Selena tapped her fingers against her backpack strap. “He asked for my phone number. While I was trying to think of an excuse not to give it to him because I didn’t want you to be upset about it, he told me that you wanted to set us up. He apologized for not realizing I was interested in him beforehand.” She blinked at me, her agitation growing. “Since when did you decide to set me up with Boden? And shouldn’t you have, I don’t know, warned me you were doing that?”
Cooper nudged me. “What do you do for friend-apologies? This seems bigger than DoorDash, Maddy.”
I pushed his arm away from me and turned to Selena. “I didn’t mean to set you up with him. I just ...” I’d just tried to suggest the merits of a double date, only I couldn’t tell Selena that since she’d already told me not to ask Boden if he had a friend for her. “I was being friendly, and conversational, and...”
She stared at me, waiting for the rest of the explanation.
Nope. I couldn’t save this. I blew out a breath in defeat. “Basically, I accidentally sent some severely mixed messages.”
“Wait,” Cooper broke in, leaning toward me. “Are you saying you like this guy but are so bad at flirting, he thought you wanted to set him up with your best friend? Is that what happened?”
I shushed him to lower his voice. “The teacher heard metalking, made assumptions, and told Boden I wanted to set him up with Selena. I tried to set Boden straight, but he didn’t listen to that part.” Because that’s how my life worked. Why would anyone listen when they could leap straight to chaos?
Cooper tilted his head back and laughed, far too entertained by all of this. “I think you just lost your flirting credentials.”
I couldn’t even argue. That’s where we were now. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll turn in my badge later.”
Selena resumed blinking at me like she was still buffering. “Do you want me to tell him the truth?”
“No, not even a little. I was undecided about him to begin with. Go out with him, if you want. You guys have a lot in common.”
“Okay,” she said slowly, clearly still deciding whether it was okay or not.
The dance was not in my future. Time to accept that as inevitable. I slung my backpack onto my shoulders and turned to Cooper. “Look, going to the homecoming dance will be too complicated. I mean, how would I explain to my date that I can’t sit with him at the football game because my father and your mother think the two of us are going together?”
Cooper’s lips twitched. “You could go with one of the football players. Then he wouldn’t be able to sit with you anyway.”
I snorted. “That will only work if one of the football players asks me out. What are the chances of that happening?” It wasn’t like I hung out with any of them.
“Probably pretty low since I’ve spent the last year badmouthing you.” Cooper smirked, zero guilt. “But I can always float your name around the locker room and tell the guys you’re looking.”
“Don’t,” I squeaked. The idea of being marketed like somekind of locker-room fundraiser made my whole soul curl up. “We ought to just skip the dance. Let’s tell our parents we’re going and then hang out somewhere else that night.” It wouldn’t be so bad to spend time with Cooper. We had plenty to talk about—which automatically meant an evening with him would be better than some of the dates I’d been on.
He shook his head. “I can’t skip. I already asked Dahlia to go. We’re having dinner with Jasper and Amelia.”
“Dahlia?” The thought bothered me more than it should have. “Wait, did you ask her while we ate ice cream?”
“No.” He shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal. “She called me this weekend, and the dance came up in conversation, so I asked her.”
I bet it came up in conversation. Dahlia made sure it did. “Didn’t Claire tell you what she’s like?” I turned to Selena. “He asked Dahlia to the dance,” I emphasized.
Selena gave me a don’t-drag-me-into-this look.
Cooper lifted a hand to stop me from saying more. “You and Claire are allowed to have your opinions, and I’m allowed to have mine. Dahlia has always been nice to me.”
Of course she had. She saw him as the alpha wolf prize. “You have no taste in women.”
He had the nerve to smile. “Says the girl who went out with a bunch of admitted wusses. Do you want me to try and set you up? Anyone I find would be an improvement over the needy cookie guy who got upset because you didn’t answer his texts. I’m sure if I paid one of my friends—”
“I don’t need your help,” I cut him off. He was adding insult to injury. “I can get my own date.”
I had to now.
Thanks, Cooper.
14
Madeline
