Chapter 16
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
ELLERY
SENIOR YEAR OF COLLEGE
Bryce and I were meeting Cooper at a party.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t won the Player of the Year award that year, even though he’d won it the previous year, but he wasn’t upset.
His eyes were on the future, with the draft only months away.
With the help of the coaches and his dad’s friends, he found an agent he really connected with.
Things were going well. Although sometimes I saw the grief of missing his dad seep in, most of the time, he was the same old Cooper.
“Do I look okay?” Bryce asked while we walked down the sidewalk toward the party.
It wasn’t hard to find the house with the noise flowing down to the street. She was wearing a short skirt and a tight T-shirt that showed off her body. She’d recently broken up with Ian and was searching for a rebound.
“You look great.”
She hooked her arm in mine as we walked. “You know, Cooper seems different lately.”
“How so?”
“I think he might be ready to be more than friends. Now that some time has passed since his dad died.”
Some people filed down onto the sidewalk with drunken swaggers as we grew closer to the house.
“I’m not sure about that.”
There had been more than one time when I’d thought that maybe we’d both had enough of just friendship.
Late nights of studying where we woke up cuddled on the couch.
Or watching movies with our legs or arms touching, causing electricity to shoot up my arm.
Sometimes I felt like I was the only one who felt that way.
But last week, he cornered me in the galley kitchen and tickled me until I screamed mercy.
It ended with me bending back on the counter and him right above me, chest to chest. Our eyes locked, and in that instant, I knew that I wasn’t the only one thinking about what it would be like if we were more than friends.
“You know it scares him.” I’d told her what had happened at his dad’s funeral in the Corvette. He was scared to make someone he cared about crazy with paranoia that he was cheating on him.
“I’m not so sure. Would a friend wait on the porch?”
I followed her line of vision and found Cooper talking to someone on the porch. He was casually leaning against one of the pillars, smiling and laughing. The pit of my stomach said there was a reason our lives had intertwined all along.
“Jeez, look at you. I’m so jealous.”
“We’re friends,” I said, approaching the walkway to the house.
Cooper said goodbye to whoever he was talking to and met us at the top of the stairs.
“Delusional friends. I gotta go find a man. Hey, Coop.” Bryce hugged him and went into the house.
“What’s with her?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder.
“Looking for a rebound to get her mind off Ian.”
He opened his arms, and I stepped into them, allowing the warmth of his body to replace the chill in mine from walking down the block.
“Well, Ian is here, so this should be interesting.” Cooper released me, but his hand slid into mine. “Let’s get a drink.”
We weaved through the crowd of people talking, dancing, and drinking until we reached the kitchen.
We opted to get beers from the keg and found a spot in the living room to talk.
Some of his teammates came by and said hello to us, but Cooper was quick to dismiss them, even though we usually socialized with everyone.
He sat on the ledge of the windowsill while I stood between his legs. It was more intimate than we usually were with each other, but it felt nice. As I sipped my beer, I almost choked it out when his hand landed on the back of my thigh, running up and down as if we were a couple already.
My stomach fluttered like hummingbird wings, and I turned to face him. “Whatcha doing?”
He set down his beer and stood to his full height, towering over me by six inches. Both of his hands fell to my hips. “Want to dance?”
“Since when do you dance?” I chuckled.
He leaned close, and my breath hitched when I thought he might kiss me. “Since right now.”
After taking my beer from my hand, he placed it next to his. As if we were ever going back to get them. With his hand in mine again, he guided me to the middle of the dance floor, pulled me into his arms, and locked me against his chest. God, it felt good, there was no denying that.
The music was slow, easy to dance to, and our emotions rose to the surface.
“Elle,” he whispered, moving my hair over my shoulder. “I’ve been thinking…”
Oh boy, this was it. He was going to make this a thing.
Did I want it to be a thing? Did I want us to be involved romantically?
Part of me said yes. Take him back to my apartment to feel those lips on mine and what those strong hands and fingers could do to my body.
