"Dude," Addie and the kid say in unison.
I shrug. "What? I've been busy. Do we have pineapple?" I ask Dad.
"I haven't been home in days. Your guess is as good as mine."
"Well then, what were you doing with this?" I ask, eyeing the chicken.
"I was going to make some baked chicken and vegetables," he says.
"Bullshit," Addie says. "You were hoping Mom would be home."
Dad shrugs. "Maybe. What are you up to tonight?"
"I have to leave for work in a few," she says. "So it looks like the superstar is making dinner tonight." She pokes me, and I flip her off.
Mom can make anything out of nothing. It's her superpower, and luckily she passed some of that on to me.
"Punk, go check the pantry. What are we working with?"
With Cooper's help, I get dinner prepped. We put the chicken in the oven to bake so we can shred it later. I dice an onion and a pepper while he breaks some angel hair pasta into smaller pieces.
His homework's done, and even though Dad's technically the one babysitting, he disappears to his office. So Coop and I get to work on a booby trap to scare Jade. His idea, not mine. I'm afraid she might murder me, but I'm betting if I use Coop as a shield, I'll survive.
"Why do you do that?" he asks. His tongue pokes out from between his lips as he concentrates on tying a knot in the string that holds the old Halloween mask.
"Do what?"
"That," he says, pointing to where I'm curling my left hand into a fist. "You flex it and make a fist over and over."
"How do you feel without your glasses?" I ask.
"Blind."
"I suppose I walked right into that one, huh?"
"Yup."
He hands me the mask.
"Tape?" I ask.
Coop hands me the tape, and I attach the mask to the broom handle. I'm grateful for the distraction, hoping he forgets he askedme a question. How do I explain my hand feeling foreign? Like it's not mine?
"Hey, is that the tattoo shop?" I ask, pointing at his shirt with a 'Tonic Tattoo' logo.
"Yeah. Emily and her husband Rich own it," he says and ties the other end of the string to the doorknob. "Man, I hope Charlie doesn't get here before Mom."
"Me too. They have an InASnap?"
"Tonic? Yeah."
I toss him my phone. "Follow them for me?"
Coop taps away on my phone while I tug on the knots, double-checking they're tight.
He hands me back my phone, and we finish rigging the trap. Coop tests it out twice before he's confident it's ready to go. Part of me wants to text her, to give her a heads-up, but I don't. Instead, we resume getting dinner ready and wait.
I want to pry more info out of him, like why Jade doesn't normally date, or what the deal is with her mom, but I don't. It's none of my business, and the less I know, the better. I'll be less likely to want more, right?
