“You’re not staying at a shithole motel on the north side. You’re staying with me. The end.”
“You’re sure? I didn’t really think this through before I called, I just—”
“I’m done at six. I’ll come grab you from campus afterward.”
A lump of emotion rises in my throat. “Thanks. I, uh … damn it, Cooper, I really appreciate it.”
“I got you, princess.” Then he hangs up with a harried goodbye, leaving me to smile at the phone. Not that I expected Cooper to be a dick about it, but he’s taking the whole thing remarkably well.
“I’m sorry, do my ears deceive me?” a highly excited voice bubbles from my open doorway. “Or did I just hear you refer to our mysterious caller as Cooper?”
I meet her wide eyes. Sheepish.
“As in Cooper Hartley?”
I nod.
Bonnie gasps loud enough startle me, even though she’s right in front of me. “Oh sweet little baby Jesus! That’s who you been hidin’ from me?” She barrels into the room, blonde curls flying around her shoulders. “You are not leavin’ this dormitory till you provide me with every last detail. I need everything.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
COOPER
This chick is out of her mind.
“What is the peanut butter doing in the refrigerator?” I shout from the kitchen.
I swear to God, having three people in this house has turned the place into a circus. I used to know where Evan was by the creaks and groans the house made around him. Now there’s two of them and it’s like this old place is haunted—constant noises coming from every direction at once. Hell, at this point, you could probably convince me that Patricia exists.
“Hey!” I shout again into the void. “The hell did you go?”
“Right here, dipshit.” Evan appears beside me, shouldering me out of the way as he grabs the two six-packs of beers from the fridge and throws them in the cooler.
“Not you. The other one.”
He shrugs in response and leaves the kitchen with the cooler.
“What’s up?” Mac pops in from fuck knows where in a tiny bikini. Her tits are pouring out of the top, and the little strip of fabric between her legs is begging me to rip it off with my teeth. Damn.
“Did you do this?” I hold up the jar of some peanut butter brand I’ve never heard of. It was sitting in the door of the fridge the whole time I was emptying every cabinet in the kitchen looking for a jar of Jif.
She scrunches her face at me. “Do what?”
“Who puts peanut butter in the fridge?”
“Uh …” She comes over and takes the jar from me, turns it around in her hand. “It says so right on the label.”
“But then it gets all hard. It’s gross.” I open the jar to see an inch-thick layer of oil on top of the solid butter. “What’s all this shit?”
“It’s organic,” she tells me like I’m stupid for asking. “It separates. You have to stir it up a little.”
“Why on earth would anyone want to stir their peanut butter? You actually eat this?”
“Yes. It’s delicious. And you know what? You could do with laying off the added sugar. You seem a little wound up.”
Am I having a stroke? I feel like I’m losing my mind. “What does that have to do with anything?”
Mac rolls her eyes and kisses my cheek. “There’s regular peanut butter in the pantry.” Then she walks out onto the deck after Evan, shaking her ass at me.
“What pantry?” I yell after her.
When she ignores me, I turn to examine my surroundings until my gaze finally lands on the broom closet. A sinking feeling settles in my gut.
I open the closet door to discover she’s moved out the tools, emergency hurricane supplies, and other shit I’d neatly organized in there. It’s been replaced by all the real food that had mysteriously gone missing after she moved in and started filling our cabinets with non-GMO certified fair-trade flax seed crackers and whatever the fuck.
“Let’s go.” Evan pokes his head inside.
“You see this?” I ask him, pointing at the “pantry.”
“Yeah, it’s better, right?” Then he slips outside again, calling over his shoulder, “Meet you out front.”
Traitor.
It’s only been a week since Mac moved in, and already she’s turned the dynamic of the house upside down. Evan’s in a weirdly good mood lately, which I don’t trust in the slightest. All the counter space in my bathroom has been annexed. The food’s weird. The toilet paper’s different. And every time I turn around, Mac’s moving stuff around the house.