But I didn’t want us waking up the next morning and looking at one another as though we’d made a mistake.
“Yes?” My mind was still whirling, but I needed to answer him.
“We’re about to graduate. I don’t know where I’m headed yet. There’s a lot of talk about who wants me, but nothing’s for sure. You’re going to Chicago for medical school.”
“It’s a lot of change.” I wasn’t looking forward to the days when he would no longer be my neighbor.
His breath tickled the soft spot right under my earlobe. “Yeah, and this is probably our last opportunity to be with one another.” He linked his hands behind my back, and my breasts crushed against his strong chest.
“But then we’ll have to leave each other,” I reminded him in case he’d forgotten that while we might have a couple of months now, what happened after graduation?
“What if we threw caution to the wind and just said fuck all the reasons we’ve kept our relationship to only being friends?” He drew back to see my expression.
I tried my hardest to fight the fear racing through me. I wanted to cross the line, but his dad had shut that down shortly after we met, and after he’d died, Cooper became distant and seemed to double down on that sentiment, so this Cooper? He was all new to me.
“I never want to lose you in my life,” I said.
Which was the truth. Cooper meant so much more to me than sex and my attraction to him.
He listened to me and knew me well enough that just from me saying hello, he’d know if it was a good day or bad.
On the bad days, he always brought me his homemade chocolate chip cookies.
We’d woven our friendship into the fabric of our lives, and I would have been devastated if we tried our luck at romance and it made us worse, not better.
He brushed back my hair, tucking it behind my ear. “You’ll never lose me. Ever.”
“You say that now, but we’ve all seen what happens when relationships go south.
You forget all the things you used to like about each other.
” Maybe I was being selfish, but there was already so much change happening in the coming months.
I wasn’t sure I wanted this to change too.
“It’s already going to be so hard to say goodbye to one another when you get drafted to some team on the West Coast and I’m in Chicago. ”
He laughed, and his eyes met mine. For a second, he said nothing.
“One thing I love about you is your ability to overthink something. These are our last few months before we have to go out into the real world and be adults. I want to do that with you as my girlfriend and not as my best friend. Think about it… lazy Sundays in bed after a night of fucking, I make you breakfast in bed. Walks through campus hand in hand, being able to kiss each other whenever we want. You coming with me to the draft, and we get a hotel room to celebrate after.”
I couldn’t deny that he was getting me closer and closer to agreeing to put everything we had in jeopardy. “Are you sure you shouldn’t be rethinking a career in law?”
He chuckled. “What do you say?”
I smiled and bit my lip while fear pressed down on me from all sides. But I pushed it away and went with the thread of a feeling that was always there, whether I wanted it to be or not—the one that made me think that Cooper and I could be something really special.
So I nodded. “Okay, okay, yeah.” I sucked in a cleansing breath.
It was done. I’d made my decision. But now that I knew I was probably about to have sex with Cooper, I needed a minute to get myself together.
Freshen up and make sure I was perfect. “But I have to go to the bathroom first. I’ll be right back. ”
He grinned at me, and his dimples came out, making the space between my thighs tingle in anticipation. “I’ll find Bryce and tell her we’re leaving.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
His eyes fell down my body, and my libido ignited from his attention. Yeah, we were going to do this.
I headed to the bathroom, but the line downstairs was way too long, so I went upstairs. There were only two people in line when I got there. Perfect.
By the time it was my turn, I was barely paying attention, wondering what it would feel like to be with Cooper after all this time. Questions racked my brain—what kind of lover was he? Would he treat me with gentle hands or be rough? Maybe a mixture of both?
I walked into the bathroom and turned the lock. My mind was consumed with everything Cooper. A cheesy smile reflected at me in the mirror when I washed my hands.
Bryce was going to flip after she found out we’d crossed the line.
“Fire!” someone screamed from the hallway, banging on the door.
“What?” Panic constricted my chest.
Okay. Okay. Calm down.
