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“They aren’t creepy.” Yet, even as I argued, Ian, Coop, and Jake exchanged looks. “They’re not,” I told them before rounding on Archie. The skepticism in his eyes defied me.
“Read that and tell me it’s not creepy.”
One lavender rosefor how you enchanted me. Two white roses because I’m thinking of you. Three orange roses to dare you to do something different. Four white roses because I want to see you smile. The blue rose is elusive, a white rose dyed blue. They aren’t achieved naturally, but they represent the unattainable and the mysterious. They say, “I can’t have you, but I can’t stop thinking about you.” I’ll find you at the party tomorrow. Promise.
“What the fuck?”Jake said slowly. “He’llfindyou at the party. That means it’s not Frenchy. He’s going to the partywithyou.”
Ian frowned. “Yeah, they might be nice roses, Frankie, but Arch is right. That’s starting to sound like a stalker, and they obviously know your car.”
“Look,” I said, shifting to face them but Archie kept the umbrella over me. The other three were getting wet the longer we stood here. “I think it’s sweet and fine. If he introduces himself at the party tomorrow, it means he’s doing it where a lot of people are. That’s not creepy, that’s giving me a public place to meet them.”
“You want to meet ‘em?” Coop studied me.
“Kind of, because the roses took a lot of thought and so did these notes.” I glanced at the most recent. The roses were all so pretty. “I really thought it would be one of you guys. After Saturday and the craziness… I thought it was one of you.”
One by one, they shook their heads. That was only a little disappointing. So whomever it was had begun without any idea of the fallout between me and the guys or that I suddenly wanted to date.
“Well, I guess we’ll all find out together then.” I squatted to pick up the roses. They smelled great. The little tent over them was a propped stand. I unlocked my car and got the roses inside, then shrugged out of my backpack. “Good luck at the game tonight,” I said to Jake and Ian.
“If we play,” Jake said. “I’ll text you.” About coming over. But he didn’t add that. Leaning close, he dropped a kiss a me before he said, “Come on, Bubba. You two have fun tonight.”
“Yeah,” Ian said, pausing to brush a kiss to my lips, too. “But not too much fun.” He said the last to Archie who gave him a dry look.
“I’m not kissing you,” Archie said, and Ian laughed. “And we’ll text if we want to meet up.”
Jake narrowed his eyes, but they cut across the lot, through the rain to head to the locker rooms.
“Did you want to change?” Archie asked, focusing on me.
I glanced at the sky. Our walk around the lake was probably not going to happen, so why not get dressed up a little? “Sure, why not?”
“Awesome, I’ll be at your place in twenty? Twenty-five?”
I grinned. “I’ll be ready.”
With one last look at the roses and then Coop, he strolled away to where he’d parked. The rain got a little heavier as we navigated out of the parking lot with the occasional lightning flash. It was looking more and more like the game wouldn’t happen tonight.
I felt bad for the guys. Canceled games could screw up the schedule, especially if they had to set a make-up later in the year or just ended up throwing the game out entirely.
The skies opened up at the apartments and, once more, my mom wasn’t there in her nice spot in the carport and just once, once, I’d like to be able to use when she wasn’t there. I settled for my usual spot.
Coop eyed the world then handed me the roses. “Stay put.” He reached in the back and snagged the umbrella I kept back there—I’d been caught one to many times in the rain—then opened his door and snapped it open. After jogging around, he got my backpack out and held it in one hand before bumping the back door closed. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.”
He covered us both as much as possible, but my already damp shirt got soaked before we made it to the steps. It was impossible to share the umbrella there, so I hurried up them, still balancing the roses. Once inside, we were both laughing and drenched.
The cats yowled. I slid off my drenched sneakers and set the roses on the table in the kitchen. I’d move them later. Coop raked the damp hair out of his eyes, then grinned at me. “Hang on,” I told him. “I’ll grab you a towel.”
My hair was dripping along with my clothes. I was going to have frizzies any second now. What I needed to do was shower, blow it out and flatiron it. Then, hopefully, the humidity wouldn’t ruin it too badly.
I hurried up to my bathroom and grabbed a towel. Back in the kitchen, I handed it over to Coop but instead of taking the towel, he caught my arm and pulled me to him. Then his mouth crashed into mine and all the worry about my hair fled as he rolled his tongue against mine and dug his fingers into my hips.
Cold and wet, this shouldn’t be a turn on, but I tugged at his shirt as he pushed me back against the fridge. He slid his thigh between my legs and pressed the kiss deeper. With warm hands, he squeezed the chilled skin of my breast and then he tweaked the nipple. My hips bucked and I was torn between sucking on his tongue or grinding on his thigh.
His mouth was hot as he broke the kiss and trailed kisses to my throat. When he began to suck on my pulse point, I groaned. I already had three hickeys to hide. “Don’t…”
Coop lifted his head and stared down at me through half-lidded eyes. “I really want to get you out of these wet clothes.” He traced his thumb around my nipple. At some point, he’d rucked up my wet shirt and tugged the bra aside. “I want to taste every part of you and come in you instead of on you.” With each word, he flexed his thigh and I couldn’t breathe.
“Coop…”
