“Are you pitying me?”
“I’m definitely not—”
“Because I’m fine. I’m great.”
“Okay,” Cooper said, the way you acquiesce to a crazy person.
“I’m better than great, in fact. I’ve got a plan to fix my whole personality.”
“Wow,” Cooper said, like that was a tall order.
I nodded. “Better believe it.”
“And can I ask what this plan might be?” Cooper asked.
“You can,” I said. I was going to have to tell him at some point. Might as well be now. I took a step closer and looked around for potential eavesdroppers. Then I said, “I’m going tofall in loveon this cruise.”
In reaction, Cooper had no reaction.
His face stayed so still, in fact, that it prompted me to say, “Hello?”
Cooper shook his head, by all appearances trying to regroup. “Is that a plan?” Cooper asked. “Or… more like… a fantasy?”
“I know what words mean,” I said. “It’s aplan.”
“Okay,” Cooper said, lifting his hands.
“It’s an Ashley-approved plan,” I added, for legitimacy. “And she’s a marriage and family therapist.”
Almost, anyway.
Cooper didn’t argue.
I went on, “And you’re a central part of it now.”
Cooper took that in, studying my face. “Am I the one you’re going to fall in love with?”
“Oh, my god,” I said, smacking his shoulder. “Cooper! Focus!”
But Cooper shrugged. “I’ll do it.”
“Of course not,” I said.
Of course not.Cooper was the last guy in the world I could conquer. And I guess now is the moment when I have to unearth a half-forgotten moment in our friendship to explain why. Because the truth was—back in our senior year of high school, I’d allowed myself to harbor a little crush on Cooper, and I’d delusionally wondered if he might be feeling the same way about me. That is, until I had to take a shift at the kissing booth at the winter carnival. There had been a literal line for the girl on shift before me—but once I stepped into the booth?Crickets.
It was beyond humiliating.
I stood there like the most pathetic, unkissable person in all of human history for as long as I could bear it before I texted Cooper and told him to report to me, stat.
“I need you to kiss me,” I said when he showed up with a half-eaten corn dog.
At the words, Cooper promptly coughed out the bite he’d just taken.
We both watched it hit the asphalt and roll a couple of inches.
“What?” Cooper said.
“I’ve got twenty minutes left on my shift, and no one is kissing me.”
