by Cindi Madsen
Cooper turned to me, the streetlight illuminating his eyes. “I’m sure.”
“Okay.” Expelling a long breath, I reached for the door handle.
“Kate?”
I spun back to face Cooper. He reached out, like he was going to put his hand on my cheek, but then he dropped it before it made contact. “If things go south, or you need a ride home, just call me.”
Mick told me he’d give me a ride home when I talked to him at lunch earlier, but it was good to know I had such reliable backup. I nearly repeated my earlier move and kissed Cooper’s cheek, but I didn’t think I’d leave it at a smacking peck this time.
What’s wrong with you? Do not think about kissing Cooper, innocent cheek kiss or not.
Still, I owed him, and I didn’t think all the hours of rowing in the world could repay him. “Thank you. For everything.” I almost licked my lips before stopping myself short of smearing my lipstick or ending up with some of it on my teeth. “You’re a really good friend.”
That earned me half a smile, one adorable dimple flashing in the cheek I’d almost kissed.
“And I’m not just saying that because you’re my only friend,” I added with a grin.
The other side of his mouth got in on the smile, both dimples nearly too much to handle. He reached out and squeezed my hand. “Right back at you. About the friend thing. I mean, I have other friends, but I can honestly say none of them are like you.”
His gaze drifted behind me. “Someone’s looking out the window. Better get in there.”
“Yes, Coach.”
I jumped out of the truck, and when I reached the step, I looked back and watched Cooper’s truck drive away. It felt like a string in my chest was slowly unraveling, and I worried it’d snap once he got too far for me to see him.
But then I told myself to stop being a wimp and knocked on the door.
Chapter Twenty
Cooper
“Where’ve you been all week?” Dad asked the second I stepped in the door.
Every answer that popped into my mind would come out sarcastic, from “The lake,” to “School,” to “Here, where’ve you been?” Of course, that last one wasn’t as innocent as the rest. “How’s the case going?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s a mess, and a lot of damn paperwork, but it’s going. Soon I’ll have you to help sort through it, thank goodness. You could start the internship now, you know.”
My skin tightened uncomfortably. This evening had already been hard enough, watching Kate head toward another guy in that sexy red top that was burned into my mind, right along with her lips.
Soft lips that’d pressed against my cheek earlier today.
No surprise, helping her choose an outfit was another exercise in torture. Since I had another crappy situation unfolding before me, I focused on it. “With school and everything, it’d be better to wait until after graduation.”
“You don’t need to spend every second on the lake,” Dad said, tossing a thick file on top of another one. “Growing up means taking on responsibilities.”
“I know. I appreciate everything you and Mom have done for me. I just need another couple of months.”
Mom wandered in. “Give him a break, Paul.”
“And I should listen to you because you work hard to pay all the bills around here?”
Mom went ramrod straight, offense clear on her features.
Dad held up a hand. “I’m sorry. That was out of line. I know you work hard maintaining the house and with your organizations. I’m just stressed about this case.”
He was never not stressed about a case, be it this one, or the hundreds of others he’d had through the years, or even ones that might come up. And that was the life he wanted for me, the path he couldn’t even reasonably discuss without giving ultimatums and whipping out our entire family history going back three generations. He spoke sharply all the time, and I wondered if that’d be me someday, rude to the point of mean, only to blame stressful cases.
Kate already claims I’m that way with rowing. I tried not to be, but maybe she did deserve some airhead dude who would just drool over her while putting his hands—
I stopped that line of thinking before I ended up pissed off enough to jump right into a fight with my dad and tell him exactly what I thought of his internship and being a lawyer.
Chapter Twenty-One
Kate
The first thing I noticed was the tall, raven-haired girl with sharp features who had her arm around Mick.
Shock and disappointment bolted my feet to the floor, which was super inconvenient considering the urge to flee also overwhelmed me.
