Falling Like Leaves (Bramble Falls, #1)(64)

“Yeah. Okay. You’re right,” I say. “You have to come with us. I need you there.”

“I already have plans with Asher, sorry.”

I throw on my low-rise Agolde jeans and toss her a look. “Right. And when are you going to spill the tea about what’s going on there?”

Sloane’s face turns pink. “Nothing is going on. We’ve been best friends my whole life.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Please shut up,” she says.

I pretend to zip my lips. If she’s not ready to tell me, I can wait. I have my own problems right now anyway.

Like the fact that Jake’s voice is carrying up the stairs. “Let’s go, Ellis!”

“If I text you nine-one-one, you better come save me,” I tell my cousin.

“You got it,” she says.

Jake and I hop in the back of the truck, and he informs me that due to space, it’s just the four of us tonight—him and me, Chloe and Cooper.

Fantastic.

Five minutes later, we pull into the drive-in theater for double-feature horror-movie night, where Scream will play first, followed by Hereditary, neither of which I’ve seen. Cooper backs the truck into a parking spot so the bed is facing the movie screen. After he and Chloe hop out of the front seat, Jake scoots as far over as he can, so he’s jammed against the side, and I sit next to him.

Cooper hooks the speaker to the truck, then avoids eye contact as he sits next to me. Chloe squeezes in next to him, forcing me to be mashed between him and Jake. “Sorry,” he says.

Jake lifts his arm to make space, setting it over my shoulder and pulling me closer. The fact that Cooper doesn’t do the same—put his arm around Chloe to make space—isn’t lost on me. With my arm pressed to Cooper’s, my whole body tingles, wanting more.

I hate this so much. Why on earth did I agree to this torture?

“Everyone comfy enough?” Jake asks, throwing blankets over all of us.

“Yeah,” Cooper and I mutter in unison.

“No. I’m too squished,” Chloe says. I can’t decide if she’s actually suffering over there, or if she just wants Cooper’s arm around her. Either way, he only inches closer to me. By the time we’re all situated and the movie starts, Chloe has more space than any of us.

I lean my head back on Jake’s arm and replay Sloane’s words in my head. Ignore Cooper and Chloe.

Which is harder than I thought it’d be, considering we’re all smashed together.

A while later, the cold air cuts through my striped cashmere sweater, and I shiver. Cooper doesn’t look at me and he says nothing, but he pulls the blanket up so it’s covering more of our top halves, then he lowers his arm.

But beneath the blankets, in the nearly nonexistent space between our legs, his knuckles graze mine before he settles his hand there.

And he doesn’t move it.

I close my eyes. The touch is subtle, the backs of our hands pressed to each other, but it’s something.

I should pull my hand away. I should tell Jake I want to move a blanket to the ground, outside the truck where I can’t see Cooper, but I can’t.

Because it hurts to get mere crumbs, but it also feels so right.

So, we watch the rest of Scream like that.

When the movie ends, Jake announces he needs to stretch. Cooper’s hand slips away as he pushes the blanket off us, and we all pile out of the bed.

I use the bathroom and wait in a mile-long line for popcorn for the next movie, then head back to the truck, where Cooper, Chloe, and Jake are waiting—and a mini pumpkin is sitting on the opened tailgate.

I stop short of the truck and look at them. Cooper is staring at the blank movie screen, gnawing at his lip, Chloe’s eyes are flitting between the three of us, and Jake is watching me as he nervously cracks his knuckles.

I slowly approach. “What, um, is happening?”

“Open it,” Jake says, gesturing at the pumpkin.

“That’s… for me?” I ask. I glance at Cooper, who seems to be avoiding looking at me.

“It is,” Jake says, now grinning.

Oh no.

Now would be a great time for the ground to open up and swallow me.

I set my popcorn on the tailgate, and it topples over and spills. But I don’t even care.

My hands are shaking as I pull the top off the mini pumpkin. I reach in, grab the note, and unfold it.

Dear New Girl,

Roses are red,

And you’re really pretty.

Will you be my date for the Pumpkin Prom

If you’re not back in New York City?

Jake



Written on a piece of purple-lined paper in purple ink.

My brow furrows. I know for a fact I only let him borrow paper once, and I definitely saw him writing on it that day.

Holy shit. “Did you write this on the first day of school? After you asked for a pen?” I ask him.

He shrugs. “I’m a mastermind. I knew the first time I saw you that nothing was going to stop me from asking.”

I can’t help but laugh. Taylor Swift would adore Jake Keller. “But I worked at the table all day. You never came to get a pumpkin.”

He nods at Cooper. “I sent my boy to get it for me so you wouldn’t suspect anything.”

Oh. My. God. The day after we kissed, Cooper had to get a pumpkin so Jake could ask me to the Pumpkin Prom.