Chapter Sixteen
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
COOPER
T he second Liesel walks into the Feeding Futures warehouse, I can sense it.
And by sense, I mean I use one of my senses—sight—to spot her. Because I’ve been staring at the door for the last twelve minutes to make sure I can’t possibly miss her.
“Hello, Ms. Fischer,” I say, holding up a small, clear zipper bag. “I’m glad you could make it.”
“Yeah, the snow’s starting to come down, but it was still fine to drive in,” she says. “What’s the bag for?”
“You’re not allowed to wear jewelry in the warehouse, so you can store your mom’s earrings in here.” She’s never said they were her mom’s, but her mom was wearing them in each of the social media pictures I’ve looked at. Even without seeing those, though, I had a hunch, considering I’ve yet to see her wear anything else.
She gives me a suspicious half smile. “You don’t need to be quite so observant.”
“I promise you I’m not with anyone else.”
“Should I be flattered or scared?”
“Ask Jenna,” I say as Liesel removes her earrings. “I didn’t notice she cut her hair into a pixie cut between our first and second dates.”
“Oh no,” she laughs. “I wouldn’t have given you a third date, either.”
“I’m the one who didn’t ask her out again.” I hold open the bag, and Liesel slides the diamond earrings into it. I zip up the bag and put it in her outstretched palm, folding her fingers over it and holding her hand as long as she lets me. “I figured if I didn’t notice she had a foot of hair missing, we weren’t going to work out.”
A small smile plays at her lips. She tucks the bag with her earrings into the back pocket of her jeans. I wrap a hairnet around her silky blonde hair, making sure my fingers skim across her cheeks and forehead way more than necessary, because I love the feel of her skin.
“Jenna’s loss,” she says quietly.
And those two words erupt like a volcano low in my gut.
“Does that mean it’s Liesel’s gain?” I ask, the need to kiss her crackling like a fire inside of me.
Liesel glances around us. This is a move I’ve gotten used to in the last few weeks. It’s what she does when she wants to talk—wants to flirt —but isn’t sure she should.
“You know, we probably shouldn’t be seen together,” she says. Her darting eyes drop to my mouth and then bounce back up to my eyes. “There are going to be a lot of photos at this event.”
I pick up two Santa hats from a nearby table and fit one on her head and the other on mine. “They asked for no pictures on the warehouse floor.” I keep my eyes on hers. If I look at her mouth, I’m going to kiss the heck out of it. “They’ll take pictures at the end.”
The pompom at the bottom of the hat falls in her face, and I move it to the side. “What about Doug?” she asks.
“His family left for Hawaii this morning.”
“What about Juliet and Nate,” a voice says from right next to me. I flinch and see Liesel’s roommate wearing a hairnet and batting her eyes at us. Nate is standing behind her with a hairnet and an almost apologetic smile.
Liesel wrinkles her nose. “I forgot to tell you that Nate’s the head of legal for the Cruz Foundation. And Feeding Futures is owned by the Cruz family.”
“I’m starting to think I might be owned by the Cruz family,” I grumble.
“Sorry,” Nate says. I hold out my fist and he bumps his against mine. To Liesel, he says, “My family doesn’t ‘own’ the charity, though. It’s the charitable arm of our organization.”
“What’s the difference?” I ask.
“Semantics,” Juliet says.
“It’s not semantics. The distinction matters,” Nate says.
“That’s what rich people say when they don’t want you to know they own everything,” Juliet whispers.
Nate pinches her side, and then he and Juliet launch into a hushed debate while we join the throngs of volunteers to get instructions for the day’s work.
Liesel’s probably smart to be on the lookout for anyone who could snitch on us, but I can’t seem to care. I stand closer than I should, bumping her arm with mine. I can’t do the heavier routine activities, but I talked to the coordinator already and got assigned to a low-impact job.
When the coordinator finishes her explanation, she tells us that after every forty meals we box, she’ll ring a bell. “So let’s make those bells ring!” she says.
Everyone cheers and breaks for their different assignments. Liesel makes a move to follow Juliet, but I hook my arm around her shoulders and redirect her. “Actually, we’re this way.”
She grabs my hand on her shoulder, and for a second, I think she’s going to hold it. But then she bumps me with her hip and spins out from under my arm. “Shouldn’t I join my department?”
“Well, I can’t do any scooping or lifting,” I say, pointing to my scar. Her eyes tense when she looks at it. “So I’ve been assigned to label bags and boxes and organize volunteer stations.”
“And what does that have to do with me?”
I put my arm back around her shoulders, moving past volunteers going another direction. This time, she lets me keep it there. “I explained that I would probably need to have someone on the team help, in case I overexert myself.”
“How very responsible of you,” she says.
“I volunteered you to help, because I figured you wouldn’t trust anyone else to babysit me.”
“No, I would not.”
“See? I knew it. I’m sure your department will appreciate your sacrifice.”
