I petted him for a few minutes and took a couple of pictures.
The petting hadn’t helped him look friendlier. He was sullen and suspicious, a cat meme waiting to happen. I’d have to ask Cooper to take some more pictures after Mascot started trusting humanity again.
“You’ll love Cooper,” I said. “He’s really nice. So is Claire.”
I would’ve called Claire and prepped her about the cat situation but figured she was probably spending time with her father. I didn’t want to intrude.
I’d texted Cooper last night and asked how things were going.
His message back to me had been upbeat.
So far, so good. My dad is sticking around. Hope your father isn’t taking it too hard.
I wrote,My dad will be fine.
My father had moped around the kitchen for the first hour I’d been home, eating all of the junk food that he’d given uponce he started dating Ms. Nash, but then he’d gotten philosophical. “Every relationship teaches you something,” he said, “even if it doesn’t end the way you want.”
“What did dating Ms. Nash teach you?” I asked.
He grinned and bit into a nacho. “Well, for one thing, I learned that hot younger women are willing to date me.”
So there was that.
Mostly, I was happy that things had worked out the way Cooper wanted. Part of me was jealous that his father really had come back. Last I’d heard, my mother had taken up with Sven, a sauna aficionado. There was no way she and my father would ever make amends.
Another part of me worried that Cooper would ghost me now that he no longer needed a fake girlfriend.
I stayed in the vet’s parking lot for a couple more minutes, petting Mascot in the hope that he would understand I was trying to help him. He gave me squinty-eyed looks of suspicion.
As soon as I started the car, Mascot jumped onto the floor and tried to hide under the seat, which was probably one of the activities I was supposed to be limiting. He dragged his leg behind him and meowed accusingly.
In an effort not to panic him more, I drove super slow on my way to Cooper’s house. This might have worked if a car behind me hadn’t honked angrily for my lack of speed and zoomed past me, honking again. After that, Mascot crawled out from his hiding place, jumped back on the seat, and scaled the headrest.
How had the vet thought I was going to limit any of this?
Best just to get him to Cooper’s house quickly. I sped the rest of the way. This did little to calm Mascot’s nerves.
I finally parked in front of Cooper’s house, peeled Mascotoff the passenger-side upholstery, and extricated him from my car.
As I walked to Cooper’s house, the cat clung to my shirt, then tried to escape over my shoulder. I held onto him and rang the doorbell. Mascot meowed loudly, cone swinging while he searched Cooper’s yard for hiding places.
The door opened. I expected to see Cooper since he knew I was coming. Instead, Mr. Nash answered. In some ways, he looked like an older version of Cooper. He had the same square jaw and handsome features. He was almost as tall and broad-shouldered as Cooper, but his hair was light blond and had none of Cooper’s curl. The manual labor he did on the oil rigs may not have paid much, but the muscles in his arms left no doubt of his strength.
My poor father. Instead of taking Ms. Nash’s spin class, he should’ve been lifting weights.
Mr. Nash took note of Mascot and looked at me in question, like I might be a door-to-door fundraiser collecting money for injured animals. “Yes?” he prompted.
“Is Cooper here?” I asked.
“Yes.” The word still held a question. He had no idea who I was. Mascot shrank in my arms, his ears flat against his head. I hoped he wasn’t about to start hissing.
“I’m Madeline,” I said.
Mr. Nash’s eyes widened, taking me in fully. Judging me. I wasn’t sure if he liked what he saw.
I gulped nervously. Had Cooper said something that made him dislike me, or did he just dislike me on principle since I was his ex-wife’s last boyfriend’s daughter?
Cooper appeared at the door. “Madeline.” He opened the door wider to let me in. “I forgot you were coming today. Withmy dad returning home last night ...” His sentence drifted off. I didn’t know if he really had forgotten about Mascot or whether he was just making an excuse for his parents as to why he hadn’t mentioned the cat.
