“Goes well with the unicorn horn.”
“He got the bump chasing a runaway goat down Rodeo Drive this afternoon,” Beck says to Sarah.
I choke on the martini that I’m not even drinking at the moment.
“Cooper has lots of practice chasing goats,” replies a dark-haired man who’s definitely not Hollywood but bears a striking resemblance to Cooper.
“Only because I love my big brother and hate to see him hurting when his pet goat disappears.” Cooper shifts us so he has an arm around me, but I’m not hanging on him anymore. “Grady, you know Sarah and Beck, but have you met Waverly?”
The other man gives me a full-dimpled, blue-green-eyed grin. “Not formally. And definitely not anytime we’ve been in the same room together.”
“Stop,” a brunette woman hisses at him. She extends a hand. “Hi. I’m Annika. I’m Cooper’s sister-in-law, which means we mostly like each other, but sometimes merely tolerate each other and can really hand over the dirt if either of us gets pissed over something the other does. And I’ve known him since before he was in high school, so I havewaymore dirt stored up than he thinks I do.”
“Undoubtedly true,” Cooper says without an ounce of shame.
I lean into him, absorbing the fact that he’s here and I don’t have to do this alone tonight.
He squeezes my hip.
“Grady, sweetie, you have spit-up on your backside,” an older woman whispers as she pushes through the crowd to us.
“That’s life, Mrs. Rock,” Beck says.
Mrs. Rock?Cooper’smotheris here too? And—oh my god.
Is that his father behind her?
I gape up at Cooper.
His ears go pink at the edges, which I swear is one of my favorite things about him. I apparently have a lot of favorite things related to Cooper.
“Sorry for the ambush,” he says. “They’re on Team Wooperly, I promise.”
I start to laugh as another dark-haired woman pushes between us. “Hi. I’m Tillie Jean, and I’d like toassureyou that I havezerointerest ineveragain having Cooper pretend to kiss me in public, even if it would give me great joy to picture Max finally retiring from baseball and tormenting the hell out of him if he everdoestry it again.”
Max Cole gives me thewhat’s upchin lift behind her.
“Exactly how did you do this?” I whisper to him after stuttering out anice to meet youto his sister.
“Cooper Rock magic.”
Grady grabs Tillie Jean by the back of her dress, which is a drop-dead gorgeous shimmery green sheath, and tugs her back. “Breathing room, TJ.”
“Hands off,” Max growls at him.
“Waverly, you look lovely.” Cooper’s mom gives me a quick hug around my drink. “I’m Libby, and I know even more dirt on this one than Annika does, though I don’t have her military training. She might have more recent dirt.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” I stammer to her as well.
She smiles, and it’s purekindness. “I’m so thrilled to meet you too. Sunny played us a tease of your new song—the second one that the rest of the world hasn’t been teased with for weeks—for the movie tonight, and we can’t wait to hear the whole thing.”
It’s like she knows exactly what to say.
I’m friends with Hollywood people outside of knowing you, and I’m not going to get weird if you’re seriously dating my son since this isn’t my first brush with famous people.I understand that you’re normal under that designer gown and jewels.
I wonder if my mom would’ve had that same note of pride in her voice if she’d been here to watch a movie with my original songs in it too.
My eyes get hot and my throat tightens. I look at Sarah. “Where are the babies?”