I touched the doorknob like we’d been taught as kids, and it was hot, which meant the fire was nearby.
Heading to the small window by the toilet, I stood on top of the lid and opened the window.
Flames came out of the window to my right, the wind making the flames leap into the night like outstretched fingers.
Shit. How the hell was I going to get out of here?
My phone rang in my pocket, Cooper’s name on the screen. “Hello?”
“Where are you? I went to the bathroom.” It was clear from his voice that he was panicked, and I heard chaos surrounding him.
“I’m upstairs. The line was too long on the main floor, but I think the fire is up here.”
“I’ll come up and get you.”
“No!” I screeched. “I think the fire is in the room next door.”
“I’m coming.” He hung up.
I had to get out of there before he risked himself.
I took a towel and used it to cover the doorknob, tugging on the door until it inched back.
Flames blazed over the doorways of the bedrooms, smoke billowing everywhere.
A group of four were rushing to the stairs, and one girl grabbed my arm and pulled me in behind her.
Surely I’d see Cooper coming up, and he’d follow me downstairs, where we’d be safe.
The farther down the hallway I got, the smokier it became. I heard people screaming and crying. I touched the wall, almost tripping on a stair, and when I reached the landing at the bottom, all the people in front of me were gone.
“COOPER!” I yelled.
“ELLE!” he yelled back, but I couldn’t figure out where his voice was coming from.
“I’m almost out. Meet me outside!” I screamed over all the confusion.
“GO! GO!” he yelled.
The firefighters arrived as I got outside, and one of them escorted me to the neighbor’s yard.
“Elle!” Bryce rushed over. “Are you okay?”
“She needs to get checked out as soon as another ambulance gets here,” the firefighter said to Bryce.
“Cooper,” I said, and the firefighter looked down at me. “Our friend Cooper is in there. He was looking for me.”
“Cooper Rice?” he asked.
Of course he knew Cooper. “Yes!”
“Shit.” He walked away and talked into his radio, and I watched as two more firefighters entered the burning house.
Bryce sat next to me. Our hands tightened around each other’s as we watched them bring out student after student, but none of them were Cooper.
“B, what if—”
“No. Don’t let your mind go there. Don’t. He’s the fittest of anyone in there. He’s going to make it out.”
My stomach bottomed out, and my entire body went numb when a firefighter came out carrying Cooper and running toward an ambulance.
An hour later, I’d been checked out to make sure I hadn’t taken in too much smoke, and Bryce and I were at the hospital in one of the ER rooms, waiting for Cooper to get back from a CT scan.
“I saw you two on the dance floor,” Bryce says to me.
“That doesn’t matter now.” I started pacing again. I hadn’t been able to stop it since we got here.
Bryce went to the vending machines, and a few minutes later, Cooper was wheeled in. He looked pretty good except for the soot covering him.
“Let him rest,” the nurse said to me after getting him comfortable.
When she left the room, I grabbed his hand, tears running down my cheeks. “I was so scared.”
“Me too,” he said and squeezed my hand. “But we’re good.”
I shook my head, unable to even imagine how I would have dealt with it if the worst had happened. Who would know exactly what I needed on a bad day, and who would I celebrate with on the great days? “Promise me something?”
He stared into my eyes, that cocky smirk in place, both his dimples showing. “Promise what?”
“That you’ll always be in my life. You’ll never leave me.”
“Come here,” he said, and I crawled into the bed with him. “I’m fine. Look at me.”
I did.
“I’m one hundred percent fine. It was just a scare.”
“Just promise,” I said, laying my head on his chest, desperate to hear him say the words.
“Okay, I promise.” He wrapped his arm around me.
“Then it’s settled.” I sat up. “We’re friends. Best friends until the end and nothing more. I can’t risk losing you.”
His eyebrows furrowed, and he studied me for a long while. Still not looking completely convinced, he nodded. “I promise.”
“Thank you.” I squeezed his body to mine. “Thank you.”