“So, you ask him if he’s going to ask you, which is kind of like you asking him and he saysno,” Coop said slowly as if feeling his way through the situation verbally. “And you don’t need me to kick his ass—question mark.”
The fact he didn’t sound certain about whether he was stating it or asking again made me smile. “No, you don’t need to. He isn’t being mean. I promise.” I drew back and swallowed around the lump in my throat before I shoved the phone into my back pocket. Rubbing my hands over my face, I tried to chase the tears away,
I hated crying.
“No. We’re not breaking up. Or at least, he isn’t. He likes what we have—which is pretty undefined at the moment so—” I spread my arms. “Whatever. I like him too. He’s—he’s a good guy.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Coop said easily and when I frowned at him, he spread his own arms. “I said I’d take your word for it. I don’t know him, Frankie. I’m never going to thinkanyone is good enough for you. Hell,wearen’t good enough for you.”
I must have gawked at him, because my mouth dropped open, then I snapped it shut. Shaking my head, I tried to ignore the vibrating phone in my pocket. “You’re such an idiot.”
“Sometimes,” he said, almost agreeably before he typed something into the phone.
“Be nice to them, I started this conversation.”
“I’m always nice,” he quipped, then paused a beat to meet my gaze. “Fine, I’m nice most of the time. What do you want to eat? Because Archie is about to order takeout from five different places if we don’t tell him.”
Exasperation underscored every single word as did the roll of his eyes that he punctuated the whole sentence with.
“He does that…”
“Yes, I know. It’s how he tries to fix things. First, are we going over there? Second, are you hungry? Third, what are you hungry for? And lastly, are you sure I can’t go kick Fren—Mathieu’s ass for you? Maybe he needs it more than you know?”
“Yes. Yes. Chinese. Moo Goo Gai Pan. And no, you might need to kick his ass, but Mathieu doesn’t.”
His long-suffering sigh made me smile again. My emotions were just all over the damn place.
“I’m going to wash my face real quick.” The last thing I needed to do was show up at Archie’s with red eyes or looking like I’d been crying. Not everyone would listen to me. Hell, I wasn’t even sure Coop would totally listen at the moment.
One step from the bathroom, the date hit me and I groaned. “Coop?”
“Yeah?”
“Can you ask Archie to order ice cream too?”
“Chocolate?”
“Or mint chocolate chip—no—both. Wait. Those and strawberry.” That all sounded so good.
“I’m telling him to make sure he gets the works for sundaes.”
“Yes!” I almost fist pumped then I hurried through washing my face. PMS sucked. Periods sucked too. But whenever I stressed, PMS just made it a thousand percent worse.
I was tempted to pull out my phone and check the messages, but I needed to get it all together before we left. ‘Cause I had to talk to Coop on the way there. I hesitated—maybe I should wait until we were there.
Better to talk to them all at once? Yes, I could practice with Coop. But that wasn’t really fair to the rest of them. Closing my eyes, I tilted my head back. Maybe dating was just a bad idea. Why did all of this have to be so hard?
“Done. I said we’d be there in thirty, and it only takes fifteen to get there, so we have some time.” Coop was right outside the open bathroom door.
Turning put me face to face with him. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” In his short-sleeved dark gray t-shirt and dark cut-off sweatpants that he’d turned into shorts the summer before last because he shot up like six inches and they were too short. He was also bare foot.
“You forgot your shoes.”
“I’ll grab them before we go,” he said with a shrug. “You want to come out here and talk to me now?”
“Not really.” I twisted my lips, before I cleared my throat.
