I make my way down the little entry hall and peek my head around the corner. He’s sitting on the edge of the couch, playing a video game. How is it even fair that grown men are allowed to still play video games, but if he walked in on me playing with my old Barbies, he would send me to therapy?
“Did you get off work early today?”
“Yeah, my last patient canceled. Where’s Levi?”
“He’s at Mom and Dad’s tonight. I was planning on getting him after work, but when I called to say I was on my way, he asked if he could spend the night instead.” The poor kid missed his grandparents so much while we were in Georgia, and I think he’s trying to make up for lost time by spending every waking moment with them, which is honestly okay with me. I’ve barely had any help over the past year, so even though I’ve been working full time at the salon these past two weeks, I feel like a shriveled-up, half-dead plant that’s being watered and fertilized. Well…watered at least. Still single over here, so no fertilizing happening yet.
“Okay, well, have fun playing that little twelve-year-old boy’s game. I’m going to go grab a shower because I basically cut a mop off someone’s head today, and I think 90% of it is somehow stuck in my underwear.”
“Do you overshare like this with everyone or just me?”
“I save it all up just for you, big brother!” I say, heading toward the stairs with the intent to shower, dress myself in my comfiest PJs, and then crash into my pillow for the rest of the night.
Drew calls out before I leave the room, “Hey, you want to get a pizza and rent a movie tonight?”
I smile to myself because if teenage me—the one whose older brother was embarrassed to be seen with her and always put up a fuss if asked to drive her anywhere—could see grown-up me now, best friends with that same brother, she’d never believe it. “I want to, but I’m so tired I don’t think I can. I plan on getting under my covers and finding a way to have Chinese food delivered right to my bed.”
His eyes leave the screen for the first time to shoot me a reprimanding look. “Not really, right? That’s super unsafe.”
I take off my smelly sock and throw it at him. “No, I’m not serious! Gosh, what do you think I am? Five years old?”
He chuckles and turns his eyes back to the TV. “Says the woman who just threw a sock at me and has her toenails painted in a rainbow pattern.”
“Thank you for noticing. Now, leave me alone. I’m going to take my shower.”
“Wait! Want me to order a pizza? I’ll even deliver it to your bed.”
“Awww, now I see why the ladies love you. Pepperoni please,” I call back to him as I make my way up the stairs.
When I lay my phone on the bathroom counter, it lights up with a text, which effectively lights up my whole body.
Cooper: What are you doing tonight?
Did I mention this is part of the reason I’m so exhausted today? After Cooper left the salon yesterday (with a fantastic new haircut, I might add), he texted me about how much he liked the cut, and then we continued to text until 1:30 in the morning. I kept expecting to get one of those awful ending-the-conversation texts, like Well, it’s been nice chatting! but it never came. We texted until I accidentally fell asleep and woke up to my cheek mashed against my phone’s screen, the letter P typed at least two hundred times into the text box.
It was a great talk with Cooper, though. He told me about his job (he works as the senior brand manager at a marketing agency called Hampton Creative) and how he moved here from Charlotte last year to take the position he has now. I asked him if doing what he does in marketing is his passion and if that’s why he was willing to move for the job, but he just replied: Eh. It’s a job. I like it, but it’s never going to be what fulfills me. It was just a convenient reason to leave town.
There was so much loaded in that last sentence, but I didn’t dive into it because I felt like he would have offered up the can of worms if he felt like it. Still, as someone who knows all too well what it’s like to need a convenient reason to leave town, I can spot a tragic life story from a mile away. I also know what it’s like to not want to talk about it.
So, I moved on and told him about how my mom was a hairdresser before she retired, and how she let me help her put in a full foil highlight on her friend’s hair in our kitchen when I was only ten. Hairdressing always seemed like the logical path to take since it was something I knew I was good at, and thankfully, I’ve enjoyed it more and more every
year. I feel sort of similar to Cooper—it’s a job I like, but it will never be what fills me up, and I’m okay with that. I don’t think everyone is meant to have careers that change the world. Sometimes you’ve just gotta pay the bills and then clock out so you can get to the life you love the most, which, for me, is being with Levi.
After our night of back-and-forth texts, Cooper and I feel like friends. Friends who talk about TV shows and hobbies and crack jokes. I know things about him, beyond the shade of his eyes and what he wears to work, and somehow that makes me feel powerful. It also lets me see that I think I misjudged him slightly when I first met him. It’s not so much that Cooper’s a flirt as he is just fun and engaging. Drew had talked him up as a real player, someone who should not be trusted, but I don’t get those vibes from him—especially not when he texts me pictures of watching Wheel of Fortune and brags about how quickly he can solve the puzzle.
I bite the corner of my mouth and re-read Cooper’s message, wondering what a sexy woman of the world would reply. Probably something like Wouldn’t you like to know… with a winky face emoji and fireworks or something else equally elusive that leads you to believe it’s an innuendo. But we all know I can’t pull off a text like that, nor would anyone believe I’m up to anything innuendo-related, so I just respond honestly.
Lucy: Putting on comfy pjs and being lazy at home. You?
I turn on the shower and wait for it to heat up while I stare at my phone, willing his response to come through quickly. Almost instantly, I see that wonderful little dot-dot-dot icon appear, and I bounce on the balls of my feet, waiting for the text. But then the dots disappear. And then reappear. And then disappear again. This time, they don’t reappear, and my heart drops. He must have gotten busy…
My shoulders slump, and I set my phone face down, trying to convince myself that I don’t even care if he texts me back or not. But that’s not true, is it? Because now I’m placing my palms on the countertop and staring at myself in the mirror, wondering what Cooper sees when he looks at me. I’m wearing a loose side braid and a light-pink jersey knit dress. I have bronzer on my cheeks and mascara on my lashes, but that’s it. Does he think I look like a child compared to the women he’s used to? I saw Bailey—too much of Bailey, actually—and she and I have nothing in common.
I put my hands on my boobs and squish them up, looking at myself from every angle, and then let them drop again with a sigh. The only words that come to mind are plain and mediocre. If I were a color, I’d be beige. There’s nothing exciting about beige. If everything Drew implies about Cooper is true, I’m sure he’s used to red, turquoise, and chartreuse.
When I start to feel antsy about Cooper still not texting me back, I decide to suspend my self-scrutinizing and shed my clothes. I shower off, exfoliating and scrubbing other people’s gross hair off my body until I smell like a Hawaiian flower. I pull on a pair of gray joggers, a sports bra, and a black tank top, and that’s that. I’ve officially completed my not-going-anywhere-for-the-night look.
I check my phone, registering that there are no new notifications because Cooper never bothered to text me back. That’s fine. I’m fine. I don’t care. This is me officially giving up on anything concerning Cooper James. He’s probably getting showered (Do not think about Cooper in the shower) and dressing himself to the nines so he can go clubbing with a woman in a slinky little dress right now. She’ll be all coy smiles and tantalizing hair flips and brushing her fingers across his biceps, and Cooper will lavish her with flirts and attention all night.