Maybe I should have pushed for more answers. I could now. I’ve had years to, but I chicken out, scared to be wrong. Petrified to be right.
I lean forward, grab my laptop from the console table, and open it up to my paper. Distractions. Anything to shift my focus from him.
He doesn’t leave. He dries his large hands on a towel, hanging it on the oven handle. He picks up his coffee and joins me on the couch. Sits opposite of me, tucking a sweatpant clad leg up underneath him.
“I should learn how to make these,” I tell him, hating the silence but not knowing what to say. I chest laugh, shaking my dirty chai. Awkward and uncomfortable. “It would save me, and you, money.”
“Worse things to spend my money on.”
“Are you going to work at the marina again this summer?”
Cooper’s worked the last two summers at the marina on Lake Bensen teaching sailing and water sports. “Only way to be your sugar daddy. What’s your summer plan?”
“If my cocky sugar daddy keeps up his participation, hopefully an internship.”
I applied to a handful on a whim. Manifesting that the University would approve my independent study. If I get one interview, I’ll be stoked. If I get zero, it’ll suck, but I get it. Myresume doesn’t have the buzz words they are quickly scanning for.
“You’ll get one.” Hollow brown eyes finally meet mine. There’s a pause before he asks, “How was your date?”
My fingers freeze, tighten over the keyboard. It takes everything in me to close the device and set it aside instead of hitting him upside the head with it.
Was he so drunk last night he forgot what happened after?
“How was my date?” I shake my head, flutter my eyes so he can’t see the record setting eye roll I do. A similar irritation from last night rises my blood pressure. Standing, I snatch my latte before starting to head to my room. If that’s all he has to say, I have no response.
The couch exhales from his weight, but I’m inhaling sharply as he catches my wrist, calluses digging into my skin, spinning me into him.
Our height difference isn’t much, maybe four or five inches. He’s staring down at me, free hand running along the hem of the old T-shirt I’m wearing as a sleep shirt.
“I hate that you still have this. Hate that you’re wearing it.”
Cooper lets me go when I step away from him. Again shaking my head.
We share a mutual hate that I still have this shirt. It’s my high school boyfriend’s shirt and I probably should have dumped it when he unexpectedly dumped me, but it’s so comfy. Conformed to body. Holes in the armpits from overwear. There’s zero emotional attachment to it. Cooper and Dylan didn’t like each other, but after our breakup, that was pushed to the extreme.
It was confusing. This is confusing. Cooper is confusing.
I rub my palms into my eyes. “You are so obtuse,” I spew.
Opening my eyes, I can tell Cooper’s trying his best not to laugh. “Obtuse?”
“Yes, obtuse. You come here this morning with coffee, kindly clean up the breakfast dishes, and instead of leaving you sit on my couch and ask how my date was?—”
“Which you didn’t answer,” he cuts in.
“Then follow me and tell me you hate my T-shirt. You are confusing and obtuse, Carmichael.”
“I do hate the shirt. Would love to burn it off you.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I groan. “Seriously? Are you trying to annoy me?”
“No.” Cooper slumps. “I came here to apologize about last night.” I cross my arms over my chest, waiting. “I’m sorry, Dave. I’m sorry for what I said to you and if I ruined everything.”
“There was nothing for you to ruin.” And for a quick second, I believe my own words.
The reason my date wasn’t great is standing in front of me running a hand through his mop of hair.
Ruining every assumption I have about us. I’m one subtle breeze away from falling off the tightrope I’m balancing on.