Mick’s gaze swept the room, and he did a double take when he looked my way. The smirk that tilted his mouth gave me heart palpitations, and seriously, why did my emotions all crash into each other whenever I was near him? “Kate. Hey.”
He left the model-esque female at his side—since I didn’t recognize her, I assumed she didn’t go to our school, but maybe that was only my low standing on the social ladder—and approached me. He ran his eyes up and down me. “Damn you look sexy.”
Heat flared in my cheeks. “Thank you. You, too.”
He put his hand on my back and led me over to the table, where four guys were already seated. A handful of other people milled around the room, including the raven-haired girl who would fry me on the spot if she had laser vision. “Have you played poker before?”
“I know the general rules, but I’ve only watched a few games on TV.”
“Then you can watch me play.” He sat down and pulled me onto his lap. “You can be my good luck charm,” he whispered in my ear and a pleasant chill traveled down my spine.
When the boys started throwing cash on the table, it took everything in me to not gasp at the amount—I could buy a ton of Funko Pop figurines with that kind of dough. After I got over my initial shock, it didn’t take long to get into the flow of the game.
Mick leaned forward to bet, and I put my hand on his chest. Everyone stared at me, most likely wondering why I was holding up the show. I almost abandoned my attempt to warn him, but I couldn’t help it. I moved my lips next to his ear and whispered, “The odds of you beating the guy at the end of the table are super low. Like fifteen percent. So if I were you, I’d either fold or bluff big.” I sat up enough to look into his face. I bit my lip. “Or ignore me, what do I know?”
Mick studied me for a moment, and the scrutiny made me squirm, which almost made me fall off his lap—laps weren’t all that comfortable in terms of long-term seating, FYI. Not that I’d abandon the spot I had wanted to be in forever, but I found it surprising.
I don’t remember feeling that way when I fell onto Cooper’s lap. I quickly swatted away the unbidden thought, but then I heard Cooper’s voice talking about how he was a ninja, and why did my brain hate me?
“I fold,” Mick said, tossing his cards.
Sure enough, the guy at the end of the table won. He glared at Mick and me. “So now you’re a cheater?”
“I’m simply utilizing my good luck charm,” Mick said, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me to his chest. Again, it felt like we’d passed the beginning get-to-know you phase and moved right into full-contact dating. But since I’d dreamed of that very thing, I couldn’t pinpoint why I couldn’t simply relax and go with it better.
Maybe because I added that “what do I know” comment after I gave him sound statistics advice, like I needed to hide just how much I do know.
At the guy’s deepening scowl, Mick patted my leg. “Looks like someone’s going to be a baby about losing. Why don’t you go get a drink? Maybe grab me one, too? If you don’t mind?”
I twisted to face Mick and decided to stop overanalyzing everything and embrace how far I’d come. After all, he’d called me his good luck charm, and I was sure I’d get used to this warp speed intimacy in time. Maybe if I threw myself fully into it, too? I played with the ends of his hair—or tried—there wasn’t
much to play with, not like Cooper’s, and that one section that constantly fell in his face. “Sure. I’ll be right back.”
Once I reached the basement bar area, I took the chance to catch my breath. I pulled out my phone, wanting to send Cooper a text and tell him I thought I was doing even better than expected.
But the fact that I’d thought about his lap and his jokes—and his freaking hair—stopped me. Maybe I was spending too much time with him, and that was why everything got all mixed up and muddy in my head.
So I pocketed my phone and grabbed two drinks.
And when I returned to the table to see Mick was now standing, the raven-haired girl’s hand on his arm as she talked to him, I was rather proud that I didn’t drop them.
By the end of the first round of poker, one thing was clear. I wasn’t the only girl in Mick’s rotation. You knew he averaged four girls a semester.
Yeah, but I didn’t know it was closer to two girls a night.
That last interaction looked more like she initiated it, though.
Since my options were either admit defeat, or work harder to show him how right we were for each other, I sat my butt down at the poker table and asked if I could play.
