Chapter 24
Chapter
Twenty-Four
FRANKIE
Senior skip day was supposed to feel rebellious.
Instead, it felt like fluorescent lighting, bad pop music, and me pretending very badly that I hadn’t memorized the date of Coop’s birthday sometime around age six.
I’d kidnapped him right after first period—no questions, no explanations, just get in the car energy—and driven us straight to the mall under the guise of “shopping.” Specifically, shopping for a Homecoming dress, which sounded productive and normal and not at all like I was avoiding thinking about literally everything else.
It was… not going well.
I made it maybe twenty minutes before my patience evaporated. Every rack looked wrong. Every mirror felt accusatory. The music was too loud. The lights were too bright. And Coop kept side-eyeing me like he was waiting for a punchline I was refusing to deliver.
“You okay?” he asked carefully, as I stared at a rack of sequined dresses like they’d personally offended me.
“I’m great,” I lied.
“Really?” He hummed. “Because you look like you’re considering arson or maybe stabbing those dresses with scissors.”
I sighed. “I hate this.”
He didn’t even pretend to argue. “Want to ditch?”
The idea of ditching senior ditch day was funny, but the relief at escaping shopping—even pretend shopping—was so visceral and intense, I almost laughed for real. “Yes. Oh my god, yes.”
Five minutes later, we were back in the car, and I didn’t even think about where I was going until the gates slid open in front of us.
I pulled into the drive, then froze. At least this part required no acting on my part, bad or otherwise. “…Whoops,” I said slowly. “I guess I was on autopilot bringing you here.”
Here being Archie’s house—which my brain still stubbornly refused to categorize as my place.
I grimaced and glanced at Coop. “Want me to take you back to the apartments?” I suppose I could have offered to take him to get his car, but that would require going back to the school and we’d already said we’d get his car later, after school was out.
He made a face immediately. “No. That feels weird.”
I frowned. “Weird how?”
“Like… you’re not right around the corner anymore,” he said, shrugging. “And going back there without you just feels—off.”
Something in my chest twisted. “Yeah,” I admitted. “I still think that’s weird too.”
I pulled into the garage and shut the engine off. “Well. We’re here,” I said, pushing the door open. “So come on. Let’s find something else to do.”
We’d barely crossed the threshold when—
“Surprise!”
Foam darts came flying from every direction.
I shrieked. No one informed me about this part of the plan.
Coop swore.
Bubba whooped.
Jake laughed so hard he nearly fell over.
Archie stood behind them all, arms crossed, wearing the smug, satisfied smile of a man who had absolutely planned this.
“Happy birthday!” Bubba yelled as another nerf dart bounced off Coop’s shoulder.
Coop spun toward me slowly, narrowing his eyes. “You knew.”
I clasped my hands to my chest and let out the most melodramatic relieved sigh of my life. “Oh thank god,” I said. “Pretending I forgot was hard as hell.”
He stared at me for a beat.
Then he grinned. When he wrapped his arms around me and dragged me in for a hug, I returned it fiercely. “I’d never forget your birthday,” I promised him.
Real laughter—bright and surprised and completely unguarded—escaped him as he stepped back shaking his head, then he lunged for another dart and fired it back at Jake.
Just like that, the day shifted. The ambush dissolved into chaos almost immediately.
Coop dove for the couch, grabbed a stray nerf gun, and retaliated with a vengeance that had Jake yelping and Bubba cackling like he’d personally orchestrated the downfall of civilization.
“Oh come on,” Jake protested, ducking behind a chair. “It’s his birthday! You can’t shoot me on your birthday!”
A snort-laugh escaped me. Only Jake would like to rewrite the rules that on someone else’s birthday, he would be exempt. That was so not a rule.
“I absolutely can,” Coop shot back, firing again. “It’s literally the law.” Well, for us anyway. The birthday boy got what the birthday boy wanted.
Archie didn’t move much—he never did during Nerf wars—but he handed Bubba fresh ammo with quiet efficiency, like an arms dealer with standards.
I stood there for a second longer than necessary, watching them, the noise and movement and familiar insults washing over me.
They were shooting around me, and I could have jumped in.
They would not have minded. Still, as long as I didn’t touch a Nerf gun, they made doubly sure to never let the darts hit me.
