“Cooper?”
The thing twists and bounces back against the wall, making a picture frame fall. “I thought you were Tillie Jean!” Cooper yelps.
“What are you doing?” I shriek back.
“Pranking my sister!”
“I am not your sister!”
“I know! But I didn’t know! Jesus! Fuck! How do I get out of this thing?”
I’m crying.
I am full-on, pop diva sobbing.
Thethinghits a light switch, and— “Oh my god!” I gasp.
“Why—how—hold on, I’m getting out of this thing. The zipper’s stuck.”
He’s dressed up like Ash, the baby dragon mascot, except…bigger. And where the Ash I’m used to has adorable little dragon horn bumps and cute little ears and a diaper, this Ash has two pigtails and baseball pants and sneakers.
And tomorrow, or maybe the next day, or sometime in a few months, I might think she’s cute.
Right now?
Right now, that costume is between me and a Cooper hug, and I hate it.
“Why do you even have that?” I gasp as I try to stop myself from sobbing. My heart is still on overdrive and my arms are shaking.
“So management can’t age her up yet.”
Only Cooper.
And the crazy part is,this is why I like him so much.
He doesn’t let conventions and rules andyou don’t do thatstop him from what’s important to him.
So am I not important?
“Hey, hey, it’s okay. I’m gonna get out of this thing andJesus, I’m so glad to see you. I missed you. Are you really here or am I hallucinating?”
“You signed on for the Ritz-Carlton endorsement deal,” I sob.
“What? Yeah. My agent said—”
“Aunt Zinnia picked you—hic!—so that I’d get mad and think—hic!—you’re using me.”
Dammit. Hiccups donotmake this better.
And suddenly I have a 9-foot teenage dragon girl kneeling in front of me. “I’ll quit. I’ll walk away. I won’t do it. I—fuck. Can I be a high-maintenance asshole and ask you to unzip me?”
“You’re not—hic!—high maintenance.”
“I can’t even hug you right now because I was trying to prank my sister.”
I don’t know how I make my fingers work to get the costume’s zipper unstuck, but I do. And the minute Cooper’s half-free of the damn thing, he’s tackling me in the warmest, tightest, safest hug.
And it makes me cry harder.
