Chapter 13
Madeline
After we dropped off the Nashes, I got into the front seat with Dad and had to endure his questions about what had happened between Cooper and Dahlia.
He didn’t come right out and ask if Cooper had been hitting on another girl in front of me, but the question was layered into his comments.
Despite what Cooper alleged about not flirting with her, after he sat down, the two had stared into each other’s eyes and smiled nonstop. The way she’d pulled out her phone in an obvious attempt to get his number—not exactly low-key.
I told my father that Cooper apologized in the car and claimed he was just being nice to Amelia’s friend, but I made it clear that I was still upset.
The weird thing was that I really was more upset about it than I should’ve been. I didn’t have to channel some wounded character to create the tone in my voice. The rejection was already there, twining through my chest.
I’d glammed up tonight to play the part of the doting girlfriend. I’d flirted with Cooper in the car. I’d whispered sweet nothings into his ear—and okay, we’d actually been discussing buckwheat pancakes, but I’d done it in a sweet-nothings sort of way.
Cooper had held my hand, and that had stupidly set my heart beating faster.
Method acting apparently had its downsides. I’d started to believe my own role a little too much.
When he saw Dahlia and so easily ditched me, it was a painful reminder that even when I was doing my best to keep his attention, I still wasn’t in Cooper’s league. Dahlia was. Dahlia and her barely masked manipulation of guys—she was beautiful enough and popular enough to be Cooper’s type.
I was tempted to call off everything with Cooper just so I could have the satisfaction of dumping him, even if it was only in front of our parents.
“These things happen,” Dad said, trying to console me but sounding too happy.
“Maybe you’re just not right for each other.
” He wasn’t telling me that I was overreacting or reading too much into their conversation.
He was glad things weren’t going well. “If you don’t want to go with me to Cooper’s football game next Friday, I’ll understand. I’m sure Nicole will too.”
“You’re going to next week’s game with her?” I asked. “I thought you wanted to go to the symphony.”
“The symphony plays on Saturday nights. The football games are on Fridays. Looks like I have my weekends booked for a while.”
That was enough reason to continue being Cooper’s fake girlfriend. If our parents married, I was not only going to have to endure Cooper moving into my house, he’d bring Dahlia over too.
The thought of the two of them cuddling in my living room made me want to hurl.
So Cooper and I needed to repair our fake relationship with a grand gesture of flowers, and from now on, I’d have to remember that when he flirted with me, it was only for show.
Selena, at least, was sympathetic when I called and told her that Dahlia and her popularity posse had crashed my fake sort-of-double-date with Cooper and our parents.
She made a tsking sound and said, “If he can’t see that you’re a better catch than Dahlia, he doesn’t deserve you.”
“He doesn’t,” I agreed.
“So it’s a good thing none of it is real.”
“Exactly,” I agreed again.
“None of it is real, right?”
“None of it,” I said. Except for the part where I noticed how attractive he was.
“I’m coming over anyway,” she said. “I know your dad won’t let me stay because you’re grounded, but someone needs to bring you key lime pie.”
She was right about that. And my dad must’ve sensed it because he let her stay for a half an hour before reminding us I was in teen prison and couldn’t have visitors.
Over the weekend as I did my homework, I half listened for the doorbell, the sign that a floral delivery person had come. I wondered what Cooper would put on the card and if any of it would be sincere.
No doorbell. No flowers. Cooper must have forgotten about them. Figured.
On Monday at school, I kept an eye out for him. He didn’t want people at school to know what we were doing, but sometimes we passed in the hallway. Each time I changed classes, I searched for his broad shoulders and loose brown curls among the throng of students coming and going.
I wondered if Claire had talked to him about Dahlia and if I’d spot him leaning up against a wall somewhere, flirting with her anyway. That was the thing about Dahlia. Guys knew what she was like and still chased her.
I was so distracted by possible Cooper sightings that Selena called me on it while we headed to our classes after lunch. “Who are you looking for?” she asked.
“No one,” I said too quickly and snapped my attention back to her.
She peered down the hallway, and her eyes locked on someone. “Is it him?”
