Chapter 14 #2
It was probably this gesture of affection that prompted Ms. Nash to announce that Cooper still had homework and that it was time for them to leave.
Fine by me. If Cooper applied any more pressure to my hand, he would cut off my circulation.
Dad and I saw them to the door and said our goodbyes.
After they left, my father said, “I can’t believe Cooper sent you two bouquets of flowers.” Usually, when people say, “I can’t believe it,” they actually mean, “Isn’t it amazing?” My father’s tone leaned toward he actually couldn’t believe it.
“It was so nice of him.” I wasn’t about to admit to anything, let alone sending myself flowers and forging Cooper’s message.
I headed to the kitchen. “I’m taking the flowers up to my room, so I can see them while I do my homework.
” And so my father wouldn’t look at them or ponder why his daughter was lying to him.
Half an hour later, my phone rang. Cooper’s number. I knew he was going to yell at me about Dahlia or possibly yell at me about the flowers again—maybe even break up with me and tell me to go ahead and pick out the matching family sweaters—so I didn’t answer the call.
He texted, Call me.
I ignored that too.
Honestly, it was fine by me if we didn’t talk until my father dragged me to the next football game. I mean, it was bad enough that my real love life was a dismal mess; did I really want to talk about the disaster my fake relationship had become?
I trudged through my bedtime routine and went to sleep.
Dad liked to say that things always looked better in the morning, and most of the time he was right. This was not one of those times.
The next day before school, I told Selena about the debacle.
She’d come early to feed Mascot with me and use her cat skills, and a bag of cat treats, to put him at ease so I could pet him.
That didn’t work, by the way. He only ate the cat treats if she threw them within a couple of inches of him.
After ten minutes, she gave up trying to coax him over.
“Maybe in a few more weeks he’ll let us get close enough to catch him. He needs a real home.”
“He has a home. The school is his home.”
A flicker of sympathy passed over her face—sympathy for me, not the cat. “Feeding him every day isn’t a long-term solution. What is he going to do when you graduate?”
Come with me to a dumpster at college probably wasn’t the right answer. Still, graduation seemed so far away, hardly worth worrying about yet. “I’ll find some incoming freshman who loves cats to take care of him for the next four years.”
Her expression said she thought that was going to be more difficult than I imagined but she didn’t want to ruin my dream.
That’s what friends are for—to let you keep the occasional delusion.
I poured food into Mascot’s bowl. He sat upright and unmoving, then looked away from us with an imperious expression like he wasn’t hungry at all.
Selena and I walked back toward the front of the school. As we rounded the corner, I glanced over my shoulder and saw him wolfing down the food. Furry little liar.
My phone dinged with a text. I pulled it from my pocket and saw it was another one from Cooper. The part I could read said, Hey, I have some things for our lips to do.
Right. His lips just wanted to yell at me. I shoved my phone into my backpack without answering.
“I told you that fake dating him was a bad idea,” Selena said. “You should’ve just let things play out between your parents and hoped for the best.”
“Hope doesn’t get you anywhere,” I said. “Action does.”
“Action already got you grounded for two and a half weeks. How much time is your dad going to add to that when he finds out the truth?”
I didn’t even want to consider what would happen if he realized I was trying to manipulate him.
It would be worse than a grounding. “He won’t find out anything,” I said, and then relentlessly replayed our conversation last night, thinking about every word, implication, and facial expression my dad used.
Selena didn’t notice my silence because she was updating me on the messages she and Boden had sent each other.
She thought he was nice and funny. They were meeting after school to do their chem homework together, so that was good news.
My stint as an unintentional matchmaker had paid off.
At least somebody’s homecoming prospects were going well.
As soon as we reached the school steps, Selena ditched me to wait for Boden in the library, and I wandered off to my locker alone.
While I spun my combination, Cooper appeared at my side, phone in hand.
“You know, I’m beginning to think that Needy Cookie ex-boyfriend had a point.
What is the deal with you not answering your phone or the text messages?
