Chapter 12 #2
It was my turn to whisper to Madeline. Dainty diamond studs sat in the soft curve of her earlobes. “Don’t read too much into it. We have breakfast foods for dinner all the time.”
I hadn’t even noticed that the conversation in the front seat had stopped until my mother said, “What are you two whispering about?”
My head jerked up. Mom had twisted in her seat to look at us, and her gaze landed on Madeline’s hand on my leg.
“Just the game,” I said.
PDAs always made me feel uncomfortable, but I couldn’t push Madeline’s hand off my thigh without raising suspicions, so I did the only thing I could think of. I took her hand in mine and set both our hands across her leg.
Wait, was that worse? Now I was not only holding Madeline’s hand, my hand was resting on her thigh.
Mom’s eyes flicked to our hands. “Madeline is becoming a football fan?”
Madeline squeezed my hand. “When Cooper is playing, I am.”
I’d dated half a dozen girls in high school.
I couldn’t remember ever holding hands with one in front of my mother.
But then, that was the point of all of this, wasn’t it?
We wanted our parents to put the brakes on their relationship because of ours.
But still, this felt weird—my mom was staring at us.
“If you’re going to date Cooper,” Mom said, “you’ll have to learn to eat, breathe, and sleep football.”
Madeline gazed at me, smiling, and perhaps only I could see the amusement mixed in with her admiration.
“It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. In fact”—her eyes widened as though an idea had just occurred to her—“to help me be a legit fan, you should give me one of your old football shirts to wear.”
Madeline wanted one of my jerseys for real? I tilted my head. “What is it with you always wanting to take my clothes?”
A flash of disapproval went across her face, one with the words get into character emblazed on it, and then was immediately replaced by a pout. “Please?”
“I mean, sure,” I said. “But anything of mine will be way too big for you.”
“That’s fine,” she cooed. “I’ll use it to sleep in.”
“Oh.” My mother’s voice was high and tight. “That’s so . . . so . . .” Her gaze went to Mr. Seibold, checking for his opinion.
Madeline didn’t wait for him to speak. “Sweet?” she supplied. I had to give it to her. She was good at this.
Mom let out a choking laugh. “I was thinking along the lines of wildly inappropriate. But sure, it’s sweet too.”
Mr. Seibold said, “You have enough pajamas, Madeline. You don’t need a sleep shirt.”
“Okay.” Madeline pulled another cute pout. She was probably used to wrapping her father around her finger with that look.
My mother turned back to the front seat, but she was less willing to ignore us now. “So what are your plans for this weekend?” she called over her shoulder.
“Maddy and I are grounded,” I said. “I guess that question is for Claire.”
While Claire recited her schedule, Madeline leaned close to whisper to me again. Her lips were practically on my ear. “Give me one of your jerseys anyway. My father will come unglued when he sees me wearing it.”
I whispered back to her, “He told you no. You want to get in trouble?”
Her lips were back by my ear. “He only said I couldn’t sleep in it. He didn’t say I couldn’t wear it with shorts around the house while I go on and on about how it smells like you. Law is all about the technicalities.”
Claire groaned, drawing our attention to her.
She leaned her head back on the seat in annoyance.
“Do I have to be here? It’s bad enough to be the third wheel on someone’s date.
Now I’m the fifth wheel with all of you.
Can’t you just drop me off, and the rest of you can get on with your double date without me? ”
“It’s not a double date,” I said. “Doubling with your parents is lame.”
Madeline nodded in agreement. “Plus we’re going somewhere better for our first date. Right, Coop?”
No one called me Coop. My mother knew I hated that nickname. In elementary school, some kids had called me Chicken Coop, and I’d had to threaten them with violence to make them stop.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Sorry, Claire,” Mr. Seibold said, shooting us a look in the rearview mirror. “From now on, we’ll all be more inclusive in our conversations.” He asked Claire if she’d chosen a monologue for a regional contest the drama club was in, and she and Madeline talked about that for the rest of the drive.
Several times, Madeline’s thumb went over my hand, gliding back and forth over my skin. If she was doing it to send some sort of message, I had no idea what it meant. I kept checking her expression, but she never looked at me.
Did she think my mother would turn around and check on us again? Was it possible that she just ran her thumb back and forth whenever she held a guy’s hand and the motion was habit?
How could she not be thinking about it when I was hyper-aware of her hand intertwined with mine?
