“I need my phone. I can’t believe I slept here,” I say. “I have to text my mom.”
“Relax, Mitchell,” Cooper says, setting his hand on my arm. I pause to look at him. His eyes are bleary, and he has pillow creases etched into his cheek. And still he steals my breath. “I texted Naomi last night to tell her you’d fallen asleep while working on the scavenger hunt. She said she’d tell your mom. Everything’s good.”
I shake my head as he turns off his alarm. “There’s no waymy mom was okay with me sleeping at a boy’s house.”
“I’m not just any boy, you know,” he says with a sleepy crooked grin.
It’s true—Cooper is beloved and trusted by everyone in this little town. Plus, Aunt Naomi is friends with his parents, who—
“Oh my god, where are your parents?”
“Probably downstairs,” he says.
My face heats. “I’m going to have to climb out your window.”
Cooper laughs. “They know you stayed.” I groan, and he gestures at the doorway. “It’s okay. I left the door open. That’s the rule.”
“Oh? Do you have a lot of girls spend the night?” I ask, as if I want to know if the answer is yes.
Cooper blushes. “Well, no. You’re the only one.”
I hold back a smile, caused partly by his cute bashfulness and partly by the fact that it makes me strangely happy that I’m the only girl who’s slept in his bed overnight.
“Okay, well, I’d still rather not face them,” I tell him as I reach for my laptop, which is open but asleep. “I have to get going. Maybe I can finish this if I skip first period. I’ll probably miss a pop quiz, and if I’m not there, Jake will definitely fail, but—”
The laptop wakes as I pick it up, preparing to close it and pack it into my bag.
What. The. Hell.
There are twenty more riddles and clues written in the doc. Both lists are complete.
My head whips to Cooper, who’s sitting there watching me. “You stayed up and finished this?” I ask him.
“It didn’t take that long,” he says.
A lie. We weren’t even close to finished. It took us two hours to come up with the ten we had.
“I can’t believe you did this.”
He sits up with his back to me and lifts his arms over his head, stretching and yawning. “It isn’t a big deal.”
But it’s a big deal to me. And even though I shouldn’t, I throw my arms around him, wrapping him in a hug from behind. His body stiffens. “Thank you,” I say. He slowly lowers his arms and pats my hands, which are splayed across his stomach.
“No problem,” he says. “Let’s go make bacon.”
“On a school day?” I ask, letting go of him. “There isn’t time for bacon.”
He stands, and I pack up my stuff. “There’s always time for bacon. You can email that list to Naomi while I cook. Then I’ll drive you by your house so you can change.” When I don’t budge, he sighs. “Ellis, I set the alarm early enough that we would have time to eat. But if you don’t get moving, wewon’thave time.”
I don’t ask any more questions. Instead I do what he says because I’m honestly astounded right now. He finished my projectandconsidered breakfast.
Downstairs, Cooper’s parents are sitting together at the kitchen table eating cereal and toast. I can’t even remember the last time my parents sat together for a meal. Or, really, for anything—other than to tell me they were taking time apart.
“Ellis! So good to see you again,” Cooper’s mom says.
My cheeks flush. “You too, Mrs. Barnett.”
“Coop said you were working on the Harvest Hunt?”
