“It just… it feels like things are happening for everyone in New York, like everything outside of this place is moving forward, and I’m… stuck. Being here feels like trying to claw my way out of quicksand.”
He nods as he sticks one last flower in and lets go of my hand. I stare at his handiwork.
He made me a corsage.
A shiver runs through me, and it’s not because of the temperature.
Ed Sheeran’s voice spills through the propped open double doors. Cooper pins the red rose back into his pocket, stands, and holds out his hand for me to take. “Dance with me?”
“Um, okay.” I swallow and set my hand in his, rising to dance with him.
Barefoot in the cold grass, I wrap my arms around his neck and his arms come around me, his hands resting on my bare lower back. I shudder at his touch, but if he notices, he doesn’t say anything.
We sway to the song.
We were just kids when we fell in love,
Not knowing what it was…
“Has it really been that terrible?” Cooper asks, his voice low. “Being in Bramble Falls, I mean?”
I look up at him, and he stares back at me with those burnt honey eyes. “No,” I whisper. “It hasn’t.”
His thumb makes slow, soft circles on my lower back, and I melt into him, resting my cheek on his shoulder and closing my eyes. Because it’s perfect here. I could live in this moment forever.
We dance like that, beneath the starlit sky, with our hearts beating fast and untamed, and his touch raising the hairs on my neck and arms.
Until someone clears their throat.
I open my eyes to find Chloe watching us. “Cooper, we wereannounced as homecoming king and queen. They’re waiting for us onstage.”
She glances at me again, and I pull out of Cooper’s arms. “Well, that’s… fun. Congrats,” I say. “I’ll, uh, let you get back to your date.” I step over to where my shoes sit on the ground by the table. “Thanks for the dance.”
“Yeah,” he mumbles.
“Let’s go,” Chloe says to him.
I slide my shoes on, a thousand frenzied feelings exploding inside of me like fireworks.
Then I watch as Cooper walks back into the dance with his queen, and the denial slips away, giving way to the most heart-stopping and unfortunate realization.
I really, really like Cooper Barnett.
This isnotgood.
Chapter Twenty
Ibarely slept after I got home last night. After watching Cooper and Chloe be crowned and share a slow dance together (and hating every second of it), I left with Jake. He dropped me off at my door, hugged me goodbye, and, with the most heartfelt smile, thanked me for ultimately showing up. It almost made me grateful that Mr. Erikson canceled.
But after showering, I lay in bed trying to process how this happened. Trying to convince myself it hadn’t.
I can’t like Cooper. I’m leaving here in a month.
He and Chloe are… something.
He’s adistraction.
Sloane and I spent today lounging on the couch, nursing our sore feet and eating snacks while watching TV. I talked to Fern for a while, and at one point Jake texted just to say he had fun. But it’s been otherwise a quiet day.
