teeth were now perfect, it didn’t touch those wintry eyes. He waded through his group of swim team friends to take a seat across from me. Stealing a fry, he dragged it through my barbecue sauce. “Rosie.”
“Coopy,” I said, grinning when his smile stretched and gave a gross glimpse of mushed potato in his mouth. “You didn’t wait for me this morning.”
“You were late, as per usual.” He stole another fry. “Besides, I had to swim, remember?”
Right. Both things were true, yet I couldn’t help but feel as if it wouldn’t matter if they weren’t.
My friend Rosetta bounded over with her tablet still in hand and dropped onto the seat beside me. “You’ve gotta watch this, Rose. He liked my comment, that model we were stalking in geome...” She trailed off when she realized Cooper was there. “Oh, hey Cooper.”
He smiled, but I knew it was forced, and then he slapped the table. “Later, ladies.”
I sighed and nabbed a fry, watching him leave the way he came and wondering where he was going.
“I scared him off, didn’t I?” Rosetta murmured and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose.
“You?” Laughing, I pulled her tablet over. “No way. You’re too cute. Let me see.”
You could argue we should’ve spent our time in class—and maybe out of it—more wisely, but I didn’t care. We were almost halfway through senior year, and I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to do once I graduated. College was a must, not only to appease my dad but also to give me more time to figure out what it was I wanted from this life of mine. So, until then, the only promise I’d made to myself was to explore and have fun as I tried to discover what that might be.
In history, I stared at Cooper. He’d arrived to class in the nick of time, and I’d saved him a seat beside me. He’d slipped into one of the few available seats up front, though.
I scowled and continued staring. Watching him twirl a pen between his talented fingers, I wondered if he was even listening to Mr. Pratt’s gigantic speech.
So come, pretty Rose, come for us, all over us, and make it loud.
My thighs clenched under the desk, and I drew in a shaken breath of much-needed air.
Letting my eyes roam the room in an attempt to bring me back to the present, I returned my gaze to the front of the classroom to find Cooper gazing over his shoulder at me. I blinked and smiled and looked away, hoping my cheeks weren’t as flushed as they felt.
Then I excused myself to the bathroom.
Once there, I splashed some water onto my cheeks, being careful to avoid my mascara-loaded eyes. I hated waterproof mascara because it was such a bitch to remove.
You’re fine. Quit thinking about it already, I told myself.
It had been... different, being with two guys. Different in a way that itched at my skin like something I might never cure. Different in ways that would be impossible to forget, but that didn’t mean it needed to become some type of fixation. I had to at least try to forget about it.
If I couldn’t, then a sinking feeling told me I needed to pretend it never happened. It seemed like that was what Cooper wanted, and if we were to survive—and I feared I couldn’t without him—then that was what I had to do.
Resolved to drag my boyfriend over this afternoon and screw his brains out until anything but him left my imagination, I meandered back to class.
Light footsteps echoed up ahead, but I kept my head down until suede boots with slightly pointed toes and black jeans that hugged the tops of them came into view. My eyes swam up Headmaster Taurin’s muscular frame.
Buttoning his forest green suit jacket, he nodded once. “Pretty Rose.”
I smiled, about to say hello, then stopped dead in my tracks and almost tripped over nothing.
Unable to breathe, I turned around.
His long dark brown hair was tied in its usual fashion at the nape of his neck. As he rounded the corner, heading back toward the office, his hazel eyes shot to mine with his finger propped against his lips.
Holy.
Fucking.
Shit.
Cooper’s phone rang out again and again.
I’d waited for him after school, only to realize he’d already gone home. I should’ve just gone to his place and told him, I knew that, but I was reeling. Spinning while not moving at all, I gazed out our kitchen window to