” He put his hand on his chest. “Also, this is your reminder that I like chocolate chip cookies. I’m a fan of sugar cookies too if they have good frosting. ”
I guess it had been too much to hope that I wouldn’t see Cooper today.
“I didn’t answer because I knew you would yell at me about Dahlia, and I didn’t want to deal with it.”
“Yeah, about that . . .”
I let out a deep prolonged sigh. “It’s too early in the morning. Can’t yelling at me wait?”
He held up a hand in a gesture of compromise.
“I’m not yelling at you. I’m asking in a perfectly calm tone whether you were trying to make Dahlia look like some clingy sidepiece if she ever happens to speak to me after a game, or whether you were setting up my mother to look unstable by having her drag me away and then tell off Dahlia?
I’m just curious as to which of those outcomes you wanted. ”
“Even though your voice is calm, I feel like this technically counts as yelling.”
He shut his eyes for a moment, gathering patience, then pinned me with a glare and waited for me to say more.
I took out my book for first period. “I said those things about Dahlia for your benefit. This way, if she flirts with you while your mother is around, your mom won’t think it’s strange.
” Also, and this was petty of me, if Cooper was still dating her after our fake relationship ended, I didn’t want his mother to like her.
Let Ms. Nash think Dahlia was horrible. She wouldn’t be wrong.
“It’s all part of our cover. Speaking of which, did your mom believe my story about why you sent the extra flowers? ”
He slid his phone into his pocket with an unspoken sigh and leaned on the locker next to mine.
“I doubt it. If she had, she would’ve given me a lecture about not blowing my money on frivolous things.
Instead, she asked me a bunch of questions.
Which means she either thinks I’m hiding something or is worried I’m insane.
I’m leaning into the insanity defense. That’s what I’ve sunk to. ”
“Tell me about it. I know the rules of football games now.”
“You really don’t,” he said.
“Well, I still have to go watch them.” What else did I need from my locker? Concentrating on my books was hard while Cooper stood nearby. He and his broad shoulders so easily stole my attention.
He leaned a little closer. “Did your dad believe the story about the flowers?”
“He remained uncharacteristically silent on the subject. I’m not sure what that means, but it’s giving me an existential crisis.”
“Why?”
“What sort of actress am I if I can’t convince my father that I like a guy?
And not just any guy—” I fluttered my hand in Cooper’s direction—“the hot quarterback. That really shouldn’t be a hard sell.
Half the girls in school drool over you.
If I can’t pull off a convincing crush, I might as well turn in my thespian card and find a new hobby. ”
“Um . . .” Cooper said and stared at me.
“What?” I asked.
He tilted his head in question. “I don’t know how to respond when you say something nice about me. I mean, that was something nice, right? The way you said it with disgust is kind of throwing me off.”
Was he fishing for compliments? We’d already established his hotness. He’d taken a picture of me saying it. I turned to face him. “What I’m saying is that we can’t make any more mistakes, and that means you’ll have to do what you can to keep your homewrecking date out of the picture.”
“My homewrecking date?” He snorted, but I wasn’t retracting the title. In fact, I planned on calling her that for the rest of her life, including in Cooper’s yearbook, if I managed to snag it.
“The easiest thing to do,” Cooper said, “would be to tell Dahlia the truth, and then . . .”
“No,” I cut him off. “The girl has no moral character, and one of us is smart enough not to trust her with damaging information. I don’t know how forgiving your mom is, but if my dad learns that we faked a relationship to ruin his, I may find myself whale-watching in Norway for the rest of the school year. ”
“Norway?” Cooper repeated.
I’d figured his mother had told him the reasons for my parents’ divorce. He didn’t seem to know them. “That’s where my mother is. She’s a marine biologist.”
Cooper lifted his eyebrows and considered me. “How long has she been there?”
“About four years.” I shut my locker. “Humpback whales are apparently more interesting to watch than your children.” Although the truth was, she hadn’t been all that interested in being a mother before she left.
