Autumn

by Sierra Dean

  So his mom wanted him away from Lou as badly as Lou’s family wanted her away from him.

  He started the truck, but the gears in his brain were already going full speed. He had never planned to tell Lou the truth about Jer or himself, but the way his mom was reacting made him wonder.

  What was it about this new girl?

  Chapter Fourteen

  Cooper was waiting for her before the first bell rang on Monday morning. At the sight of him leaning against the row of metal lockers scanning the halls, Lou’s heart leapt with excitement. Until she saw the serious expression on his face.

  He spotted her, his gaze locking on her eyes, and he watched silently as she weaved through the crowded hall towards him.

  “Hi.” Her anxiety ramped high as she waited for whatever inevitable bad news he was about to tell her. They’d had a good time on Saturday until he’d taken her home. Was he here to tell her their friendship was a mistake?

  “Hey.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “How was, uh… How was the rest of your weekend?”

  Small talk? Okay…she could do small talk.

  “Pretty boring. I mean, unless you think doing calculus homework is a profound and exciting weekend task. If you do, I don’t think we can be friends.”

  At those last words Cooper grimaced, and Lou kicked herself internally. What a stupid thing to say.

  They regarded each other in awkward silence. Since she wasn’t sure what he was doing waiting for her, she didn’t want to be overly cheerful and flirty. If he’d shown up to blow her off, she’d feel stupid for having been so bubbly. But it felt so weird to not be herself with Cooper. He was the only person in the whole school who reminded her what it felt like to be happy.

  “So, um…” He had his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans, and he wasn’t looking at her. His dark brown hair was especially messy today, and Lou fought the urge to run her fingers through it, wondering if it could possibly be as soft as it appeared.

  “What are you doing after school today?” she blurted, unable to keep the words from slipping out.

  “Nothing?” he replied uncertainly.

  “Do you…?” She glanced into her locker, suddenly shy, and wished she hadn’t spoken so abruptly. “I mean… I never got to see the lake on Saturday. Did you maybe want to go? With me?” When he didn’t speak right away she added, “Together.”

  He stared at her, and she wasn’t sure if she’d surprised him or if he just thought she was nuts for asking. She felt nuts for asking.

  “Sure,” he said finally. “I think that sounds great. But, uh… Okay this is going to sound really silly, but…do you mind if maybe we listen to the game?”

  “Game?”

  “Yeah. The Rangers are playing the White Sox, and I—”

  “Say no more. Yeah, that’s totally fine.” She smiled and tugged the Dodgers cap out of her bag, waving it so he could see it. “I’m not anti-baseball by any means.”

  Cooper seemed to debate saying something about her team of choice but must have thought better of it because he smiled tightly and said, “Good. Awesome.” He took the cap out of her hands and set it on her head, pulling it low over her eyes. For a moment he stood there, inches away from her, and as he stepped away, his hand grazed her bare shoulder. Lou shivered.

  “Well, isn’t this sweet?”

  Lou tipped her cap up and turned towards the new voice. Archer stood nearby, still every bit as handsome as she’d tried to convince herself he wasn’t. He smiled at her in a way that might have made her heart beat faster if she wasn’t standing with Cooper. And if Archer didn’t give her the creeps.

  She couldn’t figure out what it was about him that bothered her so much. He seemed like a nice, normal, charming guy. But all the same, she didn’t think she’d be comfortable being alone with him. He was like a shark—beautiful, but that toothy grin made her think he was more dangerous than he let on.

  “Hi, Archer,” she greeted, trying to be polite. There was no sense in making unnecessary enemies. Archer hadn’t done anything except be nice to her, so she had no good reason to dismiss him.

  Cooper, on the other hand, said nothing and just glared at the other boy.

  “I’m glad I found you two together, actually.” Archer nodded to Cooper, and Cooper continued to glower, his frown deepening.

  “Oh?” Lou shifted her attention from Cooper back to Archer. Archer ignored his teammate and addressed Lou like she was the only one there.

  “I’m having a party Friday night after the game. The whole team will be there.” He placed extra emphasis on the word whole and stared at Cooper. “I wanted to invite you to come along.”

  “What kind of party?”

  Archer laughed, and Lou instantly felt stupid for asking. “Oh you know, the usual. Beer. Chips. Music. We’ll be celebrating a win, naturally.”

  Lou nodded. It had been awhile since she’d gone to a good party. She’d attended them often back home until her dad got sick, then they’d stopped seeming important. A lot of things that once mattered suddenly became silly and pointless. But this was a new start for her, and she hated to admit how badly she wanted to do something normal and fun.

  “If Cooper goes, I’ll be there.”

  “Cooper will be there,” Archer insisted. “Right, Coop?”

  Cooper grumbled something unintelligible, hiking his bag up on his shoulder. “We need to get to class.”

  “See you at practice tomorrow. And that party on Friday.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Cooper’s dark mood hung over him like a cloud as they walked towards Chemistry. He didn’t speak again until halfway through class, and only then to ask her to pass a beaker.

  But he’d agreed to go, and as grouchy as he was being, Lou had a weird sense of elation to know that she was the reason he’d said yes.

