“I’ll drive you to the vet,” Cooper said.
My gaze snapped to his. “You will?” Hope and gratitude welled inside me.
Dahlia’s arms slapped against her sides, and her mouth dropped open in indignation. “Are you kidding? You’re going to ditch me for Madeline on the way to the dance?”
A flash of guilt went across Cooper’s face. “I’ll come back as soon as we take care of the cat. Jasper and Amelia can drive you to the school.”
Dahlia planted her hands on her hips and one of her high heels tapped angrily on the pavement. “No. I’m tired of this. Yousay there’s nothing between you and Madeline. Well, it’s about time you proved it.” She waved a dismissive hand in my direction. “She can deal with the cat without you. It’s her problem, not yours. If you go with her, don’t bother coming back to me.”
Cooper shut his eyes in exasperation. It was only for a second, but in that second, I’d already weighed the painful outcome. Of course he would choose her. He liked her and this was their homecoming date. And Dahlia wasn’t wrong. The cat was my problem, not Cooper’s.
When he opened his eyes, he would look at me with an already-forming apology. I braced myself for it.
He turned to Dahlia. “Fine. I won’t come back.”
Her eyes narrowed and her lips went flat. “You’re such a liar, Cooper. I should’ve known the truth when I saw the picture of you two kissing.” She whirled and marched off to Jasper’s car.
I stared after her, both horrified that I’d ruined Cooper’s relationship and happy that she was ending things.
Cooper took my elbow and steered me toward his car. “Come on.”
TC’s gaze ricocheted between Cooper and me, and he huffed. “I guess I’m leaving too. You all have a good time together. While you’re out, maybe you should look up the definition of fake because I don’t think you two understand what it means.”
22
Cooper
When we reached my car, Madeline searched for and found directions to the closest twenty-four-hour animal hospital. We headed that direction.
Over the cat’s distressed meowing, Madeline thanked me multiple times for helping her. “I’m sorry about how things ended with Dahlia,” she added.
“Are you?” I doubted she’d changed her mind about Dahlia.
Madeline hesitated, deciding on her words. “Okay, not really. Dahlia is a typical mean girl, and you’re a nice guy. You never would have been happy with her.”
Well, I hadn’t been tonight. Although that wasn’t Dahlia’s fault, exactly. She’d been friendly and flirty, but talking to her had been so uninteresting, so surface level. I’d realized that the entire time I’d spoken to Dahlia, she’d never said something that indicated she thought deeply about anything. She never made me laugh. And she had an unending list of criticisms about teachers and students alike.
Mostly I felt relieved I didn’t have to worry about spending the rest of the evening with her.
“How was your date with TC?” I asked.
“Uneventful until he offered to kill Mascot. That totally ruined the mood.”
Had she wanted there to be a mood, or was that justMadeline’s tongue-in-cheek review of a bad date? I would’ve asked her more, but talking became hard after that. The cat came out of its shock, or maybe it decided that people wrapped creatures in suit coats before eating them. It started freaking out, clawing at my jacket while chorusing at us with loud, grave-sounding meows.
Madeline kept trying to reassure him. In a soothing voice, she told Mascot that vets went to school for years in order to take care of animals and certainly wouldn’t have spent that much money on student loans, interest rates being what they were, if they didn’t love animals.
“He doesn’t understand English,” I said. “You could be repeating NFL statistics, and it would have the same effect.”
“I don’t know any NFL statistics.”
I told her a few. While I did, the cat escaped the suit coat. Madeline had to recapture him and got scratched on the wrist in the process.
She yelped and shook her hand. “I think this proves he’s not an NFL fan.”
“I think it just proves he’s ungrateful. There’s a first aid kit in the glove compartment. You should put something on that.” I shot the cat a glance. “I hope TC wasn’t right about it having rabies.”
“I doubt he was.” Her shoulders slumped in dejection. “What if he’s right about vets refusing to treat him? Even if one can fix him, what will I do with him afterward? My dad is allergic.”
