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“You know it scares him.” I’d told her what had happened at his dad’s funeral in the Corvette. He was scared to make someone he cared about crazy with paranoia that he was cheating on him.
“I’m not so sure. Would a friend wait on the porch?”
I followed her line of vision and found Cooper talking to someone on the porch. He was casually leaning against one of the pillars, smiling and laughing. The pit of my stomach said there was a reason our lives had intertwined all along.
“Jeez, look at you. I’m so jealous.”
“We’re friends,” I said, approaching the walkway to the house.
Cooper said goodbye to whoever he was talking to and met us at the top of the stairs.
“Delusional friends. I gotta go find a man. Hey, Coop.” Bryce hugged him and went into the house.
“What’s with her?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder.
“Looking for a rebound to get her mind off Ian.”
He opened his arms, and I stepped into them, allowing the warmth of his body to replace the chill in mine from walking down the block.
“Well, Ian is here, so this should be interesting.” Cooper released me, but his hand slid into mine. “Let’s get a drink.”
We weaved through the crowd of people talking, dancing, and drinking until we reached the kitchen. We opted to get beers from the keg and found a spot in the living room to talk. Some of his teammates came by and said hello to us, but Cooper was quick to dismiss them, even though we usually socialized with everyone.
He sat on the ledge of the windowsill while I stood between his legs. It was more intimate than we usually were with each other, but it felt nice. As I sipped my beer, I almost choked it out when his hand landed on the back of my thigh, running up and down as if we were a couple already.
My stomach fluttered like hummingbird wings, and I turned to face him. “Whatcha doing?”
He set down his beer and stood to his full height, towering over me by six inches. Both of his hands fell to my hips. “Want to dance?”
“Since when do you dance?” I chuckled.
He leaned close, and my breath hitched when I thought he might kiss me. “Since right now.”
After taking my beer from my hand, he placed it next to his. As if we were ever going back to get them. With his hand in mine again, he guided me to the middle of the dance floor, pulled me into his arms, and locked me against his chest. God, it felt good, there was no denying that.
The music was slow, easy to dance to, and our emotions rose to the surface.
“Elle,” he whispered, moving my hair over my shoulder. “I’ve been thinking…”
Oh boy, this was it. He was going to make this a thing. Did I want it to be a thing? Did I want us to be involved romantically? Part of me said yes. Take him back to my apartment to feel those lips on mine and what those strong hands and fingers could do to my body. But I didn’t want us waking up the next morning and looking at one another as though we’d made a mistake.
“Yes?” My mind was still whirling, but I needed to answer him.
“We’re about to graduate. I don’t know where I’m headed yet. There’s a lot of talk about who wants me, but nothing’s for sure. You’re going to Chicago for medical school.”
“It’s a lot of change.” I wasn’t looking forward to the days when he would no longer be my neighbor.
His breath tickled the soft spot right under my earlobe. “Yeah, and this is probably our last opportunity to be with one another.” He linked his hands behind my back, and my breasts crushed against his strong chest.
“But then we’ll have to leave each other,” I reminded him in case he’d forgotten that while we might have a couple of months now, what happened after graduation?
“What if we threw caution to the wind and just said fuck all the reasons we’ve kept our relationship to only being friends?” He drew back to see my expression.
I tried my hardest to fight the fear racing through me. I wanted to cross the line, but his dad had shut that down shortly after we met, and after he’d died, Cooper became distant and seemed to double down on that sentiment, so this Cooper? He was all new to me.
“I never want to lose you in my life,” I said.
Which was the truth. Cooper meant so much more to me than sex and my attraction to him. He listened to me and knew me well enough that just from me saying hello, he’d know if it was a good day or bad. On the bad days, he always brought me his homemade chocolate chip cookies. We’d woven our friendship into the fabric of our lives, and I would have been devastated if we tried our luck at romance and it made us worse, not better.