“If anything, I think they would want me to do everything I can to protect the team’s investment.”
“I hoped you’d see it that way.”
When we get to our labeling station, there are chairs set up for two, and we get to work. Our arms bump into each other. Our thighs press against each other. We flirt and talk for the next three hours. Every once in a while, a worker rings a bell, signaling that another forty meals have been packaged. We cheer every time. The spirit in the warehouse is cheery and infectious, and Liesel is the happiest I’ve seen her since we met.
We’ve gotten to know each other well over the last few weeks of texting all night. Every new thing I learn deepens my feelings for her. I like that she loves cheesy disaster movies and considers Die Hard a Christmas movie. I love that she prefers the mountains to the beach (even if she’s wrong). And when she tells me she can’t fall asleep if her closet door is open, I feel an overwhelming urge to hold her.
“Let go,” she says with a laugh when I try.
“Shh.” I smooth her hairnet. “It’s okay. I’m here now.”
She shimmies out from around my arms and then adjusts her hairnet with a glare.
I love her glare. I want to pass it notes in class and ask if it will be my girlfriend.
Or Liesel could become my girlfriend. That works, too.
I peel a label from the sheet and put it on one of the sorting bags. “So is it a fear of the dark? Are we talking Monsters, Inc or Dateline level fear here ? ”
“It’s never been as defined as all that. It’s just one of the general fears I’ve always had.”
“One of them?” The tenor of the conversation is shifting, but I can handle the direction. “Do you have a lot of fears?” She wrinkles her nose. “Like what?”
“Oh, gosh. I hate sleeping with my feet exposed. I’m still afraid of what could be under my bed. I refuse to look at mirrors at night. You name it.”
“Falling? Collapsing while on an overpass?”
“No, not that kind of thing, oddly. More like the semi-irrational stuff.”
“Do you still have these?”
“Yeah, but I force myself to confront them sometimes.”
“To show you’re stronger than your fears?”
“More to show myself that they’re not real. Exposure therapy is the best treatment for anxiety.” She grabs a new sheet of labels and a new stack of bags. “It was bad when I was little. My brothers got to share a room their whole lives. They’d claim they hated it, but I was in my own room across the hall. I kept my door open, and I could hear them talk every night. It made me lonely. I’m not saying loneliness caused my fears, but I never felt secure. I was the only person in the house who didn’t share a room with someone, and it always felt like anything could happen to me and no one would even know.”
“That’s a heavy thought for a little kid.”
“I know. I’d grown past the worst of it, but when I was thirteen and my mom got diagnosed, all those fears and superstitions came right back. I started wishing on the first star I would see every night—and it was pretty much always an airplane, because it’s not like you can see the stars that well in the Chicago suburbs. I’d throw spilled salt over my shoulder, wouldn’t step on cracks or walk underneath ladders.”
Someone rings the bell, and we all stop and applaud for another forty meals.
A piece of her hair is peeking out of her hairnet, so I tuck it back under. “Little Liesel,” I say.
She returns her attention to the label sheet, but her mouth is turned down into a slight frown that makes me want to protect her from everything that’s ever scared her.
“How is it for you now?”
“Fine for the most part. But every once in a while, I’ll just have this irrational fear hit me, or I’ll spiral into anxiety, so I have to do some anxiety busting techniques.”
“Oh, yeah. Love those techniques. I’m a big fan of progressive muscle relaxation.”
“I can’t do that one to save my life! The second I get past the top of my head, I’ll realize my forehead is screwed up in concentration and I have to start over. It’s all about the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 for me.”
“Grounding,” I say. “Classic coping skill.”
She smiles. “Do you have experience with anxiety?”
“I’ll have anxious moments now and then, but I mostly learned about it by researching things to help my mom.”
She nods slowly. “That’s right. You told me she has social anxiety.”
I nod. Michael Bublé serenades us over the drone of the warehouse volunteers, singing about his dreams of a white Christmas. I’ve never dreamed of a white Christmas. I’ve dreamed about my mom leaving the house.
Don’t think like that, I chastise myself. You wouldn’t feel that way if she were wheelchair bound. If she needed dialysis and couldn’t leave the city. She hasn’t found a treatment that worked. Don’t you dare blame her for that.
I move a stack of bags so I can label more. I should say something to Liesel, acknowledge her question. She’s been so open about things with her mom, and she’s the first woman I think I could talk to about my mom without it becoming a sob story, which I can’t abide, or without her feeling upset with my mom, which I can tolerate even less.
I’ve never wanted to open up to a woman before. I’ve never told anyone a thing about my mom. Just mentioning the social anxiety is more than I’ve done with anyone else.
I want to tell Liesel.
But if I tell her, that’s it for me. The first woman I tell about my mom is the last woman I plan to tell about my mom. Her condition isn’t something to expose to speculation, anger, or ridicule.
