“Yeah,” he said, setting the glue gun aside and chasing Tiddles away from swatting at the ribbons. The cats had been all about playing with it. We were both covered in cat hair.
Maybe I could talk Frankie into using the lint roller on me again. The idea had its merits.
“Why are you grinning like that?” Coop asked, and I chuckled.
“Nothing. Just hoping she enjoys the surprise.” Because there were some pieces I still wanted to keep to myself.
“Me, too,” he admitted. “Though to be honest, I think she will. With everything that’s been going on, she doesn’t talk about her mom that much.”
“She’s talked to me some.” It wasn’t betraying anything. Though I wasn’t going to bring up the fact she’d cried or how lost she’d been. The dislike I felt for her mother had only intensified recently. If I could make it so the woman never breathed the same air as Frankie again, I would.
“Good,” Coop exhaled the word, and I met his stare. “She needs to talk to someone.”
“Don’t start on that abused crap.” Not that I didn’t believe it, because I did… “Not everyone wants to pour their heart out.”
Muriel went through therapists like she did designers. Attending when it was in vogue and dropping them when they required she actually do some work. Sometimes, I wondered why she bothered. Then Jeremy would give her a gentle push, and she’d get thoughtful.
It never lasted though.
“It’s not crap,” Coop said as he added another length of ribbon to the garter mums. He’d lined the colors so they would match hers with just enough, but different enough that people wouldn’t totally freak. Prudish hypocritical assholes. “C’mon, Arch. I know you’ve seen it.”
“Fine,” I huffed. “It’s not crap, but hammering on her for dealing differently than you or Bubba would with whatever emotional deficiencies she’s had to cope with her whole life doesn’t help anyone.”
“Well,” he said, pausing to reach for the soda he’d opened earlier. “On that, we can agree.”
“Good. I still can’t believe he dug a hole so big he fell in it.” What kind of idiot did that?
“Well, we all dig our own holes.” The other guy shrugged. “We did it when we didn’t tell her about the affair. When we warned people off her. Points. I mean, she’s had a lot to forgive and get over.”
Frowning, I glanced at him. “You think she’s run out of second chance cards?” Because, face it, I’d likely screw up again. I wanted to be everything, but my examples for a committed relationship wasn’t great. I wanted to protect her. Just like paying the rent on this place so it was secure through graduation. I didn’t want any more surprises tearing the carpet out from under her.
“Could we blame her if she did?”
The matter-of-fact nature of the question floored me. “Coop…we’re gonna mess up again.”
“I know,” he said with a sigh. “We just have to do our best to not mess it up.”
“Well, with everything from the points to the summer coming back to bite us in the ass…”
“I’m less worried about that than I am the dick who did that to her car.” The comment was a blast of cold water in the face.
“We never found out who did that.”
“Nope,” Coop laid down the third of the garter mums. There was a fourth one, but we’d both been on the fence about whether we should make it for Bubba. Technically, it wasn’t a date.
If we wanted to be really technical about it, none of us were taking her for a date, and yet we were all taking her.
“That’s why it bothers me,” he continued. “Laura wrote the crap on her test. Sharon’s been trying to torture her using social media. Some asshat left the notes in her locker.”
“But you said not Laura ‘cause the writing didn’t match.”
“Nope. Didn’t match Rachel either.”
Ugh. I made a face. Rachel. Most of the time, she didn’t bother me, but it was weird that she had a thing for my girl and couldn’t stand us. Not that she made any pretense of liking us either. “Not sure whether to be happy about that last part.”
“Be happy about it,” Coop advised. “Frankie likes Rachel, and even if she wouldn’t be my first pick, she’s been a decent friend to her when we still had our heads up our asses.”
“Well some of us still do.” Not really what I wanted to hear. “Okay, so who’s left that would hate Frankie enough to do that to her car? Or hate us?”