“I need help,”I say as I drop into my usual seat at the back of the plane next to Coop.
“Oh, hello Fletch. What a lovely day we’re having. How are you?” Cooper replies, not even lifting his eyes from the book in his hands.
I can’t see what it is because he has it wrapped in one of those stretchy book covers we used in school on our textbooks, which is odd. I lean closer, trying to get a better look at the page but I only catch the wordfuckbefore Austin pops up to look over the seat at us, pulling my attention away. “You definitely need help. But what kind of help are we talking about here? Psychiatric?”
I roll my eyes. “Hi Coop, how’s it going?” I turn to Austin. “No, not psychiatric help, you weirdo.”
He shrugs. “I don’t know, you were basically stalking that poor girl with the TV crew for a while.”
“We’ve gone over this. I wasn’t stalking her,” I grumble as I slump back into my seat.
“Riiiiight. She’s your girlfriend now?” Hunter asks as he falls into his seat next to Austin.
“We’rejustfriends!” I sigh in exasperation. “You know what, I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want your help anymore.”
Cooper slowly closes his book and shoves it into the seatback pocket before finally giving me his attention. “What’s going on?”
I roll my head in his direction. “Pretty sure I did something messed up.”
“Messed up, how?” Hunter asks.
I shoot a glare in his direction. “Are you going to help or are you going to judge?”
“Well, that depends entirely on the words that are about to leave your mouth. I can’t make any promises that I won’t judge.”
“Then I don’t want to tell you,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest.
Cooper rolls his eyes. “Ignore their dumb asses. What’s wrong?”
I cast one more wary look to Tweedledee and Tweedledum where they sit watching me expectantly from the row in front of us. I try to keep my voice low, but I know they’re going to hear me anyway. “So, you know when you wake up and you’ve gotta”—I clear my throat—“dealwith a situation?” I widen my eyes, trying to emphasize my point without having to say the words, but Cooper stares at me bewildered.
“Morning wood,” Austin stage-whispers to Coop and I want to facepalm.
“What he said,” I grumble.
Cooper’s face scrunches with disgust. “Dude, are you about to tell us about your masturbation mishap, because I can honestly tell you, we don’t want to know.”
I groan. “No. Well not entirely.” I thought with Cooper’s playboy status this would’ve been a safe space to confess.
“What does ‘not entirely’ mean?” Hunter asks, concern making his voice pitch up an octave.
I cover my face with my hands before I force out the reason I brought this up in the first place. “I did it to images of Isabella.”
“Isabella?”
“Who’s Isabella?”
“Wait, the TV girl?” Cooper asks, putting the pieces together.
“She’s their security, but yes. That’s Isabella.”
“Dude, you jerked it to your not-girlfriend who isjust a friend?” Austin asks.
“I fucked up. It was a moment of weakness. And she spent the night?—”
“She stayed over?” Hunter cuts me off.
“Well, we were watching movies, and she fell asleep, so yeah.”