  The school day dragged on, and each minute felt like an hour. She barely processed anything in her classes but managed to answer a few questions correctly in Biology, making it at least seem like she had her head in the game.

  In Spanish class Marnie wouldn’t stop talking about Archer’s party. It was starting to sound like the biggest social event of the year, not counting the Homecoming Dance, the Winter Formal and a handful of other dances. But Archer’s party would have the added bonus of illicit underage drinking.

  From what Lou gathered, Archer’s family owned a large ranch on the outskirts of town, a section of land that shared the same chunk of forest as her grandmother’s house. It sounded like most of Archer’s parties took place in a makeshift party area in the trees on his property. If it was as close to her place as she suspected, Lou could probably cut through the woods to get home faster.

  The thought of the coyotes she’d been seeing made her question whether or not a tipsy jaunt through the woods was such a wise idea, but she put the notion out of her mind.

  By the time the last bell sounded, Lou had heard about the party in no less than five of her classes. All the girls she knew through Marnie were abuzz with the news of an Archer Wyatt rager. When she met Cooper at her locker, he didn’t seem to be in any better of a mood than when she’d left him in Chemistry.

  “You don’t have to go,” she said, reading his downtrodden expression as a sign he begrudged having to attend the party.

  “Sure I do. You don’t say no to Archer. Trust me, it’s just easier if I show up. Besides, if I can hang out with you, maybe it won’t be so bad. At least someone will talk to me.” He forced a smile.

  “You still want to hang out?” She was terrified he’d say no, but she thought it was only fair to ask considering how bummed he looked.

  “Of course. The leaves are just starting to turn. It’s a really nice time to see the lake. Plus, it’ll be the only place in Poisonfoot I don’t have to hear about the party.”

  “You’re assuming I’m not going to talk your ear off about it.” She dumped her books in her locker, taking only what she’d need for that night’
s homework.

  Cooper smiled, and this time the expression felt more genuine. “You’re willing to listen to a baseball game with me. That alone will earn you a lot of forgiveness.”

  He picked her bag up off the floor before she had a chance to grab it herself, and hoisted it onto his shoulder.

  “Besides,” he added, his voice gaining a new, serious edge. “I think there’s something else for us to talk about that will make the party seem less interesting.”

  “Oh?” Her heart thudded, and a giddy nervousness bubbled in her stomach. “What’s that?”

  “I want to know why my mother is just as adamant I stay away from you as everyone else is that you stay away from me.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. This town seems hell-bent on keeping us apart, Lou. And I want to find out why.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  If someone had told Cooper a month earlier he’d be lying in his truck bed on a blanket, listening to baseball with a totally adorable girl, he’d have called that person a liar.

  Had that same person told him they’d be sharing an awkward silence and not looking at each other, he’d be a bit more willing to listen. Awkward might as well replace Eugene as his middle name.

  He wanted to know what the deal was between his family and Lou’s. His mother and Elle Whittaker had never been best buddies, but he hadn’t thought there was more to it than that. When people told Lou to steer clear of him, he’d assumed they were looking out for her new social standing, nothing more.

  It wasn’t until his mother told him in no uncertain terms that he was forbidden to spend time with Lou that he started thinking there might be more to it than he’d originally suspected.

  He had to figure out what was going on, but in a way that would keep his secret protected. Lou was clever and had a level head on her shoulders, but he couldn’t exactly say, “My brother turned into a coyote, and on my eighteenth birthday, I will too. What do you have to do with that?”

  There was no evidence Lou had anything to do with it, so to spill the beans seemed reckless. Unless she did something to prove she needed to know, he wasn’t going to tell her anything.

  But they still had a weird Hatfields vs. McCoys thing going on with their families, and since neither side was interested in sharing details, they needed to figure it out for themselves.

  During a lull in the bottom of the fourth inning, Cooper finally broke the ice. “What did your grandmother tell you when she said you shouldn’t hang out with me?”

  She sat up, resting on her elbows, and looked at him. “Pretty much the same thing everyone else in town said. You’re bad news. I think she implied that Reynolds men had a bad habit of bailing and you wouldn’t be any different.”

  Cooper covered his eyes so he could glance at her without being blinded. She had no idea how right she was. “I guess that’s true.”

  “What, that you’ll run away?”

  He shrugged. “That men in my family have a history of doing that.” It didn’t matter than most of them ran away on four legs instead of two. The truth didn’t need to be so well defined.

  Of course, his dad had left for more old-fashioned reasons. Nothing turned him furry, but he sure had run off with his tail between his legs.

  “What I don’t get is what your mom could possibly have against me.” Lou sounded more hurt than she was offended. “I’ve never even met her. And I’ve only been in town for like two weeks. I haven’t exactly been stirring up trouble in all that time.”

  Cooper sat up and crossed his legs, turning to face her. “She got weird about your last name. So I’m guessing it has more to do with your grandmother than it does you personally.”

  “What’s with this town? I’ve never known a group of grown adults to behave like they’re all in high school cliques. It’s bizarre.”

  “I know. My mom is in her forties, but she spazzed out on me like she was a member of Archer’s fan club. She’s never forbidden me to do anything, but you should have seen how serious she was about you. I was hoping your grandmother might have said something to tip you off as to why.”

