The Shippers(57)

“Sounds like you’ve had a few sunburns yourself.”

“A few,” he said.

This was the real result of my date with Finn. Not a post-excursion glass of champagne with the man I was trying to turn into my destiny … but conking out afterward for twelve hours in Cooper’s bed.

Before I fell asleep, though, Cooper made me drink a full bottle of water while he covered me with aloe—as I wore only a bra and a pair of short shorts.

My most sensible bra, though, if that helps. Cotton—not lacy. It could almost have been a bikini top.

“Sorry not to have a shirt on,” I said to Cooper.

“We’re in a medical situation,” he said, like It’s fine.

“Pretend it’s a bikini,” I said.

And then, I guess for a comedy callback, he said, “You don’t want me to do that.”

It had been a long time since I’d had a sunburn. Childhood, maybe?

But Cooper insisted the aloe would solve everything.

All he had to do was apply it all over every burned inch of my body.

But as I sat on my side of the bed, looking at the glob of gel in his hand, I shook my head. “I think I’m fine,” I said.

“I’m not going to argue with you,” Cooper said. “But you’re not.”

“I just—don’t want to be touched. Even fingertips seem like sandpaper.”

“That’s why you put the aloe on really thick,” Cooper explained.

My worst areas were my shoulders and the tops of my thighs. Cooper took a scoop of the gel on his fingers and moved toward my knee. “Let’s do one square inch,” he said, “and if you hate it, we’ll stop.”

One square inch. I didn’t stop him.

And it actually felt fine. Cool and smooth and soothing.

“How’s that?” Cooper asked.

“It’s good, actually.”

“Permission to do the rest?”

I nodded.

And so Cooper spent the next half hour slathering my back side with half the bottle—though he had to pause a few minutes in to put my hair up in a ponytail. He did my shoulders first—gliding cool strokes down to my bathing suit line and up to my hair. Then he blew on my back for a while to dry it before sending me to the bathroom for one last pee and then helping me lie back on the bed.

“You’re going to stick to the sheets a little,” he said, “but there’s no way around it.”

Once I was positioned, it was time to do my front side.

Cooper pulled up a chair to get to work.

I closed my eyes and said, “Tell me about the worst sunburn you ever got.”

But Cooper just sucked air through his teeth like nobody would benefit from that. “How about I sing to you instead?”

“That works.”

And that’s how we spent the evening. Cooper took requests—“Rocky Raccoon,” and “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” and the Kermit the Frog classic “Rainbow Connection”—while covering me, face to feet, in goo.

Despite everything, it was fun.

The aloe was so smooth and cool. Favorite areas included my cheeks, my collarbones, my knees, and the tops of my feet. “You’re good at this,” I said, when Cooper was midway through “American Pie.”

In response, he switched out one of the bye-byes with thank you.

Anyway: I had no trouble falling asleep that night.

Apparently, all I needed to get comfortable in bed with Cooper was a pampering serenade and a touch of sun poisoning.

But it worked. No fidgeting tonight. I conked out effortlessly and slept four hours straight—only waking later and peeling myself off the sheets to go pee. It’s a bit of a blur, but I know at some point, Cooper made me take more Tylenol and drink more water. And he did at least two reapplications of aloe in the middle of the night.

After the second bathroom run, though—maybe around four in the morning?—I couldn’t get back to sleep.

I lay in the bed with my skin hot and irritated, wide awake, unable to get comfortable and endlessly adjusting positions—as quietly as possible, hoping not to wake Cooper.

After about twenty minutes, Cooper said, “You probably need more aloe.”

“I’m fine,” I whispered. “Just go back to sleep.”

“Too late,” Cooper said, sitting up.

He came around to my side of the bed. Then we went through all the same sunburn-care steps again, silently, sleepily—until the final section, when he was sitting on a chair next to the bed and working the gel all over the front half of my body.

“Cooper?” I asked, my eyes closed in the dark as he slid the pads of his fingers across my collarbones.

“What?”

“I’ve been wanting to ask you a question for a long time.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“But I keep not asking.”

The question I wanted to ask, of course, was why he had disappeared four years ago.

But once I knew, I couldn’t unknow.

And what if the answer ruined everything?

I’d chickened out of asking him about it on the night of my non-wedding. And tonight, with nothing else to do and nothing else to talk about … I would chicken out again.

“What’s the question?” Cooper asked.