I frown and pick out another floating apple. I bob for it, only to come up with nothing. Again.
The final team sprints away from the tubs and heads toward the ropes for the three-legged race. Most teams seem to be struggling with it, though, and I wonder if we might be able to catch up.
I nod at the teams ahead of us. “I think we still have a chance. What’s the secret to getting an apple?”
“I wouldn’t call it a secret, but you can’t be all delicate and slow or else you just end up pushing it around. You have to dive right in.”
I climb back onto my knees beside him, close enough that his body heat warms the side of me. Taking a deep breath, I dive quickly at the red apple I’ve homed in on.
And this time the apple crunches between my teeth.
“Hell yeah! You did it!” Cooper shouts.
It was pure luck, but whatever.
I can’t stop smiling as I drop it into our pile. Cooper snags one last apple, gives me a high five, and we’re off to the next task.
“Hurry!” I shout to Cooper once we get to our rope. He stands next to me and holds his hand out, but instead of giving him the rope, I attach our legs with a perfect bowline knot.
“Whoa,” he says as I tug on it to test it out. “You’ve never bobbed for apples, but you can dothat?”
“I was a Cub Scout.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “Seriously? That’s pretty badass.”
“You can shower me with compliments later,” I say, trying to ignore the flutter in my stomach. “Right now we have to go. Inside legs first.” We step forward in unison. Inside legs. Outside legs. Inside legs.
Soon, with most teams falling or their knots coming untied, Sloane and Asher are the only people ahead of us.
“We’re coming for you, cuz!” I shout to Sloane.
She glances back and screams through her giggles. “Faster, Asher!”
“Your legs are too short to go much faster!” I hear him say to her.
“Just shut up and run,” she laughs.
They speed up, and Cooper glances at me. “Ready to sprint?”
I nod, and we pick up our pace.
Ahead of us, Sloane and Asher are stopped, retying their rope.
“We might actually be able to do this!” I say.
“Stay steady,” Cooper says. “If you get too excited, you’ll—”
Suddenly, I’m tripping over a fallen branch that was hidden beneath the leaves—and taking Cooper down with me. We land on the ground in a heap of tangled and twisted limbs, Cooper grunting as he falls on top of me.
His cheek is pressed to the side of my head when his whole body begins to shake with his contagious laughter. We lie there, chest to chest, cracking up until our stomachs hurt.
Teams pass us by, and finally Cooper leans to the side and hovers over me. His eyes are watery but bright, crinkling at the corners as he looks down at me with a smile that nearly knocks the wind out of me. My fingers itch to reach up and push his hair out of his eyes, to trace along his jaw, to touch the divot in his cheek.
A few yards away, Sloane and Asher throw their pumpkins on the finish line, pulling me from my trance. Sloane does cartwheels across the lawn while Asher celebrates with a goofy victory dance that seems to meld choreography from Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” video and Jenna Ortega’s dance inWednesday. Then the two best friends collide in a hug.
Cooper sighs. “Well, we lost.”
“You don’t say,” I laugh. He maneuvers off me, and I immediately wish I could rewind time and press pause.
