“Maybe I have an answer.”
“Dessert. Are you in or are you out?”
“Ohhh, good question.” I tap my chin. “I have a question for your question.”
He braces his hand on the table and takes a deep breath. “I’m ready.”
“I’m very glad you prepared yourself, because this is going to be a doozy.”
“Hit me with it.”
“Dessert. Will it be consumed here, or would we be able to relocate?”
“That is quite the solid question.” He squints at me from behind his glasses. “I’m going to assume your question has experience behind it. Since you know the nachos so well, maybe you know the dessert menu too.” I nod. “Which means you’re either in favor of the desserts or are very likely to order one here. Perhaps this bar has a secret ability to make fantastic desserts that I don’t know about.” He glances around the room. “But I don’t see anyone with a dessert, which gives me pause.” He pushes his hand over his hair. “I don’t think this place is known for their desserts, and even though it’s human nature to try to be perfect at everything, perfection is very rarely attainable. So I’m going to answer relocate.”
I can’t help the smile that spreads across my face. “Great answer. I know just the place we can go. It’s the best.”
“I shall look forward to it. In the meantime, I’m going to eat these nachos.”
“Did your parents ever text you to let you know they made it safely to your apartment?”
“Yes.” Cooper shakes his head, chuckling. “They took a picture together. Mom was wearing one of my shirts, and Dad borrowed a pair of my socks. They thought it was hilarious that they were playing around in my closet. I don’t understand them sometimes.”
“Not sure my parents would do the same. They would raid my kitchen, though, only to sadly realize I don’t have anything in there but salt, pepper, and ketchup.”
“You mean to tell me your parents don’t go grocery shopping for you?” he asks.
My eyes shoot open in surprise. “Wait, your parents go grocery shopping for you?”
“Yeah,” he says in a serious tone. “They go grocery shopping, and then I go grocery shopping in their cabinets.”
My face falls flat. “What are you, in college still?”
He laughs. “I do a lot of shit for them around the house. I don’t mind taking the occasional bundle of bananas from them. But for a large load of groceries, I do that on my own so I can write up my schedule. My parents’ are just supplemental groceries.”
“Schedule? Do tell me more about this. Do you have a food schedule?”
He pauses, giving it some thought. “More like a menu.”
“Stop, really?” I stifle a laugh. Cooper Chance is just full of surprises. “Do you write it out on a whiteboard or something?”
“I do. That way, I know what I have to take out of the freezer meat-wise the night before. And when I make a menu, I don’t nearly have as much food waste as I do when I wing it. Did you know it takes lettuce twenty-five years to decompose in a landfill?”
“What?” I ask in outrage. “But it’s a vegetable.”
“But it’s combined with all the other trash out there. It’s why you should compost. Do you compost?”
“I don’t have time to make myself dinner. Do you think I have time to compost?”
“That’s not very PNW of you.”
I chuckle. “There’s a lot about me that’s not very PNW. Do you know I’ve never paddleboarded?”
“You mean to tell me you don’t do that on the weekends?”
“Not so much.” I glance down at the plate between us. There are two chips left. We each take one and tap them together in a mock toast. The flow between us feels easy, as if I don’t even need to try. And that should add on to the nerves I had at the beginning of this sit-down, but for some reason, it washes them away. Because being with Cooper feels right. “I did jump through a sprinkling hydrant once to cool off. Does that count for water activity?” I crunch into my chip, almost groaning over the final taste of cheesy goodness.
“I would like to say yes, you know, to win points with you, but although running through water can be quite impressive, I’m afraid it doesn’t qualify as PNW water activity. More like . . . NYC.”
“All I got out of that is you want to win points with me.” I lean my elbow on the table and prop my chin up. “Tell me about that.”