“What does that mean?”
“Nikki, Iknowyou,” Cooper says. “You are going to get cool with it. Eventually. Though you are way more whacked out about this than I thought you’d be…”
I sigh, hugging a throw pillow to my stomach. As far as Cooper is concerned, he’s probably right. Whether or not I feel cool with it, I’ll certainly act like it. I’ll press my own discomfort deep, deep down into the dark recesses of my soul and put on the happy face that everyone wants to see.
While praying with every fiber of my being that this relationship falls apart before it can cause mylifeto.
I try a different angle. “Do you really know this girl, Coop? How did you even meet?”
“At Sullivan’s on Fifth.”Of course.Sullivan’s is a knownLovedByhangout in Nashville. Aaron and his buddies used to frequent it whenever he was in town. Could Cara have been lurking there, trying to “accidentally” run into him? Did she cozy up to Cooper to try to make Aaron jealous?
“Look,” Cooper says, “I love her. You’ll love her, too, once you get to know her.”
“I know enough.” I turn toward my suitcase and start digging through it to find something not covered in motor oil.
“The Aaron stuff is in the past,” Cooper says from behind me. I hate how it sometimes feels like my siblings can read my mind. “Cara has fully moved on. I thought you had too? They haven’t been in touch in years.” He rises and heads toward the door. “Anyway, it would mean a lot to me for you to accept her. Your opinion really matters to me.”
It’s one of the most vulnerable things he’s ever said to me, and I’m taken aback by it for a moment.
But then he ruins it by saying, “And if you could get cool with this on the faster side, that’d be great. Cara’s family is coming over. Like, right now.”
“Why?”
“To celebrate the engagement. Duh.”
“Duh?” I repeat. “Duh?” I round on him, pointing my finger into his chest. “What. The. Hell. Cooper?Theyknew too?” I’m rewarded by the vague glimmer of fear in his eye before he darts out the door.
Classic little brother. It used to be that he’d fart in my room and then run out and hold my doorknob, trapping me in my own room. Now he’s more grown up. He’s trapped me with something far worse than a boy fart—his fiancée.
Realizing Cara herself could come up here any minute looking to put away her own stuff, I hurriedly wipe my smudged mascara and get changed. I pull a red gingham top and skirt set from my luggage, steam it in mere seconds, and slip it on with cute sandals. I give my hair a quick brush, then grab my suitcase and haul ass over to the front stairs this time. With one hand on the banister, I let out a deep breath. I can do this. I’ve done harder things without caving.
The doorbell rings, and I can hear my mother greeting Cara’s family as I descend the stairs with the heavy suitcase in one hand.
I can see a middle-aged man standing in the front foyer, who must be Mr. Lancolm, and there’s someone else behind him. A guy about my age.
I pause halfway down the stairs.
His clothes are different, but the crooked smile is the same.
It’s Tomato Guy.
7
EVERYONE HAS CLUSTERED INTOthe living room, which is right off the front foyer, through a big arched, open entryway. No one else has noticed me on the stairs, just Tomato Guy.
He’s no longer wearing the baseball cap, so now I can see his messy dirty-blond curls. The same intensely blue eyes stare up at me, and there’s a look of surprise on his face before he breaks into a wider grin. “You weren’t kidding about this being a small town.” Two dimples flash up at me, and I can’t help smiling back. At his words, the rest of the group turns toward me.
“Nikki, do you know Cara’s brother, Nate?” my mother asks.
Cara’s brother?
“He helped me when my rental car wouldn’t start,” I say, dumbfounded.
“That’s a very charitable way of describing it,” Tomato Guy—Nate—says with a grin.
“Come down here and meet Mr. Lancolm,” Mom says.
Cara’s dad, Russ, looks like the Alabama version of my dad—astriped polo with an Auburn logo and a belly that hangs over his khaki shorts. Mr. Lancolm seems friendly enough as I numbly greet him. I start to look around for Mrs. Lancolm, then remember reading in an article that Cara’s mother died when she was young.
