The Shippers(71)

I felt a flash of guilt. But I pushed back. If anyone should be guilty, it was Cooper. For his disloyalty, if nothing else! And his bad taste in women! And his sock.

“We’re headed to breakfast,” Finn said then, pleasantly, “if you’d like to join us.”

But Cooper didn’t respond. He just turned, all high-and-mighty, to walk the other way down the hall.

Read the room, Finn.

“Hey,” I said, launching into a high-heeled jog after Cooper. “You never texted me back!”

Cooper just kept walking.

“I needed to talk to you!” I went on, gaining on him. He didn’t just get to make a wrong assumption about me and then walk away.

“I was busy,” Cooper said, not slowing.

Finn didn’t follow us. “Does this mean you’re not having breakfast?” he called.

But he was already forgotten.

Cooper kept walking, and I kept following.

Where were we even going? This direction didn’t lead anywhere but out to a deck.

Next, I said, “You needed to talk to me, too, by the way.”

“Not really,” Cooper said.

“Yes,” I insisted. “You said that twice at the variety show.”

Cooper paused to push open the doors that led outside, slowing to look my way and then glance back at Finn—who was now walking off to breakfast on his own. “It’s not relevant,” Cooper said. “Anymore.”

“What was it, though?” I asked, as he resumed his pace. “What did you need to say?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Maybe it does.”

“Why are you even here?” Cooper said. “You should be having a postcoital breakfast with Gear Guy.”

“That’s what I was texting you about!”

“Don’t text me about that,” Cooper said. Then he added, “Or anything.”

We emerged into the full sunshine of the deck now. And when Cooper realized it, he stopped abruptly, let out a dropped-shoulders sigh, and then did a one-eighty to come back toward me.

“What are you doing?” I demanded as he grabbed me by the waist and rotated me around, too.

“There’s no shade out here,” he said, steering me back toward the interior hallway.

Even mid-fight, he was protecting my sunburn.

But he wasn’t softening. As soon as we were back inside, he was striding ahead again, and I was trotting after him.

“I’m trying to talk to you, Cooper,” I said, in a tone like Slow down.

“I don’t feel like talking.”

“What is your problem?”

“Maybe it’s ’cause I didn’t sleep last night. At all. Even for one minute.”

Didn’t sleep at all—with Bridesmaid Two? My body clamped down at the thought.

“And it’s your fault,” Cooper added.

“Pretty sure that was all you, dude,” I said. How dare he?

But Cooper just kept walking.

“I don’t get what we’re fighting about,” I said.

“We’re not fighting about anything,” Cooper declared.

We reached our cabin door.

“I also don’t get why you’re so mad about seeing me with Finn just now”—I gestured at the knob where the sock had been—“when you clearly had quite an evening yourself!”

For the first time all morning, Cooper met my eyes.

But he wasn’t looking at me. He was glaring.

Not fair. “How,” I demanded, “can you possibly be mad at me for anything right now, when you clearly spent the night in our cabin with the shallowest, ickiest bridesmaid on this ship?”

But Cooper didn’t respond. Just unlocked the door and pushed his way into the cabin.

I followed.

“No response to that, huh?” I prodded. “Too embarrassed to reply?”

“I’m not embarrassed about anything,” he said, charging toward the balcony doors—like now that he’d entered our cabin he wanted nothing more than to get back out.

“I’m not embarrassed about anything,” I countered.

But again—no response. Now Cooper was working the latch on the sliding doors—which shouldn’t have been that challenging—flipping it up and down, pushing and pulling, throwing every single shoulder muscle into it, all to no avail.

“If anyone should be embarrassed,” I went on, pressing my advantage, “it’s the person who spent all night desecrating our beloved cabin with Sock Girl!”

“Don’t call her Sock Girl,” Cooper said as the latch gave way and the door slid open. “Her name is Bridesmaid Two!”

We both paused at that as the wind rushed in.

“What is her name?” I asked then.

But Cooper just growled like I was driving him insane and escaped out onto the balcony.

And so, of course, I followed.

I’ve been over the memory of this moment so many times. How could things have gone so far off the rails? How could we have been right there together, just the two of us, surrounded by all the real facts of the situation—and not managed to clear up even one meaningful thing with each other?

Maybe it was sleep deprivation. Or too many emotions all at once. Or the way time can shift into fast-forward without permission. We hurtled through that moment at warp speed, and I never could get my bearings. It was too much too fast to even start.