“And then,” I went on, letting my voice calibrate to full bitterness, “I had to go around,cabinless, looking for someone to take me in. And just when I thought I’d have to sleep outside on one of the deck chairs, Finn came along, and felt sorry for me, and offered me his room. And since he was on his way to a last-minute booty call, I took it.”
Cooper closed his eyes. “I can’t believe you saw that sock.”
I started down the stairs again, calling back, “Wasn’t I supposed to see it? Wasn’t that the whole point? You don’t put a sock on a doorknobfor your roommate unless you want your roommate to know exactly what’s going on inside. And don’t even think about telling me who you were in there with. I don’t ever want to know.”
“JoJo—slow the hell down.”
“No.”
“JoJo, I need to tell you something.”
“Nope.”
“JoJo—I wasn’t in there with anybody.”
At that, I stopped.
Cooper stopped on his step, too, but he’d been catching up. Now he was just a few steps behind me.
“I saw Finn kiss you,” Cooper said then, his voice quieter. “On the deck.Ourdeck. And I was so jealous—you have no idea. Plus angry. And miserable. For a minute there, I wanted you to be miserable, too. So I went back to the room and did the sock thing—thinking if you could go off and mess around with people, I could do the same. Iwasn’tdoing the same. But I figured you’d come back at some point and see it there and, if nothing else, leave me alone. I wanted to lock you out. I wanted to make us even. Or maybe make you jealous. Even though, of course, if you were off madly in love with Finn, you wouldn’t even care. I wasn’t thinking things through. My mind was just—short-circuiting.
“But as soon as I closed the door, I thought about how you’d feel if you saw it. Maybe you wouldn’t care. But this would be the first time in my life I’d ever lied to you on purpose. Or tried to hurt you on purpose. And I got very clear very fast that I just didn’t want to ever do that. Period. For any reason. Not if I could help it.”
I took that in.
“So I went back out—and took it off.”
He went back out. And took it off…
Cooper went on. “Your timing’s incredible, by the way. It couldn’t have been there longer than five minutes.”
I turned back to meet his eyes. “You were there alone—all night?”
“I was there alone all night,” Cooper confirmed, “waiting for you to come back.”
“And you thought I was with Finn that whole time?”
Cooper nodded.
“And so when you said you didn’t sleep at all…?”
“I was just—pacing the room.”
“And so by the time you saw us in the morning…?”
He shook his head at himself. “I was not well.”
I took a couple of calming breaths. There was no Sock Girl.
Which meant I didn’t have to run away anymore.
I turned back to meet Cooper’s eyes. “I didn’t kiss Finn,” I said.
“Pretty sure you did.”
“It wasn’t what it looked like, is what I’m saying.”
“It looked like you and Finn smooching.”
