All five of my kids looking confused and worried.
Cooper’s chest, suddenly in front of me. His face, when I looked up, soft and concerned.
“Felix,” he repeated, ducking his head to catch my gaze. I stared into his warm brown eyes, breathing much harder than I should have been. “It’s okay.”
I bit my tongue to stop myself snapping at him.
Ever since he’d left last night, all I’d wanted was for him to come back. I’d wanted to curl up beside him again, talking about nothing important, listening to his heartbeat and soaking in his body heat.
But I’d known I couldn’t give him what he really wanted.
A man has needs, Felix. You can’t be angry with me for finding someone else to fulfil them when you aren’t.
WhatIwanted right now was to collapse against Cooper’s chest and let him tell me everything was going to be fine. I wantedhim, and all the warmth and comfort and safety he’d made me feel over the past few weeks. I wanted to cling to him like ananchor and let him promise me that he wouldn’t let me get swept away.
“It’s broken down,” Amelia called out.
My stomach plummeted. She’d been calling the hire company.
“How far out?” Cooper called back, turning his face to her, standing up a little straighter.
“Forty minutes out of town,” Amelia said, approaching the two of us. “Do you think…?”
“Any clues what’s wrong with it?”
Hope fluttered somewhere in my chest. Cooper was a mechanic. He knew how to fix buses, probably. Were they all that different from cars?
“None.”
Cooper sighed. “Forty minutes to get to ‘em, forty minutes back. Even if it’s a quick repair, another half hour added to that. Throw in the risk that it’s not something I can fix roadside…”
The fluttering stopped dead. Almost two hours.
Registration closed in two hours.
“I do have another idea,” Cooper said.
I looked up at him again. One tiny butterfly wing beat faintly against my ribs.
“But, uh,” he continued, looking between me and Amelia and scratching the back of his neck. “You’re not gonna love it.”
“Is this legal?”I asked, craning my neck to look over my shoulder at the kids squished into the back of a people mover which might have been generously described as a fixer-upper.
Very generously.
It was the same one I’d seen Cooper working on the first time I’d gone to see him at the shop. His, apparently. He’d been working on it so he’d be able to take Benji and all his friends wherever they wanted to go.
He was still working on it.
Cooper cleared his throat. “Sure.”
“Uh huh,” I said, turning back to him as he adjusted the rearview mirror.
“It’s only illegal if we get pulled over,” Cooper said. “Which we won’t, because I’m an extremely safe and conscientious driver.”
That, I believed. Cooper wouldn’t have offered this if he wasn’t sure it was safe.
It meant leaving all the other parents and Amelia behind—she’d insisted I should go, since I’d been the one teaching the kids the last few weeks.