Peyton and I had always joked that her favorite child was her career.
We were just the things that got in the way of it.
He kept staring at me. I’d said too much, been too bitter with my last statement, and now he would either say something pitying or tell me I had to let my mother follow her dreams. That’s what people usually went with.
He didn’t say anything.
“Why are you staring at me?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I just didn’t realize we had that in common. My dad is gone for work too. He’s in Alaska working on an oil rig.”
Oh. It wasn’t pity or judgment. It was understanding. I relaxed a bit. “I guess neither one of them minds the cold or the sea. Maybe they’ll hit it off too.”
Cooper shook his head firmly. “That would be too weird. Also, I’m pretty sure my dad still wants to work things out with my mom.”
I’d been about to walk away from my locker, but my eyes snapped back to Cooper. He was serious. He still held out hope for his parents’ marriage.
My disbelief must’ve been evident. Cooper said, “My father wants to reconcile. I’ve already texted him that he’s got competition, and he’s suddenly calling my mother a lot more.
” Cooper cocked his head again. “You didn’t think my dislike of you was the only reason I wanted to keep our parents apart, did you? ”
“Yeah.” Because it had been my only reason, and now I felt petty about that.
I glanced around the hall at the people coming and going.
Cooper and I had talked for so long that the school was becoming more crowded.
I lowered my voice. “If we want our parents to put the brakes on their relationship, we need to work on being more convincing as a couple. And when I say we, I mostly mean you.” I turned to walk down the hallway.
I didn’t expect him to follow, but he kept pace beside me.
“Convincing how?”
My gaze swept the area, searching to see who was around. “Aren’t you worried your friends will see us walking together?”
“Nah.” His expression was unconcerned. “They know our parents are dating. If they see us, I’ll tell them we’re plotting how to escape the next family event.” He shot me an impatient look. “What do you mean I need to be more convincing?”
My voice dropped to a murmur. “For one thing, don’t flinch when I touch you.”
“I don’t flinch when you touch me.”
To prove my point, I reached out and put my hand on his arm. He totally flinched out of the way.
“See,” I said.
His head whipped left and right, checking whether anyone had seen the gesture. “That’s because we’re at school. I didn’t flinch last night.”
I raised my eyebrows to let him know I thought he was deluding himself.
He coughed in annoyance. “My mother knows I don’t do public displays of affection. It would seem suspicious if I suddenly changed that.”
We walked in silence for several steps. I considered the cold, hard bleachers that awaited me on Friday night.
“You could always fake an injury during the game so we don’t have to get ice cream afterward.
Or,” I said, perking up, “you could fake an accident beforehand so I don’t have to go to the game at all. ”
He gave me the side-eye. “A scout might show up. I’m not faking an injury just so you don’t have to sit through another football game.”
“Fine,” I said, “but you’ll have to be convincingly flirty when we’re with our parents. Work on that, okay?”
He shook his head. I wasn’t sure whether that meant no, he wasn’t going to work on it, or whether he was shaking his head in disbelief because I’d told hot, popular him that he needed to improve. That’s the problem with amateur actors. They don’t realize how bad they are, but everybody else does.
We’d reached a juncture in the hall where Cooper had to turn.
I knew this because I’d learned his schedule back when we were pulling pranks.
Dahlia stood there, talking to one of her friends, but also obviously waiting for him.
I felt an unreasonable spike of annoyance seeing her there.
I bet Cooper wouldn’t flinch if Dahlia put her hand on his arm.
“See you later,” he told me, his attention already on her.
She brightened when she saw him, then noticed me next to him. Her eyes momentarily iced over.
Cooper sauntered toward her, and I was forgotten, discarded as unimportant. I couldn’t change that, but I could tweak Dahlia. “See you Friday night, Cooper!” I called.
He didn’t respond. Dahlia’s gaze snapped back to me. More ice. At that moment, I really did hope she went up to Cooper’s mom at the game and said something to her. It would serve her right.