“You’ll text me?” I ask.
“Nothing can stop me. Not this time. I solemnly promise with every ounce of pirate blood in my veins that I will text you, tomorrow, without question, no matter what, even if I’m dead.”
“You are such a goofball.”
He smiles softly and points the remote at the TV.
It blinks on at full volume right in the middle of an episode ofWho’s Your Family?, startling us both so badly that I jump, Cooper yelps in surprise, and Hashtag yowls and launches off my lap.
He hisses when he hits Cooper’s lap, miscalculates as he jumps off the bed and lands on a nightstand, where he knocks a lamp off before dashing at a dead run into the sitting room and tearing around, bouncing off the walls and furniture.
I snag the remote to dial the volume down as quickly as I can.
“Sorry,” Cooper mutters. “Jesus. I amnotsmooth around you. And I was making good progress with your cat too.”
“Don’t be smooth, please. I’ve had enough surface-level smoothness for one lifetime.”
Hashtag bolts past the open doorway, fur fluffed from his neck to the tip of his tail.
“He’ll settle down in a few minutes.”
Cooper eyes me, then my cat, then me again like he’s still stuck on what I mean bysurface-level smoothness. “This is normal?”
“He has a big personality.”
“That’s what my mom says about me too.”
I smile and shift on the bed to crawl under the covers. “He’ll come back when he decides it’s bedtime.”
He starts to say something, but this time, I shush him and point to the TV. “This is my favorite part.”
On screen, the host is asking a woman if she’s ready to meet the family she never knew she had.
“Is this that show about family secrets people find out after taking DNA tests?” Cooper asks.
“Shh.”
The woman nods, and the host leads her to a blue door.
“Why isn’t she opening it?” Cooper whispers while the woman hovers with her hand above the doorknob.
“Because her whole life is about to change,” I whisper back.
He shifts closer to me on the bed, but I don’t pay much attention. The poor woman on the television is shaking. “I don’t know if I can do it,” she tells the host.
“You’ve come this far, Mary,” he replies.
“But do theywantme?”
“Only way to find out is to open that door.”
I hold my breath.
She takes a few audible breaths, wipes her eyes, and then turns the handle and pushes the door open.
Two people are waiting on the other side, a man with white hair and wrinkles and a woman wearing a Christmas sweater and thick glasses. She’s younger than the man, but I’m pretty sure her hair’s only brown because it’s dyed.
All three of them gasp and stare at each other.