Seriously, the darts didn’t hurt, but it really was the thought that counted.
Well, that and then they would make me base. If they ducked behind me, they were safe. Something Archie didn’t so much do as he strolled over to stand at my shoulder, but his proximity worked the same.
I grinned at him and he winked. The ease, the laughter—this. This was what I had been missing so damn much. This connection with all of them as the guys howled, laughed, and leapt the furniture. When Coop and Bubba tackled Jake to the floor, we were all laughing.
Eventually, Jeremy’s voice cut through the madness with impeccable timing. “Gentlemen. If you’re finished reenacting a small war—there is food.”
That ended it.
We migrated toward the kitchen first and then up to the game room in a loose cluster, Coop still grinning, Jake rubbing his arm where a dart had hit him point-blank, Bubba already talking about how starving he was like he hadn’t eaten since the dawn of time.
Considering my own stomach grumbled noisily, I wasn’t going to complain. Food appeared like magic—pizza boxes, wings, fries, and an absurdly specific cake that Jeremy pulled off without a lot of advance planning.
A sigh of gratitude escaped me, because Jeremy really was a magical human. Coop’s expression when he saw the chocolate cake, no fondant and minimal decorations, made even those few minutes of discomfort at the mall totally worth it.
Coop like chocolate. He liked cake. He did not like sickeningly sweet frosting.
In fact, he used to scrape it off so I could eat it on the cupcakes when we were little.
Still, when it came to his cakes, less was definitely more.
The pair of candles—one and eight marking his eighteenth said a lot with that little.
Coop stopped short when he saw it.
“Oh,” he said, quietly.
Archie leaned against the counter, watching him. “Jeremy has excellent intel.”
They all looked at me and I shrugged. “I do know a few things.”
Coop’s smile softened and the warmth of it wrapped me up into a hug. “You know me too well.”
“Sometimes,” I admitted. Sometimes I did and I really loved it when I did. Between us, we escaped with the trays of food and insisted to Jeremy that we could handle it. Once up in Archie’s game room, we sprawled across the couches and chairs.
Plates balanced on knees and babbling on a multitude of subjects even as our conversations bounced from group to one on one to back to the group, we ate with gusto and washed down the food with drinks. The cake waited downstairs for us to finish with the rest.
Bubba told a story from their last game that kept getting derailed by Jake correcting details that didn’t matter.
Archie listened more than he spoke, but when he did, it landed—dry humor, perfectly timed.
At some point, Coop ended up sitting beside me, our shoulders touching, not even a question.
He passed me fries without looking. I stole a wing off his plate and dared him to say something.
He didn’t.
Games followed—video games first, then something louder and more ridiculous that involved yelling and accusing each other of cheating. Jake absolutely cheated. Bubba absolutely lied about it. Archie pretended he wasn’t competitive and then annihilated everyone in the final round.
“Who even are you?” Jake demanded.
Archie smiled mildly. “Someone who reads instructions.”
“That’s offensive,” Bubba said.
I laughed so hard my stomach hurt.
Somewhere between the third round and the fourth, I realized my shoulders had dropped. The constant tension I’d been carrying—through hallways, through conversations, through sleep—had eased.
I wasn’t bracing anymore.
I was just… here.
When Jeremy finally delivered the cake, I was so full my stomach actually hurt. But I could make room for cake. There was always room for cake.
Jeremy lit the pair of candles, their flames steady and patient, and Coop hesitated as all of us launched in—off-key, out of sync, and completely unapologetic—into our own version of the birthday song.
“Happy birthday to you—” Jake started strong and immediately went flat.
You smell kind of like fries—” Bubba boomed in that low baritone that sent shivers through me no matter the lyrics, because of course he did.
“That’s not the song,” Archie cut in, deadpan.
“It absolutely is,” Bubba sang his argument on cue, not missing a beat. “Happy birthday to Coop—” He dragged out Coop’s name like a lost note that would open a locked door.
“Who’s old now and hates attention—” Jake added helpfully.
“And still owes me twenty bucks—” I chimed in, because it was tradition.
“Happy birthday to you—don’t drop the cake—” Bubba warned mid-note.
“Make a wish or you’re cursed—” Jake sang.