The twenty-dollar buy-in made my gut drop, but I told myself to trust my calculator brain. Within the hour, I made two hundred dollars and received dozens of impressed looks and compliments from Mick.
The tall model chick gave up halfway through and went to flirt with Vance Mitchell instead. I couldn’t help but give an internal fist pump. Winning at poker, and winning at boys. This certainly is an interesting turn of events…
I gathered my winnings into a pile. “Thanks for letting me play. I’m going to bow out now.” No way was I going to play until I lost everything.
Mick leaned in, his hand on my thigh. “Are you some kind of pool shark?”
I laughed. “No.” To keep or not to keep my secret? The idea was to reveal the real me a little at a time, right? Besides, “serious” and “smart” are two different things, and I’m not going to play dumb to try to make someone like me. “I’m good at calculating odds, though—math and statistics are kind of my thing.” I lowered my voice and bent closer. “Pissy Poker Player doesn’t look too happy about it.”
Mick chuckled and wrapped his hand tighter around my thigh. “Pissy Poker Player can deal. I think I should take you and your card counting to Vegas.”
Card counting? Was that what I was doing? That was illegal, wasn’t it? I almost felt bad enough to give back the money I’d made, but I took in Pissy Poker Player’s clothing and the fat designer watch that was totally for show, and decided he could afford it. Plus, my classified Operation was well under way and making progress, and I needed money for a prom dress.
Mick scooted away from the table. “I’ve got to circulate a bit. Will you be okay on your own?”
“Yeah. Mind if I look around?”
Mick kissed the spot under my ear and whispered, “Knock yourself out.”
If he knew that I’d wondered countless times what his bedroom looked like, he probably would’ve thought twice about granting me an all access pass. Since I could hear Cooper telling me the name I’d put Mick under in my phone would make the guy freak—something I still needed to change—I figured going through his room was also a no-no.
I stuck to the lower level, and a few minutes into my mini, self-guided tour, I bumped into Amber. She smiled and said “hey,” so I figured I’d attempt the polite conversation I hadn’t gotten around to the other day. “Hey, back. I didn’t know you were here.”
“Just decided to swing by last minute—I waitress at MoeJoe’s now, so if I smell like food, that’s why.”
“Fun. I mean, the waitressing, not smelling like food. Not that you do.” I couldn’t help glancing around her, steeling myself for the dirty looks I’d get from the rest of her crew if they were also on their way in.
“Paris isn’t with me.”
“Oh. I didn’t…” Know how to finish. Words didn’t come easy between us anymore, which was sad, because at one point, we’d talked for hours on end.
“Anyway, Jared called to see if I’d bring him a burger and fries, like the mooch he is.” She rolled her eyes as she held up a white bag. “Guess I better go find him and tell him he owes me a really big tip.”
I nodded, not bothering to point her in any direction, because I didn’t know who Jared was. Idly I wondered if she was dating him. If she was happy. A dozen other ifs that flickered quickly through my mind.
Amber hesitated, then seemed to abandon whatever she was going to say and simply gave me another smile before heading toward the group of people in the living room.
I continued to the other side of the room and ended up in front of a massive window overlooking the backyard. The lake sat just beyond that, the water as dark as an oil spill with the sun fully set.
Occasionally I spotted Mick in the crowd, and he was always a little too friendly with the girls for my liking, but a lot of the time, they were the ones who initiated the flirty touches, and he and I weren’t an official thing.
Hopefully soon, though. If I play my cards right, and tonight proved that I’m rather good at cards. A smug sense of victory made me feel light and floaty.
The twinkling stars in the inky sky caught my eye and I searched out the constellations Cooper had shown me. Is that Hercules? Or is it that other star cluster?
Honestly, none of them looked like a dude standing on a dragon, and I couldn’t recognize anything besides the Big Dipper.
