The anger felt good.
I walked faster—but Cooper paced himself a half step behind me.
“And then I begged you for help,” I went on, “even knowing that you had quit our friendship. Do you have any idea how desperate I must have been to do that? But I thought you were my person. I thought if anything ever really went down, you’d be there—no matter what.
And something was really going down. I had faith in you like I don’t have faith in anyone else. And then you abandoned me.”
“I didn’t abandon you.”
“What part of ‘I quit, I’m done’ and then leaving the ship isn’t abandoning me?”
“I was just—having a moment.”
“Weren’t we all?”
“I never meant it, I mean.”
“I’m not sure if that’s better or worse.”
“Seeing you with Finn that morning—kind of put me in a mood.”
“A ‘mood’?” I glanced back. “More like a blind rage.”
“Fine. Yes. A blind rage.”
“I’ve never seen you in a blind rage.”
“Me neither.”
“Which seems kind of unfair, right?” I went on. “Nothing about that moment should have made you so mad.”
“Seeing you kiss Finn made me mad.”
“I was supposed to kiss Finn! That was the whole point of this whole plan.”
“I know.”
“So I don’t see why I’m suddenly in trouble for achieving our joint goal.”
“It was your goal, JoJo. It was never mine.”
“Clearly!” I said, speeding up.
“Can you slow down?” Cooper said. “We really need to talk.”
“I agree. That’s what I was trying to do the other morning when you jumped ship.”
“I wasn’t ready to talk then,” Cooper said.
“Are you ready now?”
“No. But I’m doing it anyway.”
Wait—hold on. What did he want to talk about? Did he want to tell me his version of Sock Night?
Because wow—holy cow—did I not want to know about that.
I felt a hiss of fear in my body. What if he told me something I couldn’t bear to know—and then I had to know it for the rest of my life?
At that thought, I didn’t just start walking faster. I started fleeing.
“Hey,” Cooper said, following me. “Where are you going?”
“You know what?” I said. “We don’t have to talk.”
“JoJo. We do.”
“I’m good,” I said, turning down a utility hallway.
“JoJo,” Cooper said, still on my heels. “What are you doing?”
“We don’t have to talk about anything, Cooper,” I said, now desperate to escape.
But Cooper had no intention of letting me do that. “Hey,” he said, reaching out and grabbing my arm, pulling us both to a stop in front of a door to some utility stairs.
I looked up into his face—that face I’d adored for so long.
I shook my head.
I didn’t want to know.
And so when Cooper took a breath and said, “JoJo, I need to confess something to you,” I did the first thing I could think of to stop him.
I said, “I didn’t sleep with Finn!”
And with that, I was out.
Before Cooper could respond, I pushed open the door to the utility stairs with a kachoonk, and I launched myself through—right past a sign that read AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Conversation over. If I never found out about the real Sock Girl, it would be too soon.
Just inside, though, I stopped short and looked down. No wonder they didn’t want passengers in that stairwell. These were the steepest stairs I’d ever seen—like if a staircase and a ladder had a baby.
But they were also the perfect escape, I thought as I pattered down them full speed anyway: They were in an enclosed space.
Which meant Cooper definitely wouldn’t follow me.
But then Cooper followed me.
I hadn’t even reached the first landing before I heard the stairwell door kachoonk open again. And then feet tapping the steps behind me—catching up.
“This stairwell is authorized personnel only!” Cooper shouted.
Was he trying to get me on a technicality? “I authorized myself!”
“We can’t be in here!”
“So get out!”
“I can’t get out until you get out,” Cooper declared.
“How are you even following me?” I asked. “Isn’t this an enclosed space?”
“It’s not that enclosed,” Cooper said.
“What about your cleithrophobia?” I insisted, like I had a technicality of my own.
“It’s mild!”
“You always say that.”
“If I have a distraction, I’m okay.”
“What distraction do you have?”
“Uh—” Cooper said, like this should be obvious. “You just saying you didn’t sleep with Finn!”
At that, I slowed a bit. These stairs were scarily steep, anyway. I reached the landing on the next floor down and slowed to a stop.
Out of politeness, I suspect, Cooper stopped, too—and left about a half staircase between us.
“I didn’t just say I didn’t sleep with Finn,” I said, looking up at him on the stairs behind me, “I actually didn’t sleep with Finn.”
“If that’s true,” Cooper said next, watching me carefully, “why did you come out of his cabin together in the morning?”
“I slept in Finn’s cabin,” I said, “but alone.”
“Why would you sleep in Finn’s cabin?”
Was Cooper really asking me that? How dare he?
“Why did I sleep in Finn’s cabin?” I demanded. “Because ours was taken! Because I came back to our room looking for you—only to find a sock on our doorknob. A dirty sock, too. You asshole!”
A beat. Then, like he was getting a vivid flash memory of me calling Bridesmaid Two “Sock Girl” in our hallway that morning we fought, Cooper said, “That’s right. You saw that.”
“And then,” I went on, letting my voice calibrate to full bitterness, “I had to go around, cabinless, looking for someone to take me in. And just when I thought I’d have to sleep outside on one of the deck chairs, Finn came along, and felt sorry for me, and offered me his room.
And since he was on his way to a last-minute booty call, I took it. ”
Cooper closed his eyes. “I can’t believe you saw that sock.”
I started down the stairs again, calling back, “Wasn’t I supposed to see it?
Wasn’t that the whole point? You don’t put a sock on a doorknob for your roommate unless you want your roommate to know exactly what’s going on inside.
And don’t even think about telling me who you were in there with. I don’t ever want to know.”
“JoJo—slow the hell down.”
“No.”
“JoJo, I need to tell you something.”
“Nope.”
“JoJo—I wasn’t in there with anybody.”
At that, I stopped.
Cooper stopped on his step, too, but he’d been catching up. Now he was just a few steps behind me.
“I saw Finn kiss you,” Cooper said then, his voice quieter.
“On the deck. Our deck. And I was so jealous—you have no idea. Plus angry. And miserable. For a minute there, I wanted you to be miserable, too. So I went back to the room and did the sock thing—thinking if you could go off and mess around with people, I could do the same. I wasn’t doing the same.
But I figured you’d come back at some point and see it there and, if nothing else, leave me alone.
I wanted to lock you out. I wanted to make us even.
Or maybe make you jealous. Even though, of course, if you were off madly in love with Finn, you wouldn’t even care.
I wasn’t thinking things through. My mind was just—short-circuiting.
“But as soon as I closed the door, I thought about how you’d feel if you saw it.
Maybe you wouldn’t care. But this would be the first time in my life I’d ever lied to you on purpose.
Or tried to hurt you on purpose. And I got very clear very fast that I just didn’t want to ever do that.
Period. For any reason. Not if I could help it. ”
I took that in.
“So I went back out—and took it off.”
He went back out. And took it off …
Cooper went on. “Your timing’s incredible, by the way. It couldn’t have been there longer than five minutes.”
I turned back to meet his eyes. “You were there alone—all night?”
“I was there alone all night,” Cooper confirmed, “waiting for you to come back.”
“And you thought I was with Finn that whole time?”
Cooper nodded.
“And so when you said you didn’t sleep at all…?”
“I was just—pacing the room.”
“And so by the time you saw us in the morning…?”
He shook his head at himself. “I was not well.”
I took a couple of calming breaths. There was no Sock Girl.
Which meant I didn’t have to run away anymore.