The Shippers(60)

I looked down. I’d almost forgotten. “This bra is practically a bathing suit.”

“We can go with that.”

Fine. No hug. Instead, I looked into his eyes. “Cooper … I’m so sorry.”

He shook his head. “We all go through things.”

“But we don’t all get kidnapped.”

“It brings me back to your question, though,” Cooper said.

I couldn’t even remember the question at this point.

“About this,” he said, touching his scar.

“Your fencing scar,” I said.

I lifted my hand and ran the pad of my pointer finger over the spot. I could feel a little indentation that cut all the way down through the rim of his lip. “That’s deeper than it looks,” I said.

“It happened when I escaped. From my dad’s.”

“You escaped?”

Cooper nodded.

“I was hoping he’d just come to his senses and taken you home.”

Cooper shook his head, like Nope. “He forgot to lock the closet handle one day when he went out, so I climbed out the second-story window.”

“That was brave.”

“I missed my mom.”

I peered in to look closer at the scar. “Your dad didn’t catch you, did he?”

“No. He wasn’t even there. I just—lost my balance and fell, and hit a chain-link fence on the way down.”

I winced and sucked in a big breath. “Oh, my god.”

Cooper nodded. “I came home completely covered in blood with a broken arm, and I scared the hell out of my mom. Next thing I knew, we were moving across the country to Texas.”

“How have you never told me any of this?”

“I guess because I’ve never told anyone.”

“I thought I knew everything about you.”

“You know more than anybody else.”

And then, even though it was a terrible idea, and even though I was technically in my underwear, and even though it really did hurt, I pulled Cooper into a hug, and I didn’t let him go.





Twenty


I WOKE UP the next morning to the shocking sight of Cooper—texting.

With Bridesmaid Two!

“What on earth are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m canceling.”

“Canceling what?”

“My plans with Bridesmaid Two.”

Why was this information so appalling? “You had plans with Bridesmaid Two?”

“You had plans with Finn,” Cooper said in his own defense.

“That’s different,” I said. “I don’t have a choice about that.”

“It’s weird that you don’t know this,” Cooper said, “but you have all the choice in the world.”

But not today. Because at the end of our kayaking day yesterday, in Nassau, Finn had asked me to go out with him again today, once we docked at Freeport. This time, to go snorkeling.

I’d been too sunburned yesterday to celebrate that win.

In fact, I forgot all about it—until I woke up. Docked. In Freeport.

According to the spreadsheet, it was time to snorkel.

“You can’t be thinking of going?” Cooper demanded, reading my face.

“I’m feeling much better this morning.”

“Guess what?” Cooper said. “There is no shade in the ocean.”

“I’ll put sunscreen on this time,” I said with a shrug. “I’ll bring a hat.”

“No,” Cooper said.

“No?”

“You’re no stranger to dumb things. You’ve done some Guinness Book–level dumb things. But you’re not doing this.”

This really was a first. In my whole life, Cooper had never, ever, tried to tell me what I could or couldn’t do.

“Look,” he said. “I told you all about my dad last night.”

“I remember,” I said.

“So you know for sure that I make it a policy not to tell other people what to do.”

“That sounds like a great policy.”

“So it really takes a lot for me to say this to you…”

I waited.

Cooper crossed his arms over his chest. “But you’re not going anywhere.”

Wow.

“You need to stay here and drink water and rest. I did not stay up all night taking care of you just to watch you give yourself sun poisoning again today.”

“Did you stay up all night taking care of me?”

“Yes,” he said, his face grumpy. “I did.”

“Thank you,” I said—and I meant it.

It wasn’t a hard sell. If I had to stay in Cooper’s luxury cabin all day for health reasons, then I had to. And if Cooper had to stay, too, as my primary caregiver? Fine.

He opened his sliding glass doors to let the fresh breeze in. He kept me hydrated and slathered me with more aloe. We ordered room service grilled cheeses. We watched bad TV. We practiced our song. We talked about old times.

By midday, I felt better enough to slip on a light cotton cover-up and sit out on Cooper’s balcony in the shade.

The big excitement of the day was when we realized the cruise ship parked in the slip next to ours was the MS Decadence—the ship we’d been docked next to back in Galveston. And as we stood on our balcony, looking at all the other folks across the way who were looking at us from their balconies, we spotted the cruise dudes from before.