Page 117 of Can We Just Be Happy Now?

“This is my favorite place,” Cooper adds. The edge of his paddle dips into the water to my right as he makes a gentle stroke on that side before switching to the other, guiding us toward the walking bridge that crosses the river up ahead. I grasp my paddle, dipping the white blade into the water on my right, just in front of my body. It goes a little deeper than I expected, and I struggle to get it through the water. The pressure sends our boat to the left a little, and I attempt to balance it by dipping my oar deep on the left. The second it’s back in the air again it clashes with Cooper’s paddle–hard.

“Sophie, the person in the back is supposed to steer.” He laughs as he says it, but it annoys me. I’m just trying to help. “And we have to be in sync.”

“I can’t see you! How am I supposed to stay in sync when I can’t see you?”

“You could just let me do it.”

“No. I want to do it too. Let’s switch.”

He chuckles. “There’s no way we could switch without falling in.”

Laying my paddle back across my lap, I pick at the hem of my bikini bottoms. “I don’t want my dad to be right.” The words slip from my mouth too quickly to take back.

There’s a tap of the paddle against the plastic of the boat. A barely audible sigh leaves Cooper as his hand lands on my shoulder, his thumb brushing across my skin. “He’s not. I know I get frustrated when we’re not in sync, but I know it’s not possible every time. I’m working on it.”

“Okay,” I murmur.

His thumb brushes across my shoulder again. “Look at me,” he says softly. When I twist in my seat, his hand slides down my arm until it’s resting on my wrist. “Soph, nothing–no one–is perfect on their first try. Sometimes we mess up, sometimes we overcorrect. We just have to find our groove.”

I nod slightly, my eyes searching his.

“Maybe your dad thinks the tell of a good relationship is how well they can kayak together–do anything together. But I think he has this false idea that it should always be easy. I thought that too once. But I think it’s really about people who are patient and care enough to figure it out even when it’s not easy. We’re doing all of this together, remember?”

“Yeah, you’re right. It’s hard not to let him get in my head. He’s my dad, you know?” I hate that somehow his logic holds more weight to me, even when I know it’s not always right.

“I know. It’s hard when it’s family. But you and I are family too. We always have been. Plus, we’re older now and we’ve made it so far. We’re capable of sorting through the nonsense at this point, okay?”

“Okay,” I agree, a little more confident. Desperate to change the mood, I break through the silence with a splash of water from my hand, straight to Cooper’s face. I turn to see his reaction, catching his grin under his hands as he wipes the droplets from his skin. “You’re such a brat,” he says.

“Your brat.” I stick my tongue out before turning forward again.

“Promise?”

I nod.

A few miles downstream, we’ve fallen into a semi-consistent rhythm, our paddles only clashing a few more times. I stop when I notice Cooper taking a break, resting my paddle across my lap and reaching into the front compartment for a couple of bottles of water.

I hand one to Cooper, looking over my shoulder as a family with three small kids paddle by in a canoe. The mom is trying to pass out juice boxes, but the two boys and a girl–definitely all under the age of five–are too busy playing around, tipping the boat from side to side.

“Do you want kids?” Cooper’s voice invades the scene unfolding in front of me.

“What?” I shift my attention to him, twisting in my seat.

“Do you want kids?” he repeats. “I don’t mean like right this second, but like . . . later?”

“Oh, umm.” I guess this is an important conversation to have if we plan on being together forever this time, but it wasn’t on my radar that it would happen anytime soon. I debate between my honest answer and the one I think Cooper wants to hear–but I can’t for the life of me figure out what he wants to hear. I mean, he’s a young guy. Surely kids aren’t on his agenda anytime in the near future. Especially since he’s trying to build an empire with his dad. But on the flip side, family has always been important to him, and his parents had Carter really young.

“Have you never thought about it?” he pries.

Of course I have. I like being prepared for things in my life, having a vision for what direction I want to go for major milestones so I can do my research and make educated decisions. “I don’t want you to think I’m crazy.”

“You’re a little crazy.” He holds his hand in front of his face, scrunching his nose as he brings his thumb and pointer finger close together. “Seriously, though,” he says, dropping his hand to the paddle in his lap, his skin glowing in the sun.

I take a deep breath. “There’s this kid who comes to the library where I volunteer for story time. Max. He’s so sweet. He came for a few weeks consistently. Then I didn’t see him for six months. I was worried that something bad happened to him, but we don’t have contact information for the kids. Their parents are always with them.” He can’t see where I’m going yet, so I just continue. “He came back a few weeks ago, but this time there was a different adult with him. Turns out, he was in foster care. The first family was forced to give him up when his bio mom came back in the picture. When she was out of the picture again, he got assigned a new foster home. I guess he kept talking about reading time until the new mom figured out what he meant and was able to bring him back. She’s working on adopting him now.”

“I’m not quite following, Soph.”

“I think . . . I don’t think I want my own kids. I think I’d rather try to adopt one or maybe like three. I think it would be special to take in children who have been shown the darker side of life and bring light into their world, and to show them the potential they have when someone believes in them. I know I could do that with biological kids too, but I don’t know . . . does that sound crazy?”

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