Arms wound around my waist, and I stiffened. Then relaxed at the sound of Mick’s voice. “There you are. I was looking for you.” He swept my hair off the back of my neck and pressed his lips there.
My pulse raced, and heat flooded my body. This is it. I’m going to kiss Mick. Something magical will happen, and everything will change, and before you know it, we’ll be walking into a decorated gym, him in a tux and me in a sparkly dress.
But when I spun in his arms, I noticed how many people were nearby and looking our way.
I didn’t want twenty people to witness our first kiss.
My muscles tensed back up. Say we do kiss. Will it be all over school come Monday? What will people call us? Kick. Mate. Ugh, our names don’t do a very good job of merging in a cute way. How have I never noticed that before?
Why am I freaking noticing it now?
“Everything okay?” Mick asked, doing a full-body lean that pressed me against the glass. Suddenly I was wondering how much weight it could hold, because it’d so be my luck to break right through and come out of this entire thing covered in cuts and glass shards.
“It’s just… I…” I ran my hand through my hair. “Could we talk?”
His face scrunched up like I’d suggested a lemon-sucking contest, but then his features smoothed. “Of course. You want to go somewhere more private?”
Yes. But wait. Isn’t that hookup code? While I wanted privacy, I didn’t want to get into a situation I wasn’t ready for. Anxiety rose, priming me to say or do something stupid and undo everything.
“Maybe we could just sit over there?” I gestured to the loveseat not quite in the center of the action, but not out of it, either. And it was a loveseat, which meant sitting close, and I hoped he’d be okay with that being all we did tonight.
“Oh-kay.” The hesitation clear on his face came through in his voice.
Obviously I was already undoing everything, crashing into shore before I even got our ship fully launched. But there was harmless pretending and doing something I couldn’t take back, and while my lines might’ve been shaky recently, there were ones I wouldn’t cross just to get a guy.
Even if the guy was Mick Pecker, all-star quarterback and object of my obsession and covert operation.
Once we sat down, he folded my hand in his, helping my shaky confidence regain its legs. “It was pretty funny how you beat Jared. He almost always wins the games.”
“Who? Oh,
Pissy Poker Player.” Mick laughed, and I threw my free hand over my mouth. “Sorry, that’s so rude of me to call him that.” In the name of goodwill or whatever—if that was what Amber and my earlier conversation was about—I should especially stop if she and he were a thing. From what I’d seen at my post at the window, it looked more friendly than relationshipy.
“I like it. I always thought you were a more serious girl, or I would’ve talked to you a lot earlier.”
“Me? Serious?” I shrugged, and apparently I didn’t do that much, because it felt like a foreign movement my body didn’t know how to naturally do. Or maybe Mick’s full attention just psyched me out too much.
How often do I shrug? Cooper does it all the time.
Gah, focus, Kate! Focus!
“Honestly, it’s more that I’m kind of shy.” I looked up, and my heart skipped a beat when I peered into his blue, blue eyes. “It takes me a little while to warm up and be myself around people.”
Mick slipped his fingers between mine. “Well, I think that’s cute.”
“More like inconvenient and awkward, but I like cute better.”
“You’re funny, too,” Mick said with a smile, and a swirl of excitement went through my gut. “So, I haven’t told anyone besides my family yet, but I thought about what you said about colleges—and airplanes”—he squeezed my hand—“and I’m going to go to Penn State. I turned in my letter of intent to the coach today.”
“Really? That’s so cool. And you don’t need to worry about the competition. You’ll take them out—in a nice way, of course—no problem.”
“Of course,” he said, amusement flickering through his eyes. And even though it was silly, I couldn’t help thinking that seven hours wasn’t such a long drive if things progressed over summer—I was too poor for airplanes.
He told me his little brother understood and said he’d be cheering for him, and then we moved on to discussing summer plans. Mick was planning on training and doing a lot of swimming and kayaking, and I replied that I’d like to do some kayaking, too, since it was something I’d never done before. He generously offered to help me with that.