Big Boned

22

There’s no matching

My face’s shade of red

The truth is out:

Without you, I’m dead.

“Seeing Red”

Written by Heather Wells

“So,” Cooper says, as the two of us sit in his kitchen, looking at Owen’s cat as he washes himself on the mat beneath the sink, pointedly ignoring Lucy, who is regarding him worriedly from beneath the kitchen table. “We have a cat now.”

“We don’t have to keep him,” I say. “I can see if Tom wants him. He seems like the kind of cat Tom and Steve would like.”

“Ornery?” Cooper asks. “Mean?”

“Exactly,” I say. It’s nice of Cooper not to comment on the fact that I’ve already made him go to CVS to buy a cat box, litter, and ca

The china wasn’t the only thing she’d loved that Owen had gotten in the divorce settlement, it turned out.

“Let’s see how it goes,” Cooper says. “Though I really don’t think I can live with a cat called Garfield.”

“I know,” I say miserably. “It’s kind of like having a dog named Fido or Spot, right? But what could we call him instead?”

“I’m not sure,” Cooper says. “Pol Pot? Idi Amin?”

We’re sitting at the kitchen table with glasses of scotch on the rocks in front of us. Considering what we’ve each been through, it seemed the only logical way to end the evening.

“I guess the real question is, how long is he staying,” Cooper goes on. “I don’t want to give him a name and get all attached to him—assuming one could get attached to something like him—just to have him ripped away right when I’m starting to like having him around.”

“I’ll talk to Tom in the morning,” I say. I’m really tired. It’s been a long day. It’s been a long week.

“That’s not exactly what I meant,” Cooper says.

Something in his tone causes me to look up. In the glow from the overhead kitchen light, I notice that Cooper looks a lot better than I feel… and he’s been thrown down a flight of stairs, whereas I’ve just been shot at.

It’s not fair. How come guys can go through so much more than us girls and come out looking better for it?

“Did I tell you what the EMTs said, back at the sports center?” he asks, almost as if he’d been reading my mind.

“No,” I say.

“My blood pressure’s a hundred and sixty-five over ninety-four,” he says.

“Well,” I say, taking a restorative sip of my scotch. I have to. Looking into his eyes has caused my pulse to skitter unsteadily. It’s not fair. “You did suffer a debilitating fall.”

“I’m supposed to consult with my primary physician,” Cooper says. “High blood pressure runs in my family, you know.”

I nod. “You can never be too careful. Hypertension is the silent killer.”

“You know what this means, though. No more Chips Ahoy! Nutella and Macadamia Brittle sandwiches for me.”

I shrug. “If your doctor puts you on medication, you can have all you want.”

Cooper leans forward in his chair. “You’ve been home half an hour,” he says, “and you haven’t even noticed.”

I blink at him from across the table. “Noticed what? What are you talking about?”

He points at the door to the back garden, which is located right next to the stove. For the first time I notice that someone’s installed a large dog door in the middle of it.

“Oh my God!” I cry, leaping to my feet. “Cooper! When did you do that?”

Gri

“After we got back from Rock Ridge. I ordered it a while ago. It only opens if you’re wearing this special collar—that’s the security feature, you know, to keep crack heads from using it to break in. It was really easy to install. The hardest part’s going to be getting Lucy to use it. But I figured, with your dad gone, this’ll make it easier on you when you’re at work during the day. She’ll still need her walks, but this way, if there’s an emergency, she can let herself out. If she can figure out how to do it, I mean.”

I squat down to admire his handiwork. There are a few small gaps between where he sawed and where the dog door actually slid into place. But it’s not the aesthetic quality of the job that matters. It’s the fact that he’s done something—something permanent — to his home for my dog.

“Cooper,” I say, embarrassed to find myself blinking back tears. I hope he doesn’t notice. “This is so… sweet of you.”

“Well,” he says, looking uncomfortable. “I only got one security collar. I didn’t know we were going to have two pets going in and out—”

“We’re not,” I assure him, glancing at Garfield, who has settled onto the kitchen mat and is glaring at Lucy—still cowering under the kitchen table—with balefully glowing yellow eyes. “I’ll find him a new home in the morning. Besides, he’s an indoor cat, I’m pretty sure.”

“I wasn’t even sure,” Cooper goes on, not meeting my gaze, “how much longer you and Lucy would be sticking around, to tell you the truth.”

I straighten up, and wipe my suddenly moisture-slick palms on my jeans.

“Yeah,” I say. I’m having trouble meeting his gaze. So I keep mine on Garfield, instead. “About that.”

Cooper straightens, too. “It’s just,” he says. I can’t tell where he’s looking, because I’m busy looking at Garfield. But I have an idea he’s looking at me, and feel a corresponding rise in temperature in my cheeks. “When I told you a few months ago that I didn’t want to be your rebound guy—”

“We really,” I hurry to say—because I have a feeling I’m not going to like where this conversation is headed—“don’t have to talk about this. In fact, I have an idea. Let’s just go to bed. We’ve both had a really long, hard day. Let’s sleep on it. Let’s not say anything we might regret.”

“I’m not going to regret saying this,” Cooper says.

I do tear my gaze from Garfield at that.

“You have a concussion,” I insist, checking his pupils for eve

“Heather.” To my surprise, he seizes both my hands in his. His gaze, on mine, is steady. Both his pupils look precisely even. “I don’t have a concussion. I know exactly what I’m saying. Something I should have said a long time ago.”

Oh God. Seriously. Why me? Has my day not been bad enough? I mean, really. Someone shot at me. A big orange cat named Garfield bit me. Why do I have to be rejected by the man I love as well?

“Cooper,” I say. “Really. Can’t we just—”

“No,” Cooper says firmly. “I know I said I didn’t want to be your rebound guy. And when I said it, I meant it. But I didn’t expect you to go out and find a rebound guy who was so—”

“Look,” I say, wincing. “I know. Okay? But—”

“—perfect,” Cooper concludes.

I blink up at him, thinking I’ve heard him wrong. “Wait.What? ”

“I mean, I never expected him to ask you to move in with him,” Cooper bursts out. “Or that you’d say yes!”

“I–I didn’t!” I cry.

Cooper’s grip on my hands becomes very tight all of a sudden.

“Wait. You didn’t?” His gaze on mine is intent. His pupils, I note, are still even in size. “Then when you were talking to Tad tonight—”

My mouth has suddenly gone dry. Maybe, I’m starting to think, my day won’t end up being that bad after all.

“I turned him down,” I tell him. I don’t bother explaining to him just what, precisely, Tad asked me to do that I turned down. He doesn’t need to know that.

“What about your dad?” Cooper asks slowly. “The thing with Larry?”

“I turned that down, too,” I say. My heart has started doing something crazy inside my chest. I’m not sure what. But I think it’s the cha-cha. “Cooper, I don’t want to move in with Tad—he’s not perfect, by the way. Far from it. In fact… we broke up tonight. And I don’t want a new recording career. I love my job. I love living here, with you. Everything since I moved in here has been so great. I like things exactly the way they are. In fact, when I was getting shot at earlier, and I thought I was going to die, I was thinking how much I don’t want anything to change—”