“You mean that?”
“The date was good. A plus, professor.” I smile tightly, answering his previous question.
“Good.” His tongue runs along his bottom teeth. “Great. Well, I can go then. I’m sorry again, Sutton.”
Sutton.How can I hate and love how he says my name?
It’s the sun after a storm. A breeze on a scorching day. Perfect, and possessive. As if he’s the only one that should be using it.
“Why’d you get drunk last night?”
“Because I don’t want things to change between us.” He reaches for my hand, and I let him. “I don’t want to lose you again.”
“Nothings changing,” I falsely promise.
“Good.” Cooper squeezes my hand. “I’m gonna use the bathroom, then will go.”
“Wait. Are you busy right now?” I ask, suddenly attached to his presence and not wanting it gone. “I have a test coming up. I could…um…wanna help me study?”
“Only if you change.” He smirks, and I allow it. Rolling my eyes and striding into my bedroom.
Two hours later,we’ve gone through an endless amount of flash cards. The confidence I have for my test I wish bled into how I felt about Cooper.
He left so I could get ready to go to the movies with Elliot. Folded on my dresser is a Bears Men’s Hockey T-shirt. There’s a note on top of it.
Stop wearing his shirt. Wear or don’t wear mine. But please, for me, get rid of his.
I stare at the chair in my reading corner, my ex’s T-shirt is slung across the arm from where I tossed it.
There’s a small push from my brain to toss it. The encouragement has my two feet carrying me to the chair. I ball it up and shoot it into the metal trash can next to my desk. Shuffling back to my dresser, I pick up Cooper’s shirt. Run the cotton between my fingers.
He was wearing a crewneck earlier, and didn’t have a bag with him. No pocket on the front of the sweatshirt to have stuffed an extra shirt. And there’s no way this would have fit in his pants pockets…
It clicks.
The fabric still warm from his body. I bring it up to my nose and inhale. Woven threads doused in his smell that’s the same since we were kids. Sandalwood and a breeze off the lake. Rich, earthy, and comforting as if the sun is setting and we’re coming in for dinner from spending all day outdoors.
Elliot pops her head into my room. “What’s that?”
Caught, I drop the shirt from my grasp. “Nothing,” I respond too quickly.
“Ready to go?”
“Gimme five minutes.”
“Only five. I want to pick up candy from the store before we go and one of those boxed wines.”
I pick up Cooper’s shirt and stuff the shirt into a drawer alongside these recycled feelings churning within me.
TWENTY
COOPER
I stareat it all night.
Sutton sent me a photo of her in bed. A book and her readers on one side, and a sleepy tea on the nightstand. My shirt—the one I left on her dresser earlier today—is on her body. Lakeland Men’s Hockey stitched across the chest.
The image starts at her mouth. A simple, devastatingly beautiful smile spreads across her lips. The bottom is heavier than the top, so it hangs out a bit. The feeling of it already haunts me. I feel them now on my lips like a ghost of a memory.
