Page 243 of Something Rad
“Cooper?”
“Uh…I was just gonna ask you…if it…if that…”
Robbie tilts his head. “What, baby?”
I blow a breath out of my nose, forcing myself to meet his eyes. “I was going to ask you if that’s what it’s usually like. If it was…good for you.”
Robbie’s lips press together, his eyes searching my face. I can hear my blood pumping inside my ears, and I start to think about telling him to forget it, but then Robbie speaks up. “It was absolutely incredible for me, Cooper.”
“Oh,” is all I can think to say before Robbie covers my lips with his, sweeping his tongue against the seam of my mouth and kissing me like he can’t ever get enough of me.
“And, no,” he whispers against my lips before pulling back to trail kisses across my jaw, “it’s never like that.”
fifty
ROBBIE
“Robbie,please,” Cooper groans.
“Come on, Cooper,” I whisper into the side of her neck. “Come with me. You know you want to.”
“I can’t.”
I wrap my arms around her waist, pulling her back flush to me, moving my lips to the edge of her ear. “Do you have to be such a good girl all the time?”
“I think you’ve made sure that I’m not,” she breathes, turning her head to press a kiss to my lips. “But, unfortunately, the yearbook isn’t going to finish itself.”
I let out a sigh as she pulls out of my grasp, turning back to the pile of pages laid out on the table before her.
I move to stand against the wall to the side, crossing my arms and leaning against it as I just watch her, a smirk pulling at my lips.
It’s 4:30 p.m. on a Monday, and while every other student is long gone for the day, Cooper’s still here at school, holed up in the yearbook room with no plans of leaving any time soon.
She’s taking her duties as yearbook editor very seriously (as if anything else would be expected), reviewing each and every page she already meticulously planned and curated for the hundredth time now, making sure there’s not a single error or way in which it could possibly be made better. You’d think she was organizing a precious historical museum exhibit or creating the most important issue ofRolling StoneorVoguethat the world has ever seen rather than a small town high school yearbook. But I suppose that’s the thing about Cooper. Anything she works on is important. Anything she creates has to be the best in her eyes, or it’s not even worth creating. It’s not something I’ve ever related to, and it’s certainly something I would have rolled my eyes at a few months back, but now, I can at least appreciate it. And I can certainly admire her while she does it.
I watch Cooper pick up two pages that look exactly the same to me, her brows pulling deeply together and her head swiveling back and forth between the two of them. Eventually, she seems to give up on them for now, blowing out a frustrated breath as she sets them off to the side, reaching for a box full of photos on the table to sort through. I discreetly sneak up behind her, looking over her shoulder and seeing that the pictures she’s rifling through are ones she’s taken at basketball games. I can’t help but smile, thinking of our championship game just last week.
That was the first game where Cooper wore herBleacher Babet-shirt by choice, my last name and number proudly plastered across her back for the whole world to see as she stood on the sidelines taking photos. We may have lost the championship, and my final game as a student athlete, but I won that day. Because I got to take Cooper under the bleachers after the game and show her how much of a babe I really thought she was. Let’s just say, curls of red hair fanning out overSummersand the number 24 is an image that won’t be leaving my brain for averylong time.
It’s been about three weeks since me and Cooper’s Groovy Movie date, and three weeks since the two of us have stopped playing games. And,God, they may have been the best three weeks of my life so far.
We can’t get enough of each other. I drive her to school every day and, by five minutes into first period, I’m already missing her. We practically jump into each other’s arms by the time we rejoin for Ms. Cage’s class second period, then I barely scrape by through third period, bouncing my knee and staring at the clock until I get to see her again at lunch.
If I thought I had it bad for Cooper when we weren’t together, I’m absolutely down for the count now. But I’m definitely not the only one. Even though she still likes to keep me on my toes from time to time and pretend like she isn’t head over heels obsessed with me too, I know Cooper feels the same way.
She’s been different the last few weeks, more carefree, less tense. The yearbook and school newspaper still mean the world to her, and I still catch her scribbling in her journal at least a few times a week, but, otherwise, she’s really managed to let go. She’s just been going with the flow, not constantly concerned with consequences and all the possible outcomes of every situation. And, even though it’s not necessarily what I’m used to when it comes to Cooper, I have to say, I think it looks good on her.
I set my chin on Cooper’s shoulder as she looks between two different pictures of me shooting a ball.
“Which one is your favorite?” she asks.
I take a moment to look between the two, then tap the left one with my finger.
“Me too,” Cooper agrees, and I feel her smiling against my cheek. “You can see more of your face in this one.”
“It’s a pretty great face,” I say.
“You know, I can’t disagree.” She looks between the pictures a couple of more times before setting down the one in her right hand on top of the page spread about the basketball team. My brows pull together in confusion, but then I see her fold the picture in her left hand in half, slipping it into her pocket.
