Chapter Twenty-Three

Kate

I told myself to just be happy that Cooper and I were finally talking again, but there was some invisible presence in the cab of the truck with us. Not like an actual ghost or paranormal being. More like everything left unsaid crowded the space and made it hard to know what to actually say.

The past few days completely freaked me out, and I’d been sure Cooper was about to pull an Amber on me and just phase me out of his life like it wasn’t a big deal. The same eclipsing sense of loneliness hit me full force, and I’d had trouble sleeping. I worried I’d come on too strong or done something wrong, and I didn’t want to do anything that would mess up our friendship. I wasn’t sure how I became so attached after only a little over two weeks of consistently hanging out, but I had, and I needed us to be okay with a desperation I hadn’t felt since losing my dad.

I tapped my fingers on my leg, trying to come up with something to fill the quickly-turning-awkward silence. When I thought I recognized the song on the radio, I reached over and turned it up. “Hmm.”

“What?” Cooper asked.

“At first I thought this was the song they played during one of the Haylijah scenes on The Originals, but it’s not.”

“This is the same show you named your pet dragon after?”

Warmth tingled through me. He remembered. “Yeah. Even Klaus—the vampire version—ships them, which is complicated since she had his baby. I was hoping after Elijah and Hayley hooked up, which I waited for-seriously-ever for, we could get to the canon stage, but of course it’s not that easy.”

“To shoot a cannon?” His expression read as serious, but the teasing tone made it clear he knew that wasn’t what I meant.

“A canon’s a ship that’s been confirmed by the series.”

“Okay.”

“You’re fighting the urge to call me crazy now, aren’t you? I can see it in the little twitch in your cheek.” I wanted to poke one of his dimples, like I’d done before, but with our friendship in barely-getting-back-to-normal territory, I didn’t know if it’d cross a line. “Don’t try to deny it, because last weekend I found out I’m really good at poker. I made a couple hundred dollars off Mick and his friends—enough for a prom dress, I hope.”

The twitch I’d pointed out took hold and a smile curved his lips. “You hustled those guys out of their money? Let me guess, you used mathematical deviousness?”

“Hey, I didn’t choose the math thug life, it chose me.”

Cooper’s laugh bounced across the cab and the happy sound echoed through my chest. “I’m so proud. And for the first time, I’m actually regretting not crashing that night.”

All that suffocating unsaid stuff lifted, and then we were back to Kate and Cooper, friends who understood each other, even when we didn’t.

Naturally I questioned that theory when Cooper pulled two fishing poles out from behind the seat of his truck.

“Um, what’s that all about?” I gestured to the poles, making a circle to encompass them.

“We’re going to just enjoy the lake, remember?”

“By fishing?”

“Put your nose back where it belongs,” he said, making me realize I’d scrunched it up. “It’s going to be fun. Don’t tell me you haven’t fished before.”

“Okay, I won’t tell you.”

His eyes widened. “For real?”

“My dad used to go now and then, but I acted as his assistant rower. I refused to put a pole in the water, because I didn’t want to hook any poor little fishies.”

“That explains why you can row. You could move the boat with him in it?”

“Not very far,” I admitted. “But I was determined to try so that he’d take me. He was gone a lot, even when he wasn’t deployed, so if I had the opportunity to go anywhere with him, I jumped on it. Even if it meant fish might be flopping around on the floor of the boat at my feet. He used to tease me by swinging them toward me and asking me to unhook them, or picking one up and talking on his behalf, always about how honored he’d be to serve as our dinner.”

Memories from those lazy days with my dad on the lake flickered through my mind. His goofy floppy hat, the empty Dr Pepper cans in the middle of the boat that acted as a measure for how long we’d been out on the water, and how we always returned home sunburned but happy. “One day I surprised him by granting his request to unhook a fish, only to release the slimy thing back in the water and tell him to swim away as fast as he could and not to fall for food that seemed too good to be true. I thought my dad might get a little upset, but he just laughed and told me I was still his favorite fishing partner.”

Cooper’s voice softened. “You don’t talk about him much.”

“Probably because I worry if I do, then I might cry, and that’d be embarrassing.” Over the past few days I’d thought about him a lot, as if my mind was incapable of missing anyone without remembering who else I missed.

Cooper reached out and brushed his fingers across my cheek. “Not embarrassing. You lost someone.”

My heart swelled and tears clogged my throat. “He was my hero. We used to go on these made-up missions together—which is probably why I’m enjoying this one with you so much. We’d pretend people we passed on the street were spies and plot how we’d take down their evil organization. We also went on real missions, where we’d go shopping to find the perfect present for my mom, which usually involved another salt and pepper shaker for her collection. Stuff like that.”

Cooper ran his fingers down my arm and squeezed my hand. “He sounds awesome.”

“He was.” My voice faltered and I worked to put more sound behind it. “After he passed away, the only thing that made me feel better was binge watching TV and cheering for those characters’ happy endings. I’d always been prone to fandom tendencies, but that definitely moved them into overdrive.”

“Confession time?” Cooper raised an eyebrow. “It’s one of the things I like most about you. Even if I don’t understand half of what you say.”

I hugged him around the middle, and the fishing poles clattered to the ground when he wrapped his arms around me and hugged me back. “Look, I’ve already been abandoned by a friend, and it really hurt. So I know this is super selfish, but could you please not need space ever again?”

He tucked his chin on top of my head. “Right now, the last thing I’m thinking about is space. Between us, or the space that’s over our head and in a distant galaxy far, far away. And that’s saying something.”

I laughed and pulled back so I could look him in the eye. “I like your obsession with space, and I also like that you’re equally obsessed with boats and water.”

“Obsession? I’d call them more…mild infatuations.”

“Just take the compliment, Callihan.”

He lifted one finger and gave me a mini-salute. “Aye, aye, Hamilton.”