“Instead of on glitter bombs?”
He doesn’t take that bait either. “You don’t like it.”
“I do!”
“Waverly.”
“You nailed what would’ve been my high school colors.”
He crosses his arms and glares at me, which is also an unusual Cooper expression. “I don’t care if you don’t like it, but I do care if you lie about it.”
“Geofferson recreated prom for me the night he proposed,” I whisper before I can stop myself.
His eyes go wide. “Oh, fuck.”
“And yesterday was the most awkward promo stunt of my life.” The floodgates have opened. “Aunt Zinnia arranged it all. Puppy prom was her idea. Phillip Nash was her idea. I didn’t know he was coming. We arenotdating. His publicist called in a favor because he wants to expand into acting and needed a higher profile event to prove he can pull it off. He’s a complete ass in private, and if anyone on my teameversuggests I work with him again, they’re fired. My cheeks still hurt from faking the smiles and I haven’t felt that used since Geofferson dumped me for a gymnastic dancer the minute the ink was dry on his first major movie role.”
Cooper rubs his slack jaw. His gaze darts around his living room, our prom dance floor, panic flashing across his features. “More energy than sense, and you have prom trauma. I can fix this. Two minutes. Go hide in the bathroom.”
“Cooper—”
“Second door on your left. Down the hall.”
“Cooper. You don’t have to fix anything. This was super sweet. It’s a replacement for every other bad prom.”
“It’s overkill. I should’ve just pulled out the pizza and left the massage chairs in here so we could watch TV until we decided to make out. I’m kinda addicted toWho’s Your Familynow. It wouldn’t be a hardship.”
“This is completely you.” I smile—this one way less forced—and squeeze his hand again. “Let’s dance.”
His face does as many acrobatics as he usually does on the baseball field when he’s diving for line drives that should be impossible to catch. “We can have a pool party. Dumb to have a pool when I’m not here in summer and probably never will be, so we should use it. That’s hella practical. I’ll go naked too since you didn’t bring a swimsuit.”
Kiss him, dummy.
Poor guy’s flustered.
And honestly? The more flustered he gets, the more I want to kiss him. And touch him. And dive into his pool naked with him.
I push up onto my tiptoes to do exactly that when Ed Sheeran is abruptly cut off and suddenly we’re being blasted with—is that polka music?
Cooper jerks his head to the control panel on the wall, then clears his throat. “Ah, bug in the system,” he says over the music. He vaults to the panel, fiddles with the screen, and a moment later, the polka is gone and we have Adele at a much lower volume.
“C’mon.” He tugs on my arm. “You hungry? Name your favorite food. Betcha I have it in the fridge. We can eat out on the deck.”
I gesture to the streamers and signs and the punch and the disco ball. “How long did this take you?”
His gaze connects with mine, and there’s something unusually serious lurking in his eyes. “Not long. Just struck me that it might be fun. Already had most of it here in storage because…well, because I’m me.”
“There’s an ice sculpture.”
“I know a guy.” He flashes that grin that makes my panties try to melt themselves off.
I shake a finger at him. “No, you don’t. You don’t get to use the dimples against me. Put them away.”
“Can’t. I made a deal with the devil to get them, and now I have to use them or I’ll lose them. Painful process, dimple extraction. You don’t want to know.” He shudders, but he’s still grinning as he pulls me to the food table. “Here. Try the Ritz. It’s no Saltine, but it’s pretty good. And you still haven’t told me your favorite food. I could google it, but I need confirmation it’s yourrealfavorite, and not what you think someone wants to hear.”
“I’m not sure I know my real favorite food.”
“How can you not know your favorite food?”
