Chapter 14

chapter

fourteen

Harmony

I'm in my backyard, staring at the new fence that Cooper built.

The fact that I'm sitting on the deck he recently sanded and sealed is not lost on me. Neither am I forgetting that he planted those roses over there, and fixed my sagging gutter.

The man utterly mystifies me.

The gate to the side yard opens and closes. Summer comes through with a bottle of wine in one hand.

"I came to see for myself. What the heck, this place looks so different!"

"And you are?" I ask, joking.

"Haha."

My sister collapses into one of the new patio chairs that Cooper bought me. "This is nice," she says.

"You haven't been home in a while. I've been getting accustomed to small changes over a period of weeks."

Summer cracks open the screw top on the wine and offers the bottle to me. It's been about ten years since my sister and I drank together straight from the bottle.

Ah, what the hell.

I accept the offered wine and take a drink, swallowing down the cheap rosé.

"I like the wow factor of seeing it all at once," Summer says.

I've got too much on my mind to give her a hard time for not being around the house in the last few weeks.

"How was Little Spoon After Hours?" I ask, using the nickname we've adopted for Saturday nights, when, in addition to boozy frozen treats that we do on weeknights, we've started offering live music. We're hoping that the city approves our permit for a street-front patio soon.

"Interesting," she says, laughing.

"Uh oh, that doesn't sound good."

Apparently, Summer watched one couple break up in real time when they disagreed on which was superior, vanilla or chocolate.

"…and the funny thing was, you could totally tell that the real issue with them was not vanilla or chocolate, it was?—"

"I fucked Cooper!"

Summer stares at me, wide eyed, mouth agape, for the longest three seconds of my life.

"It's about time," she says, snatching the bottle from me and taking a long swig.

I wince. "You don't think it's too soon?"

"Babe. You've been mooning over each other for weeks and weeks. You liked him from jump. What's the problem?"

I exhale and accept the bottle when Summer hands it to me. I take a drink, then say, "I do like him. I've thought about him a lot. But I just need time to make sure what we have is real."

I take another fortifying drink and hand the rosé back to my sister.

Summer sits back in her chair and hugs the bottle to her chest. "You already have something real. You two are stupid for each other."

I can't argue with that. I am attracted to Cooper. I think about him when he's not around. I don't have feelings for anyone else; if I ever did, those feelings don't come close to how I feel when I'm around Cooper.

But simple attraction isn't enough.

"You know my trust issues."

"I do," says Summer, nodding, then taking a drink. "And Cooper is not your ex. Nor is he the creep at the club who tried to serve you a tainted cocktail."

I shiver at the memory. Thank god that one of the other servers where Summer used to work as a bottle girl spotted that man putting something in my gin and tonic. I'd been talking to him for five minutes. I was finally feeling like putting myself out there after being cheated on by my ex-fiancé. That experience at the club made me slam the door shut for good when it comes to men.

"I know he's not my ex. And he's not that creep."

Summer is thoughtful for a moment. "And he's been hanging around at your beck and call for weeks."

"And yours," I remind her.

"Yeah," she says. "Because he's a decent guy. Didn't he fix the problem with the gutter? I didn't used to be able to sit here without worrying I would get decapitated by falling debris."

My sister's so dramatic. But she's correct. "He did."

I look around my yard. It looks one hundred percent better than it looked weeks ago. And it's all because of Cooper. I could characterize him as a good-time guy because he's hot, outgoing, and confident. I could say he's unserious because he breezed through college and, according to him and Carter, spent way more time on the disc golf course than he did in class. But the bottom line is, he's being modest. He works hard. He earned his degree just like his twin did. He also makes time for fun, and what's wrong with that?

"But I didn't ask him for any of this," I squeak.

Summer blows out a breath and takes a long drink.

"I know. You rarely ask for help," she says.

"Exactly. I would never ask someone to give me this much of his time and labor. I never even hinted. He just did it. And somehow, it's exactly what I wanted."

Summer shakes her head. "Well, now you have a bigger problem."

"What's that?"

"He doesn't like you."

"Excuse me?" Where the heck is she going with this?

"Cooper loves you."

I sit up and stare at her. "That's crazy talk."

Summer is undeterred by my disbelief. "Look at the facts. He respects you when you say you're not ready. He keeps an eye on you when you're out and about alone and working alone at Little Spoon. The man built a fence around you with his hands when he could have hired someone to do it. He bought a house across the street from you!"

"Which is a little psycho," I mutter, even though I don't believe it myself.

"He loves you so much he can't help himself. If you don't lock him down, he will drive Carter insane with the lovesick puppy act."

I take the bottle and finish the last bit of it.

"There's more," I admit. "Every time I sit down to come up with new recipes for Little Spoon, all I think about is what would Cooper like."

Summer arches an eyebrow. "You finished my bottle. Now you owe me. Get over there and tell him the truth."

The truth? Facing the truth is a scary proposition.

But I think about Cooper, and imagine the alternative. Not having him around, looking out for me, keeping me company, and generally being wonderful, is simply unacceptable.