“Who?” I automatically scanned the area for Cooper. He wasn’t there. It took me a moment to realize she was eyeing Boden.
Boden. I’d looked for him when I first got to the football game, but he wasn’t there, and I hadn’t given him a thought since. Now he was walking in our direction, and Selena expected me to say something. I hesitated, still deciding how to answer her until it was too late—Boden was within earshot.
He glanced over and saw us both staring at him.
“Hi, Boden.” I was trying for casual friendliness, but it sounded forced, like we’d just been talking about him.
“Hi, Boden,” Selena chimed in, amused at my discomfort.
Boden ducked his head and grinned. “Hey.”
Then he was past us, and Selena smiled, pleased with herself for figuring out who I’d been looking for.
I considered telling her about my mangled conversation with Boden and again decided that a better option was to take that secret to my grave.
Granted, Selena would see him in AP chem before I saw him in physics, but I wasn’t worried about him saying anything incriminating.
They didn’t sit together and were both shy.
Neither one of them would strike up a conversation.
Besides, I was so friendly and talkative to Boden in class that surely he had to have an inkling that I was the one who sort of maybe might be interested in him.
The nice thing about Boden’s showing up in the hallway was that I stopped thinking about Cooper and started thinking about what to say to him in physics.
As it turned out, memorizing a monologue about circumstantial evidence being inadequate proof of intent was a waste of time.
Mr. Johnson showed us a movie about momentum and impulse for the entire period.
I sat stiffly in my chair, watching slow-motion car crashes and rocket launches while I cast glances at Boden.
Impulse, by the way, is a completely different concept in physics than it is in real life, which makes it not nearly as interesting.
But perhaps viewing things crashing into each other while the term “impulse” was thrown around kept me from doing something impulsive, like running up to Boden as he left class to blurt out my case.
So there was that.
As I walked to my locker at the end of the day, I wondered if Boden was a lost cause, and if I should just tell Cooper that going to homecoming with other people was too complicated.
We ought to pretend to go for our parents and then skip the dance.
Although, after seeing the way he’d looked at Dahlia, I might have a hard time convincing him of that.
Was there a way to pay some hot male model to pretend to be my boyfriend for the night so Cooper couldn’t look down on me for being dateless?
If I called an agency and said I needed a guy to pose for a picture, but it was a picture at a dance and would take all night, would they think I was soliciting a male escort and turn my contact info in to the police?
My father had grounded me for almost a month after the principal called him.
How long would he ground me if he had to pick me up at the police station?
I reached my locker. Instead of opening it, I searched for modeling agencies on my phone. It wouldn’t hurt to just look at their photos.
This was what Cooper had driven me to. I was contemplating hiring a fake boyfriend so I wouldn’t have to admit to my other fake boyfriend that instead of going to the dance, I’d be spending the night hiding out in Selena’s bedroom while her parents wondered why I’d worn a designer gown and heels to hang out at their house.
The first modeling agency had rows and rows of pictures of handsome men, all ages. When I hovered over a picture, the site listed the guy’s height, waist size, and shoe size. No prices. If I called and, say, asked how much Benjamin cost for a night, I was so going to jail.
“Hey, Madeline.”
I jumped at the sound of Cooper’s voice and nearly dropped my phone. He’d appeared at my locker—because of course he had—and I hurriedly turned off my phone so he wouldn’t see what was on my screen.
His head tilted in question. “Why do you look so guilty?”
“I don’t,” I said. “You just startled me.” I glanced around to see who was nearby. None of my friends or his friends were, but still, everyone at school knew him. I lowered my voice. “I thought we weren’t talking at school.”
He leaned closer and matched my tone. “I never said we couldn’t talk. People don’t know why I’m at your locker.”
“People will wonder.” Especially since we were standing close together and murmuring things.
“I could be threatening you.” He straightened his shoulders and set his lips in a grim line. “Here. This is my threatening expression. Is it better if we talk like this?”
No, it made me laugh. “Stop that.”
He furrowed his brows intently and took a step toward me. “How about now?”
I pushed him away, still laughing. “You look more brooding than threatening.” I ought to know since I’d just ogled a bunch of brooding male models.