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“I’m not feeling so great either. My shoulder is killing me.” I just want to go home. I already missed a bunch of school. What’s another day going to hurt at this point?
“All right.” I can hear him shuffle around. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“You’re coming to get me?” I don’t think I’ve ever been alone with Cooper before.
“Yeah, your mom will be out for a few hours. It won’t take me long to pick you up. Hold tight,” he says before ending the call. Relief fills me, knowing that I don’t have to go back inside.
I make my way toward the front of the building. My phone goes off in my hand. Dunc’s name comes up. I don’t answer. Instead, I turn my phone off before shoving it down into my bag. Thankfully, Cooper gets here quickly. He leans over, opening the door for me.
“Thanks.”
“I brought you your medication if you need it and some juice.”
“Thank you,” I say again. I can definitely see why Mom is so head over heels for this man.
“You don’t have to thank me, Sadie. I know I’m not your dad, but maybe I could be like an uncle to you.”
“Really?”
“Of course. Did you think something else would happen?” I chew on my bottom lip, not sure if I should say anything. I take my medication and swallow it down with half the juice. I tried not to take them because they make me loopy, but my arm is still throbbing. “Sadie?” Cooper pushes for an answer.
“I thought maybe you wanted my dad and me gone.” I tell him the honest truth.
“Shit,” he mutters, sounding like Dunc. “Not gonna lie. I was damn jealous of your dad. He’s had her all these years.”
“You’re more his type.”
“I know. I know.” He shakes his head. “But I don’t feel that way anymore. You both are a part of the Donovans. We’re all a family now.”
I give him a smile, wanting to believe that. It’s sweet.
Too bad the last thing I want to be with Dunc is family. But I’ll fake it until I can make it. That’s the way it has to be.
CHAPTER13
DUNCAN
“Help you do what?”I stare at Scully, a senior who is best known for his kill book, which is an actual notebook where he documents all the virgins he’s had sex with. He rates them on a scale of one to ten. I know this only because he sits next to me in Ancient Civilizations. I don’t engage with him, but my lack of response doesn’t deter him any. He just blabbers on and on. I took—I mean, we all take—Ancient Civ because the teacher just shows movies and YouTube videos during class. Our tests consist of watching these same videos and then writing down key points from them.
It’s a no-brainer class that has occasional interesting moments. The stuff about Herculaneum in Italy was cool as fuck. It was covered in ash from the Vesuvius eruption, and the ash protected it from looting and weather. When it was discovered, whole wood beds and even paper scrolls were intact. So not everything in this class is a waste, but that made Scully even more annoying because he’d keep talking even during stuff that was cool like the videos on Herculaneum.
Now he’s saying he needs me to help him fix some prop for the theater because the lead is a sophomore that he’s been trying to bed for three weeks, and she keeps telling him no.
“You build shit, right? With your dad?”
I don’t tell him that it’s Uncle Coop now because that’s just too much of a hassle. “I’ve never built a stage prop, and I need to meet S—someone for lunch.” No need to put Sadie on this asshole’s radar.
“But you have Home Ec next period with Mrs. Mannon. She won’t care if you skip out to do some work on the play.”
I don’t like Scully much. I have no intention of helping him get in some girl’s pants. I also don’t care about the play, but building something is a lot more interesting to me than baking cookies. “Fine.”
“Great.” Scully slaps me on the back. “It’ll be fun.”
The props look like they were made by preschoolers. Screws aren’t countersunk into the wood, which means people could trip or tear their clothes or, worse, their skin on a protruding fastener. No one seemed to use a level when building a riser as it’s visibly listing to the left. Some of the ropes used to raise and lower different items onto the stage look frayed and old.
“This place is a hazard.” I make a mental note never to allow Sadie in here. “Who’s in charge?”
“Coach Ingle,” says the girl under Scully’s arm. “But he’s never here because it’s football season, so we have to make do on our own.”
