We stop to have lunch after thrifting and before returning to her loft apartment. Meave has a commission to finish and locks herself away in her makeshift studio with promises of takeout and a movie later.
I decided to go on a long walk, explore the Chicago more.
Making my way back, from a block over, I spot a familiar profile throwing pebbles at a window. I sneak closer.
Cooper throws another, hitting the rectangle in the center. He’s been in the city volunteering with his cousin’s charity. Dawson and Jaxon, too, but they left.
“That’s her neighbor’s window,” I announce.
Cooper spins on his heels, a smile on his face. “Oops.”
“You’re lucky they aren’t here this week.” I peep the duffle bag resting at his feet. “Going somewhere?”
“Was hoping for a sleepover on Meave’s pull-out couch.”
Speak of the devil, she waves from her window—next door to the one that he was throwing rocks at—a paintbrush in one hand.
“I think I can squeeze.”
He squeezes me into his side, dropping a kiss to the top of my head. “I missed you.”
“It’s been three days.”
“And?” He picks up his bag, sliding it on the arm not wrapped around me. We head into Meave’s building. “Don’t be scared to admit you missed me too.”
“Fine.” I lift my leg backward and kick his butt. “I missed you too.”
We crashwith Meave for the night, before driving back to campus. Unlike our last drive, we triple checked the weather. No precipitation in the forecast for the next week.
Cloudless blue skies stretches for miles in every direction.
Cooper keeps singing the lyrics wrong. By the seventh song, I know it’s on purpose. It’s remarkable how quickly someone can learn, or remember, your buttons. What makes me smile or roll my eyes. How to make me laugh or get into my pants. The limit of how hard to push before he annoys me too much.
Maybe it was quick, or maybe it’s what happens when you grow up together.
His body is like a puzzle piece I’m fitted to. A hand I grew up holding, picking me up when I fell learning to ride a bike and how to skate. He’s a Tempur-Pedic mattress that’s memorized my shape and grown around it.
MOMappears on the screen in his car. We turn off the music and answer it. I tap my chest, then bring a finger in front of my mouth, communicating silently ashh, I’m not here.
“Hey, Mom. How are you?”
“Cooper, honey.” She sounds delighted but surprised that he answered. “Better now. How are you? Midterms go well?”
“B plus in two, A minus in another, and I don’t have the results for the others yet. I was a little distracted while studying.”He shoots me a taunting look, reminding me that I’m the distraction. The hand firmly placed on my thigh squeezes. A giggle shoots out of me.
“B’s get degrees,” she singsongs.
“I think it’s C’s get degrees, Mom.”
“Then you’ll be graduating summa cum laude,” she jokes. “A B plus in statistical mathematics is like a triple A plus compared to what your father took while he was in school.”
I prepare myself for him to recoil, but it doesn’t come. Cooper chuckles. “What was it again that he studied?”
“Something that sounded made up.” His mom makes a handful of jokes about his dad in college, and trying to cheat off of her in the class where they had their meet-cute.
I laugh, managing to pick the moment there’s a lull in the conversation.
“Is that my daughter?” Of course she’s with my mom. Where there’s one, there’s usually the other.