  Lou shook her head solemnly, then a thought came over her, showing almost as visibly as a light bulb over her head. “You said your mom is in her forties, right?”

  “Don’t tell her I told you that.”

  “Has she always lived here?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So, there’s a good chance she went to high school with my dad. Maybe that has something to do with it. Like, maybe our parents dated. Maybe that’s why they both have issues with each other still.”

  “That would have to have been one hell of a breakup.” It also didn’t offer any explanation as to why the whole town treated his family like pariahs, but it was more of a lead than they’d had five minutes earlier.

  “Maybe the school library has old copies of the yearbooks. We could check it out tomorrow and see what shows up.”

  “I don’t want to pin all our hopes on that. It’s pretty…” He trailed off and gave a shrug, not sure what word he was looking for.

  “I know, it’s not exactly a smoking gun on the grassy knoll, but people in small towns hold grudges over the stupidest things. Maybe this really is just because your mom broke my dad’s heart or something.”

  “Or vice versa.”

  Lou rolled her eyes. “Sure, or vice versa. Point being, if we can figure out why our families want to keep us apart, we have a better chance of proving to them how silly they’re being. Right?”

  “Right. I mean…it’s not like anything is even going on between us.” He threw the words out like a floater on a fish lure, bobbing them in front of her to see what she’d do. She stared at him, and he saw the briefest flicker of disappointment on her face before she lay back down on the blanket and looked up at the blue sky.

  “Right. Nothing at all,” she said quietly.

  Cooper lay down as well, resisting the urge to say anything else. He’d already proven how stupid he was, he didn’t need to hammer the case home.

  Chapter Sixteen

  When Cooper dropped her off later that evening, Lou debated walking back into town to spend an hour at the library before it closed. She hadn’t made a lot of headway through the periodicals, but her limited research had explained to her how her father knew Nigel.

  The article from August 1984 detailed the story of how her twelve-year-old father had rescued an eight-month-old baby when a coyote had tried to run off with the child during a town picnic. The baby had been left briefly unattended on a blanket in the sun when the animal had come out of the woods and grabbed the child.

  Lou’s father, acting quickly, had chased after the coyote, and since the animal was burdened with the extra weight of the baby, her dad was able to retrieve the kid relatively unharmed.

  That baby had been Nigel.

  She hadn’t spoken to the oddball librarian about her discovery, but his name was right there in print. From what she gathered, her father had stayed close with young Nigel, forming a generation-defying friendship, and it sounded like they’d stayed in touch even after her dad had left Poisonfoot.

  So she had one question answered, and a new respect for her father. Turned out even as a child he’d been an awesome guy. It made her uneasy to research her dad’s history with Cooper’s mom. One article had reminded her what a great guy he was, but what if he had broken someone’s heart? And done it so brutally it left a twenty-year grudge in its wake? He’d been a teenager, and teenagers did stupid stuff all the time—she was living proof of that—but she didn’t want to know any bad things about him. She wanted his memory untainted.

  Yet, if it was as simple as a bad romance, she wouldn’t need to spend any more time in the public library digging for clues.

  Instead of going to the library, she decided to take a night off from her new quest for answers and spend a few hours doing actual homework.

  When she kicked her shoes off at the front door, the house was oddly still. The sou
nds of The Bachelor hummed from Granny Elle’s den, but it was the kind of white noise that did nothing to add any life to the space around it. Lou wandered down the main hall to the kitchen where her mother was sitting at the kitchen table, a newspaper opened to the classified section. She was chewing on the end of a red marker, scouring the page for job listings.

  Financially they weren’t hurting for money with their new rent-free digs, but Lou knew their family savings was empty. More than that, though, her mother had always had a job. She was probably getting a little stir crazy sitting around the house with Granny Elle.

  “Anything?” Lou asked.

  “Paper mill. Paper mill. Walmart. Paper mill.” Her mom sighed and set the marker down. “Slim pickings for stuff with benefits.”

  Lou felt a familiar snarl of guilt in her belly. If it wasn’t for her, they wouldn’t need the benefits. Her mother never got sick and had perfect teeth and vision. Lou, on the other hand, needed insulin. She needed test strips. She needed a vast number of very expensive medical supplies, and having health benefits made those things more affordable. She’d seen the price on her insulin last week when they’d gone to the pharmacy in town. She knew what she was costing her mom.

  She didn’t want to feel bad about it—she hadn’t asked for diabetes after all—but she worried about what it meant for them. Certainly Granny Elle would offer to pay. She likely already had. But Lou’s mom was stubborn, and she seemed dead set on proving she was capable of taking care of their needs on her own.

  “Where were you?” her mom asked.

  Lou debated lying, but Mom seemed like one of the few people in town who wouldn’t care who her daughter spent time with. “I was hanging out with Cooper.”

  “Who’s Cooper?” Her mom waggled her eyebrows, wearing a suggestive grin.

  Lou blushed tellingly. “He’s just a boy.”

  “Just a boy. Suuuuure, sure.” Attention returning to the paper, her mom chuckled quietly to herself. “Are you going upstairs?”