Page 39 of Vegas Heat

“If I say what I’m thinking, you’re going to think I’m crazy.”

“Say it anyway,” she says.

“I miss Cooper.”

Her brows rise. “That’s not what I was expecting you to say.”

“What were you expecting?”

“I don’t know. Something about the internship maybe. How’d we get from A to B? Or C, for Cooper, I guess.”

I shrug. “I feel like I’m always thinking about him. I don’t know what took up my brain space before I met him, because he’s starring solely in my thoughts at the moment.”

“You’re in deep, huh?” she asks.

“I’m in deep,” I confirm.

“But you just met him,” she points out. “How can it be more than just sex?”

A prickle of defensiveness races up my spine. “I don’t know. It justis. We had amazing sex, sure. But we had amazing conversation, too.”

“Do you love him?” she asks softly.

I stare out the windshield at the restaurant in front of us. “I think I do,” I murmur, and she lets out a soft gasp. I glance over at her. “I’ve never felt this before, Mia.”

She reaches over and squeezes my arm. “I’m happy for you, girl.”

“I’m happy for me, too.”

“Just be careful. You hardly know him.”

I feel like now would be a terrible time to bring up the fact that I’m going to San Diego this weekend, but I tell her anyway.

I trust him implicitly, but I’m not dumb enough to go out of town without telling someone where I’ll be.

“He invited me to San Diego this weekend,” I admit.

Her eyes widen. “Are you going?”

I nod. “I want to see where he lives. I want to see what his life is like. And despite the fact that he’s a celebrity and he still hasn’t told me, I trust him. I refuse to look him up, but Chelsea said everything she’s read about him has been positive. He’s not going to do anything I don’t one hundred percent want to do, too.”

She purses her lips. “How about this…if you have sex in the first hour after you get to his place, it’s just sex. If you have a conversation first, then maybe it’s more.”

I roll my eyes. I know she’s just looking out for me, but now she put that in my head and I sort of hate her a little for it.

We head inside, and we spend our lunch talking all things internships and our senior year of college as I avoid the topic of Cooper. He’s all I want to talk about, but I don’t want more warnings about him. I know what I’m getting into.

I just hope I can make it all work together. If our one weekend together taught me anything, it’s that I’m not going to be able to focus on much of anything except him once he moves to town.

And I can’t wait for the distraction.

CHAPTER 17: COOPER

I stare at the mess in front of me.

My mom literally brought every paper she saved of mine starting from preschool and going all the way through high school.

It’s cute, but…what the fuck am I going to do with all this?

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