For the next few minutes, I thought about how to break the news to Dad that Mom had started dating. And not just anyone,a rich lawyer. I could’ve called my dad. This might be one of the times he had Wi-Fi access and would answer his phone. But if he didn’t care, I didn’t want to hear that in his voice.
I sent him a text.
8
Madeline
When my dad and Ms. Nash came inside half an hour later, I was sprawled out on the family room couch, pretending to talk to Cooper on the phone. “You’re so sweet,” I cooed. “But don’t you dare send me flowers. Everything is forgiven. As we say in the theater, ‘all’s well that ends well.’” A pause, a giggle. “See you tomorrow.”
To be clear, my involvement in this pretense wasn’t because I wanted my father to stay single. But the fact that he was nearly fifty and was interested in a woman who was thirty-four sort of screamed midlife crisis. Looking for a trophy girlfriend was a bad idea all around, and finding one who was Cooper’s mother—yeah, I was so not a fan.
I ended my nonexistent phone call, sat up, and turned my attention to Ms. Nash and Dad.
Normally, he would’ve watched me with raised eyebrows and said, “Who were you speaking to?”
Not this time. He and Ms. Nash put things in the cupboards, chatting, and seemed to have missed not only my Shakespeare pun and pronouncement of flowers but my entire phone conversation.
I strolled into the kitchen, smiling dreamily, and leaned against the kitchen island. “Ms. Nash, please tell Cooper he doesn’t have to buy me flowers. I mean, I would feel bad if hedid.” I gave her a secretive look. “Although if he does, my favorites are peonies.”
“What?” she asked. I finally had her and my father’s attention.
“Why would he send you flowers?” my dad asked.
“I told you we worked things out,” I said, like the answer should be obvious. “And now we’re ...” I rolled my hand in the air, searching for the right phrase. “Kind of dating.”
My father and Ms. Nash exchanged a look.
“Kind of dating?” my father asked as though he didn’t believe it. Which, I suppose, was what I got for complaining about Cooper so much.
“Yeah.” I fiddled with my necklace while I thought of what to say next. “Turns out that sometimes there’s a fine line between flirting and making a guy go through every shelf in the library to find his textbooks.” I ran my pearl pendant back and forth on the chain. “So juvenile of us, right? I’m glad Cooper made me realize what was really going on.”
Ms. Nash tilted her head in question. “How did he make you realize that?”
My first thought was to say that he kissed me, but I immediately vetoed that idea. I couldn’t say that sort of thing to my dad, let alone Cooper’s mom. I went with the second thing that came to mind. “He told me he’d secretly had a crush on me for years. Everything made so much more sense after that.” I fluttered a hand. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it before.”
Ms. Nash and my dad exchanged another look.
When she turned to me, the skepticism was clear from the dip in her eyebrows. “He never said anything to me about a crush.”
“That’s the definition of secret,” I said.
Her eyebrows continued to furrow. “He had a crush on you while he dated Layla?”
Layla was the homecoming queen he’d dated at the end of last year. “Yes,” I said because I’d already committed to this story.
“And while he went out with Amber and Stephanie too?” she asked.
Why did Cooper have such a long string of girlfriends, and was Ms. Nash going to list every single one of them? “Yeah,” I said. “I was always seeing someone else. Our timing has been terrible.”
If our parents compared notes about when I’d dated my exes, they’d know I was lying. And okay, maybe it was a stretch to believe that Mr. Popular Quarterback didn’t know how to flirt with me, so he’d resorted to pranks that broke a few laws and made an entire school hallway smell like decaying chicken. But still. They were acting like I didn’t rate a secret crush.
I slid my pendant across the chain faster. “I think Cooper has problems expressing his feelings.”
“He wouldn’t be the first,” my father said.
Good. Dad believed I rated Cooper’s attention. Ms. Nash still looked skeptical, or at least confused, by the turn of events.
“Anyway,” I said, straightening. “I told Cooper that you wanted us all to go out for ice cream after the game, and his exact words were, ‘We’re not going out with our parents for ourfirst date. That’s lame.’” I should get bonus points because this totally sounded like something Cooper would say. “So we’ll have to pass. But if you go, you should take Claire.” Because I’d feel better knowing they had a chaperone.