I can’t imagine any of those responses from Liesel. And that’s one more reason I want to tell her.
Can I tell her already? After only three weeks?
We’re both engaged in our tasks—peeling labels from the sheet and putting them on bags—but I’ve rarely felt so connected to someone else. Not just in this moment, but overall. Since our first exchange in the airport, I’ve been drawn to her. And since we called our truce and have become friends, I’ve felt an interest that defies explanation. I’ve dated famous, beautiful, interesting women. But none of them have held my interest like Liesel does.
I know that’s easy to say. It’s only been a few weeks.
It’s tempting to think it’s just infatuation. She’s smart and funny and calls me on my crap, which I find maddeningly attractive. She’s also stunning. Drop dead gorgeous. But infatuation is about only seeing an idealized version of someone, and nothing about my experience with Liesel has been ideal. I don’t even want some glamorized Liesel. I like the messy one. The one wearing a hairnet and talking about having anxiety. The one who dry shampoos her hair for cocktail hour and still manages to look like the hottest thing since sunburn. The one who leaves flour on her face while she bakes in her sweats and big fuzzy socks.
I’ve seen so many glimpses of Liesel, but it’s like seeing all the pieces of a puzzle and knowing the image they’ll make versus actually seeing the complete picture.
I want the complete picture. Something tells me I won’t get that if I don’t open my mouth, though. My heart hammers at the thought, my pulse doubling just thinking of opening up, letting someone know how much I care.
If you don’t care about anything, you can’t get hurt by anything.
“We’re out of labels,” Liesel says. Her tight smile makes me think she agrees with my mental self-assessment: I should have opened up.
“I’ll come with you to get more,” I say, hoping she gets from this that I’m still willing to put forth some effort.
Even if that effort is going to an office ten yards away to get more sheets, bags, and boxes.
Yeah, that’s weak even to me.
Everywhere, people are engaged in scooping ingredients into bags, boxing, and moving them. They smile and laugh, but they all work. Nate and Juliet look like they’re in a rousing debate about something as they pack meals. They’re both animated—Nate keeps spilling food back in the bins when he talks with his hands—and they look like there’s nothing they’d rather be doing.
When we’re back to our table, I ask Liesel, “So Nate and Juliet met last year because of … parking space wars?”
“Pretty much. Nate is our downstairs neighbor, and the old building gossip was always trying to set Juliet up with him. She never really knew him until they got stuck on our elevator during a blackout, though. Six hours and a near diabetic coma later, they went from hating each other’s guts to falling pretty hard.”
A chuckle sounds in my throat. “That sounds like some cheesy Christmas movie.”
“Cheesy? No, that sounds like an amazing Christmas movie. And I hate Christmas movies.”
I yank the label from her hand and put it on my bag, instead. “I think you want to hate Christmas because you’re afraid of how it will feel if you admit that you love it.”
She blinks several times at the bag in front of her. One hand reaches to spin her earrings, but she must remember they’re in her back pocket, because she puts her hand down.
I meant what I said, but now I worry it was the wrong thing. Or too much of the right. I keep pushing her to open more and more while I’m not doing the same.
“So what is Nate like?” I ask, heading off whatever direction her thoughts were going. “I’ve only met a few billionaires before, but none of them would live in the Riviera Apartments in Pilsen. Or give their car to a friend just because hers was stolen.”
“That’s Nate for you. He’s the most generous guy I know. He’s also practically a doomsday prepper, so, you know, balance in the force.”
I chuckle. “How so?”
“It’s part of them having gotten stuck on the elevator. They’re all about having Swiss Army knives and emergency supplies everywhere they go now, because they’re both too afraid of losing each other. It’s kind of romantic.”
“And only slightly paranoid,” I add.
She shrugs, looking at her smiling friend. “I think when you really love someone, you’ll do anything to minimize the risks that could take them from you. No matter how paranoid.”
“That’s not how it works, though. No matter what you do, the other person still has agency. Or a condition that limits their agency. And that’s to say nothing of accidents. You can do everything right, and something could still happen.”
“That doesn’t mean you don’t try,” she says.
I shake my head. “That way lies madness.”
“It’s not madness. It’s love.”
“It’s overwhelming. You spend your whole life second-guessing yourself, constantly questioning every choice you make, worrying if you’re responsible for other people’s decisions, if you’re at fault for every twist of fate. Hope turns into a fixation. Love becomes neurosis. It’s too much pressure!”
Liesel gives me a sad look. “Is that how you felt? With your mom?”
I feel like I’ve just stripped naked and streaked across the stadium. “I don’t know. I’m just saying.”
“Ah, okay.”
Stupid Cooper! Just open up!
A bell rings, and the volunteer coordinator calls us all back into the center of the warehouse.
“Looks like that’s our call,” I say.
She squeezes my hand and smiles. I smile back, all the way to my eyes.
So why does that make her frown?