When we pulled up to the ice cream place and it was time to get out of the car, I couldn’t drop her hand fast enough.
I took in deep breaths of the cool night air to clear my mind.
Must not think of Madeline that way. I looked at the strip mall in front of us, the bright store lights, and the cars parked all around us.
By the time we stood in line to order ice cream, I felt like myself again. My mother was paying less attention to Mr. Seibold and more attention to Madeline and me. All the hand-holding in the car had been worth it.
Right after I got my ice cream—a triple scoop, because Mom was allowing it for once—a familiar voice behind me called, “Cooper!”
I turned and saw Jasper striding up to me. I stared at him in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
“Just came in for some ice cream.” His voice sounded natural enough, but the expression on his face said, “I came to save you from the Seibolds.” He gestured to a table across the room where Amelia and Dahlia sat.
She wore a low-cut black sweater, and her dark hair lay in a smooth curtain down her back.
Jasper nodded a greeting at my mother. He was the sort of guy that parents naturally liked: clean-cut, polite, and quick to smile. “You don’t mind if I steal Cooper for a minute, do you, Ms. Nash? We’ve got a history assignment we’re working on, and we need to nail down some of the details.”
She glanced over at the table. “Don’t be too long.”
This wasn’t the most ideal place to spend time with Dahlia since my family and fake girlfriend sat not far away, but I had no other choice but to follow Jasper, and anyway, spending time with him felt like a reprieve.
A bit of normal life wedged into an improv play that Madeline and I were performing.
I could at least talk to Jasper, Amelia, and Dahlia for a little while.
When I reached the table, Dahlia greeted me with a welcoming grin.
She was Madeline’s opposite in many ways and not just because she was friendly and approving.
Dahlia with her dark hair, sultry eyes, and tanned complexion, was a sharp contrast to Madeline’s blonde hair, pale skin, and bright blue eyes.
Dahlia looked like she could be a Bond girl.
Madeline looked like she could be Barbie’s little sister.
Jasper sat down. It felt strange to be the only one standing, so I sat down too.
“Sorry about the game,” Dahlia purred. “You played really well.”
This statement caused Jasper to spend several minutes complaining about the holes in the defense. The whole time he spoke, Dahlia’s eyes never left mine.
Jasper thought Dahlia would go out with me, but she’d flirted with a lot of guys on the team, given them her phone number, and turned them down.
Maybe she just liked seeing how much attention she could get, and I was the next ego boost on her list. In a school where a lot of guys had their own cars, she wouldn’t be impressed by my ride, a ten-year-old Civic—when my mother let me borrow it.
Amelia finally cut off Jasper’s rant by saying, “The coach will make sure the defense does better next week. And if not, you’ll just need to run faster so Cooper can get the ball to you.”
“Problem solved,” I told Jasper. “Run faster.”
Dahlia dipped her spoon into her ice cream with lazy strokes and peered at me from underneath lowered lashes. “Do you think you’ll go pro?”
If I wanted a chance with her, the obvious response was yes, and really, what did it matter if I claimed more talent than I had? Still, I hesitated to answer. “Who knows. A lot can happen between now and then.”
She slowly ran her tongue over her spoon. “Well, you’re amazing now.”
“Thanks.” I’d almost forgotten that I held a bowl of ice cream. I took a bite.
“What else do you do?” she asked.
“Do?” I repeated.
“Yeah,” Dahlia said. “Like hobbies and stuff.”
Well, she was about to be disappointed. “I work at a drugstore after practice for a couple of hours and all Saturday afternoon. Between that and homework, I don’t have time for much.
I guess I like hiking.” I threw that in because Jasper and I did take his dog hiking sometimes, and I didn’t want to sound boring. “What about you?”
She licked her lips in thought. “Oh, I don’t do a whole lot either. But I am a fan of hiking.”
That was a clear opening. “We’ll have to go sometime.”
For a moment, I worried she’d backtrack and give me some version of “I’m not saying yes to hiking with you now, but I’m not saying no to hiking with you later.”
She turned her dark eyes on me. “I’d love to. We should plan something.”
I couldn’t help but smile. Looked like Jasper was right about my chances with Dahlia after all. That’s when I remembered my situation. I wasn’t free to plan outings. “I can’t go anywhere for two weeks. I’m grounded.”
I cast a look back at my family’s table. Madeline stabbed her spoon into her ice cream with a barely masked glare in my direction.