I’d like to say they were my friends first, maybe Dawson and Chase, but Beckett and Jaxon are his. Elliot is mine, and that is something I will take to my grave, even if he likes to bicker with me about that.
I know I shouldn’t be keeping score, it’s not healthy, but I am. When it comes to him, I’m always keeping score.
“No Cooper?” Elliot asks for me.
The guys shrug as if it were a rehearsed dance.
“Wasn’t home when we all left,” Chase responds, taking a seat to Elliot’s left. He plants a kiss on her temple. “You smell nice.”
“Wonders what hair washing day does for a girl.”
Elliot flips her long blonde hair over her shoulder. Chase smiles at her before taking a strand of her hair and twirling it around his finger. They’re close—probably the closest either of us are with the boys. They met during orientation because they have the same last name, and the rest of us were a game of dominoes. One at a time, they adopted us into what is now our sometimes dysfunctional friend group.
“I’ll text him,” Elliot adds. “Chase, go take that empty seat next to Sutton”—she points at the empty chair to my right—“and Jaxon lean in. Kiss her cheeks, I’ll send him a picture.”
They comply, shuffling around the high top. Elliot takes a photo with a shit-eating grin on her face.
“That’s enough,” I tell them, cautiously pushing at their shoulders. “I’m not trying to make him mad.”
Unlike Cooper, who does everything intentionally to get under my skin—such as choosing to go to the same University as me—I don’t go out of my way to annoy him. There’s nothing I can have that he can’t also have or do.
“Only jealous?” Jaxon asks with a bite, as if he knows something I don’t. He grabs a beer from the bucket in the center of the table, the neck of it hanging loosely in his hands. As he takes a sip, he flicks his brows up at me, awaiting a response.
“Me?” I point to myself in a laugh. “Make Cooper jealous? Maybe in my third life, and if I were the freshly frozen pond out back of his house.”
Only Dawson gives me a pity laugh. Chase smiles tightly and returns to his seat next to Elliot. Beckett is a statue as always. Jaxon slides over a chair with a dramatic sigh, pulling out his phone to show Dawson his latest viral dancing video.
“No one wants to sit next to me?” I’m only slightly kidding. “I don’t bite.”
“Yeah, but I do, baby.” Cooper slides into the chair next to me. Swings his arm around the back of mine and tugs it closer to him.
My spine goes rigid, shoulders cementing themselves to the wooden chair. But the lower half of my body decides it doesn’t hate Cooper at this moment.
A warm, spicy desire pools in my core when his mouth is a ghost against my cheek, then inches its way to my ear. There’s a hot breath tickling the sensitive skin. I think he’s going to whisper something in my ear, but he doesn’t. No, the boy nips at my earlobe.
I shove him away. “I hate you.”
Cooper smiles boyishly at me. “Keep telling yourself that.” He winks, and adds, “And me. It turns me on.”
I catch it from my peripherals. I don’t dare turn my head to look at him. Cooper’s always been able to read me. Uses my eyes against me.
He’d see what that wink did to me. He’d know my throat is tight and I’m trying to discreetly clear it. He’d know my internal temperature is reaching its boiling point. He’d know I’m thinking about him doing it again.
“That’s my cue to go,” I announce to the group. Everyone is pretending not to watch us interacting.
They’ve done a good job balancing our dynamic. Egging it on, like taking a picture and sending it to him, or soothing it over when they know we’re pushing it too far.
“Nooooo,” Elliot groans. “I don’t want to be the only girl tonight.”
“You won’t be. This one”—I thumb point at Cooper—“will have at least three to join you soon.”
Cooper doesn’t say anything at first. His face falls though, but only momentarily. He pushes a water cup away from him.
“I’ll behave tonight. Maybe only two.” I look at him. His brown eyes are locked on me. “Orone.”
“In your dreams,baby.”
“Oh,I know. See you in them every night.”