“That’s not how wishes work,” Archie said, still singing, and the smile wreathing his voice just filled me with a bubbly kind of joy.
“Blow them out before we set something on fire—” I finished.
Coop was laughing too hard to be embarrassed by the end of it, hands lifted in surrender as he leaned forward and blew out the candles in one breath, applause and terrible singing echoing off the walls.
Jeremy, to his eternal credit, nodded approvingly like that had been perfectly acceptable.
It was ridiculous.
It was loud.
It was us.
Coop shook his head, smiling, cheeks flushed. “You’re all idiots.”
“Your idiots,” I reminded him, because seriously, it was his birthday after all.
His gaze lingered on me for a beat longer than necessary. “Yeah,” he said softly. “I know.”
Later—after cake, after the games wound down, after an entire day spent playing—he drifted toward the window.
I followed.
The house hummed quietly around us, the others occupied but not distant. We stood side by side, watching the night press against the glass.
“Thanks,” he said finally.
“For what?”
“For this,” he said, gesturing vaguely. “For today. For… not letting it be weird.”
I smiled. “I didn’t forget. I just delayed.”
He laughed under his breath, then glanced at me sideways. “So… is the rule still that the birthday boy gets what he wants?”
The words landed with weight and history.
“It is,” I said immediately. “Always.”
He swallowed. “Then what I want is a kiss.”
I didn’t hesitate.
I stepped closer, rose onto my toes, and slid a hand around the back of his neck. “You’re going to have to help,” I murmured. “I’m a little short—”
He cut me off by looping an arm around my waist and lifting me easily, setting me onto the low ledge by the window. We paused there for half a heartbeat, grinning at each other like we were twelve again and everything was simple.
Then I kissed him.
Not careful. Not rushed.
Just honest.
When we pulled back, his forehead rested against mine, his breath warm, steady.
“Best birthday,” he said quietly.
I smiled. “You deserve it.”
And for the first time in a while, I let myself believe that maybe—just maybe—we were still allowed moments like this. When he raised his eyebrows at me, I kissed him again.
This kiss lingered longer than I’d meant it to.
Not because I was trying to make a point. Not because I was trying to prove anything. Just because it felt… right. Familiar and new at the same time. Coop’s hand stayed warm and solid at my waist, anchoring me there on the ledge as if he wasn’t quite ready to let go either.
A shiver of awareness slid through me—soft at first, then sharper.
Not from him.
From the room.
The hum of voices had faded. The laughter. The background noise. It was subtle enough that it took me a second to notice what was wrong.
Or rather—what was missing.
I pulled back just enough to register it.
Silence.
Not awkward. Not hostile. Just… very present.
My gaze slid past Coop’s shoulder.
Archie stood near the couch, arms crossed, watching us with an expression I couldn’t quite name—something careful, something restrained, something like he was making a deliberate choice not to move.
Jake was frozen mid-reach for another slice of cake, fork hovering uselessly in the air, eyebrows somewhere near his hairline.
Bubba leaned against the back of a chair, mouth half-open, clearly caught between saying something and deciding better of it.
They were all staring.
Heat climbed up my neck.
I opened my mouth—already bracing to make a joke, to deflect, to smooth it over—
When Coop beat me to it.
He didn’t turn around. Didn’t loosen his grip.
He just smiled against my mouth and said, perfectly calm,
“It’s my birthday.”
Then, louder, with unmistakable amusement, “Let them look.”
Jake sputtered. “I wasn’t—”
Archie cleared his throat.
Bubba grinned like he’d just been given front-row seats to something he’d absolutely brag about later.
Coop winked at me—actually winked—then leaned in and kissed me again.
This one was shorter. Playful. Certain.
Not asking permission.
Not apologizing.
Just claiming the moment.
When he pulled back, I was smiling so hard my cheeks hurt.
The silence shattered.
“Wow,” Jake said finally. “Okay. We’re just doing this now?”
Bubba clapped once. “I support birthday wishes.”
Archie shook his head, but there was a curve at the corner of his mouth he didn’t bother hiding.
I slid off the ledge, fingers still curled in the front of Coop’s shirt for half a second longer than necessary.
Yeah.
This—this was us.
Messy. Complicated. Laughing anyway.
And for tonight, that was enough.