The Shippers(25)

I nodded. “Better believe it.”

“And can I ask what this plan might be?” Cooper asked.

“You can,” I said. I was going to have to tell him at some point. Might as well be now. I took a step closer and looked around for potential eavesdroppers. Then I said, “I’m going to fall in love on this cruise.”

In reaction, Cooper had no reaction.

His face stayed so still, in fact, that it prompted me to say, “Hello?”

Cooper shook his head, by all appearances trying to regroup. “Is that a plan?” Cooper asked. “Or … more like … a fantasy?”

“I know what words mean,” I said. “It’s a plan.”

“Okay,” Cooper said, lifting his hands.

“It’s an Ashley-approved plan,” I added, for legitimacy. “And she’s a marriage and family therapist.”

Almost, anyway.

Cooper didn’t argue.

I went on, “And you’re a central part of it now.”

Cooper took that in, studying my face. “Am I the one you’re going to fall in love with?”

“Oh, my god,” I said, smacking his shoulder. “Cooper! Focus!”

But Cooper shrugged. “I’ll do it.”

“Of course not,” I said.

Of course not. Cooper was the last guy in the world I could conquer. And I guess now is the moment when I have to unearth a half-forgotten moment in our friendship to explain why. Because the truth was—back in our senior year of high school, I’d allowed myself to harbor a little crush on Cooper, and I’d delusionally wondered if he might be feeling the same way about me. That is, until I had to take a shift at the kissing booth at the winter carnival. There had been a literal line for the girl on shift before me—but once I stepped into the booth? Crickets.

It was beyond humiliating.

I stood there like the most pathetic, unkissable person in all of human history for as long as I could bear it before I texted Cooper and told him to report to me, stat.

“I need you to kiss me,” I said when he showed up with a half-eaten corn dog.

At the words, Cooper promptly coughed out the bite he’d just taken.

We both watched it hit the asphalt and roll a couple of inches.

“What?” Cooper said.

“I’ve got twenty minutes left on my shift, and no one is kissing me.”

“So?” Cooper asked.

“So,” I said, like Duh, “I need you to get things rolling. Start the stampede!”

But Cooper’s head was shaking itself.

“I can’t just stand here until the end of my shift totally unkissed. Gretchen Barnes had a line out the gate.”

But Cooper just stared at me, his corn dog at half-mast.

“Ten seconds—that’s all I need.”

“I don’t feel well.”

“Five seconds! Three! A peck!”

“I really don’t feel well.”

“You were fine when you walked over here,” I said, putting my hands on my hips.

“That was before you wanted a kiss.”

“Cooper, this is not hard. Pretend I’m your grandmother.”

“You’re the opposite of my grandmother.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I can’t.”

“Are you really going to leave me here like this?”

“I’m honestly feeling sick. I’m not joking.”

I let out a sigh that felt like the collapse of all my self-esteem. Then I said the only thing I could say: “Fine. I guess I can’t force you.”

“I’m sorry,” Cooper said.

“Yeah,” I said, with free-flowing bitterness. “So am I.”

That could have been the end of it. It should have been the end of it.

But it wasn’t.

Like a classic dummy, I took a bad situation—and made it worse.

What happened next resulted from a number of factors: One, I didn’t believe that Cooper really wasn’t feeling well. Two, my teenage ego really, desperately didn’t want to come away from a shift at a kissing booth without getting even one kiss. Three, I’d been ignoring a manageable but growing secret crush on Cooper ever since Finn had left for college. And four, I kept getting the feeling that Cooper had a secret crush on me, too.

All to say, once Cooper was off the hook, he told me he was going home.

And then he spotted a trash can behind me to lob his leftover corn dog into, and as he leaned forward across the booth to toss it in …

I did something deeply ill-advised.

Because as he leaned closer, he was right within grabbing distance.

There was no time to think better of it. You know how reflex actions never make it to your brain? Your hand just yanks itself back from the fire without waiting for permission?

That was me right then. My body acting without my brain: reaching up, grabbing the collar of his T-shirt, and pulling his face to mine.

I know, I know.

I kissed him.

I fully ignored his very clear no. And did it anyway.

I don’t know what my rebellious body was thinking. Maybe that he just needed a little help over the hump? That once it was happening, he’d change his mind? Decide he liked it? Bring his arms around and clasp me tight as we gave in to the bliss of shifting from friendship to love?