“But since I’m a nice big brother, I will grab it tonight or tomorrow morning, whenever I’m heading home.”
“Thank you!” After a beat, she said, “Since you’re a in giving mood, how do you feel about pizza?”
“I feel like you have your own money, bye.” I hung up on her squeak, and Coop laughed.
“Little sisters.”
“Man, you have one, I have three. When you get three, talk to me about little sisters.” I loved them all, even when I wished Mom had drowned them at birth. But the girls were all independent and feisty. Becca was getting more like Frankie every day, which was a good thing. I wanted her to be tough.
“Yeah, still—Archie and Bubba don’t get it.” No, they didn’t.
“Hey,” I said slowly, what Bubba had said earlier kept niggling in the back of my mind. “Question for you.”
“Shoot.”
“Wednesday night didn’t bother you, did it?”
He coughed. “You mean when you spent the night with Frankie?”
“Yeah, that Wednesday.” Hopefully, he wouldn’t try to make a joke about it.
Coop shrugged. “I wasn’t thrilled, but she seemed pretty happy, and you didn’t get all pissy when I kissed her goodnight or good morning. So—while I might have been jealous, I wasn’t mad.”
Cool. “Okay.”
“Why?”
“Just—Bubba said something, and it’s chewing on me.”
“That she’s going to have to choose eventually and when she does, that’s gonna end up hurting some of us?” The question was so close to the mark of what Bubba said, I frowned.
“Yeah, but I don’t see why she has to choose.”
“You don’t want her to choose you?” Skeptical didn’t begin to cover it.
“Of course, I want her to choose me. I’m not an idiot. But—I don’t mind if she doesn’t.” Apparently, I was weird.
“Life doesn’t work that way,” Coop said. “I mean, it would be nice if it did. We get the girl, we’re still friends, and we can go on with our life. But… you know. People have expectations. Frankie has them, too. She’s never dated before. We’re it so far, and we’ve been doing such a great job.”
Yeah, okay, that last bit of sarcasm. We did deserve it. “It hasn’t all been horrible.” Far from it.
“For us, maybe,” Coop said slowly. “I worry about her.”
“Why?” What else did he know?
“Just… she’s not acting like her. She’s totally off her game. The stress is getting to her, and I can see it. So right now, my focus is making things as easy as possible for her.”
“I can get behind that.”
“Good,” Coop said. “Cause next week on my birthday, I really want her to have fun and not be a stressed out mess who needs a puppy pile hug.”
I laughed. “Puppy pile hugs can be fun.” It had been the night we all piled onto her bed and watched movies together. The only one not there had been Bubba. “What are the chances the idiot parents come back to her place tonight?”
“You know, I used to wish her mother was around, and now I’m kind of hoping she isn’t.”
Yeah. Me too.
Maybe we should all make plans to crash at Frankie’s tonight. We’d make a hell of a barrier, and I was really tired of people making an end-run around us. She didn’t need to take any more hits.