Chapter 7 #2
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not that much younger than you. I think I understand when you like a girl.” She turned, all huffy, and stomped off.
Why did people always think that any time I talked to a pretty girl, I had some ulterior motive?
Then again, maybe I could use that suspicion to my advantage.
“Cooper,” Madeline drew my attention back to the phone. “Are you still there?”
“Yeah, and I have an idea to keep our parents apart.” It was taking form in my mind as I spoke. Probably wouldn’t be that hard to pull off. “What if they thought that we were a couple?”
Clanking noises came from Madeline’s side of the call. “A couple of what?”
“A couple. Dating. Seeing each other.” More clanking sounds came across the phone. “What are you doing that’s making that noise?”
“Stress eating,” she said. “Key lime pie is my comfort food. How would acting like a couple help anything?”
What was the best way to sell this to Madeline?
“If they think we’re hormonal teenagers in love, they wouldn’t want to pursue a relationship that could end with them getting married and us spending every night together under the same roof.
At the very least, they’d put things off until we graduate, and by then, there’s a good chance they’d find other people.
” Hopefully, my mom’s other person would be my dad.
“Hmm,” Madeline said, clanking through her pie. It sounded like she was wrestling Marie Callender somewhere in her kitchen. “You might have a point. But do you really think they would end things just because they thought we liked each other?”
Time to air a little family history on why my parents were so cautious about who I dated. “My mom had me when she was seventeen. Trust me, the last thing she wants me to do is spend a lot of unsupervised time with a girl I like.”
“You’re a man of ill repute. That’s good. It will worry my father.”
“I’m not a man of . . .” There was no point in arguing with her about my character. The fastest way to nip our parents’ relationship in the bud was to pretend we were dating. “What exactly did you tell our parents about our stint painting?” That was a crucial detail.
“I told them we’d talked, and they didn’t have to worry about more pranks.”
“That’s all?”
“I wasn’t about to tell them that I threw a gallon of paint on you, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Good,” I said. “Your deviousness will work in our favor this time. After our parents come back into your house, tell them that we not only worked out our differences, I realized that all the pranks you pulled were really just your way of flirting with me. Yada yada. You’ve had a secret crush on me for years, and this was your way of getting my attention. ”
“What? How come I have to be the one with the secret crush? Why couldn’t you be the one who suddenly came to his senses and realized what a great catch I am?”
I smiled, enjoying needling her. “Because you’re the one with the drama skills to sell the story of unrequited love. I’m just a dumb jock, remember?”
“Fair point,” she said.
“Now you’re requited,” I continued, “and we’re an item, so we can’t go with them on Friday to their ice cream date because we want to go out alone.”
“Your plan still requires me to watch your stupid football game, but besides that, I see its merits.”
I refused to feel sorry for her, but I also wasn’t going to argue with her about football. “A fake date gets us out of making cringey conversation with our parents at Baskin-Robbins. That’s a win all around.”
There was a pause. “What about school? Are we going to tell our friends that we’re fake dating?”
That would go over real well in the locker room.
I’d spent so much time complaining about Madeline, the team would never let me live it down.
“Nah, they don’t need to know about any of it.
It’s not like our parents will show up at school to see if we’re sitting together at lunch.
We’ll just have to go to each other’s houses a couple of times to make things look legit for our parents. I’ll swear Claire to secrecy.”
“I’ll have to tell Selena too.”
“Why?” The more people who knew what we were doing, the bigger the chance that someone would let our secret slip, and it would get back to our parents.
“Because if my best friend doesn’t know I’m supposedly dating you, she might say something when my dad is around that blows our cover. Plus, when I tell him I’m going someplace with you, I’ll actually go hang out with her. Having her know the truth will make it easier to arrange things.”
“Okay, but don’t tell anyone else. I don’t want my friends to find out about this.”
She grunted. “Whatever, Cooper. You can still look cool at school.”
Really, Madeline was way too touchy. “That’s a given,” I said.
There were more sounds of silverware hitting a plate. “How much pie do you think a person has to eat before it qualifies as a cry for help?”
“How much are you eating?”
“Never mind. That’s not important.” More clanking. “We’ll have to write each other flirty texts. Our parents might have programs where they can see what’s on our phones.”
I was pretty sure my mom didn’t have one of those. She’d gotten the cheapest phone plan possible. “I’m a man of few words. Don’t expect a lot.”
“That goes without saying.”
The girl could dish out the insults in between mouthfuls of pie. “I hope you’re not one of those needy chicks who texts anytime a thought pops into her mind.”
“I wasn’t until now,” she said. “I’ll be sending you a barrage of cat memes starting tonight.”
I snorted. “That’s right. You even like strays.”
“What about the homecoming dance?” she asked. “Our parents will assume we’ll go together.”
“It’s a month away. With any luck, our parents will be history by then.” Silver Creek had a modified year-round schedule, so we started school at the end of July, and homecoming wasn’t until the third week of September.
“But if our parents are still dating, they’ll expect you to show up on my doorstep with a corsage. They’ll take pictures of us and watch us drive off together. That will be a little hard to explain if you want to go to the dance with someone else.”
I nearly said we would do all that and then skip the dance, but my friends would expect me to go, and maybe she had someone in mind she wanted to go with. “I’ll drop you off at Selena’s house, and your date can pick you up there.”
Madeline made an unhappy mmmm sound. She was either getting too caught up in the details or was regretting her pie choices.
“You don’t have to do any of this,” I said. “Maybe I’ll be the brother you always wanted. Maybe you’ll love spending Thanksgiving, Christmas, and every family vacation with me for the rest of your life.”
“Fine,” she said. “We’ll photoshop the homecoming pictures.”
“Good. It’s settled. Hope you have fun watching the football game.”
She moaned and hung up.
For the next few minutes, I thought about how to break the news to Dad that Mom had started dating.
And not just anyone, a rich lawyer. I could’ve called my dad.
This might be one of the times he had Wi-Fi access and would answer his phone.
But if he didn’t care, I didn’t want to hear that in his voice.
I sent him a text.