Chapter Three
Kate
What did one wear for her first day of being Play it Cool Kate, with a side of rowing training? After all, seduction and sports hardly went together.
Unless you happened to be Mick, then throwing a ball was alluring enough. Come to think of it, most any guy seemed sexier while playing sports, making me rethink my stance on seduction and sports.
It didn’t seem to work the same for women, though, which was totally unfair. Or maybe I just had no clue what guys found sexy. According to Cooper, it was mostly not being serious. If anyone had the not-serious market pegged, it was the guy who strolled through the halls of the school like he didn’t have a care in the world. I pulled my flamingo shirt out of my drawer. The words “majestically awkward” curved above the bird that had one leg up in the air and was about to fall. Mom and I saw it in a store and we’d both laughed at how accurately it described me.
“I highly doubt that’s the type of not-seriousness guys are looking for.” Which was why I mostly wore it during Netflix binges on the weekend.
Mom’s head popped through the open door. “What did you say, hon?”
“Nothing. Just talking to myself.” Like a normal person.
I glanced at the glass cage where Klaus, my bearded dragon, slept, thinking I should’ve at least claimed I was talking to him. He peeked an eye open as I patted his head and then settled back down for another long day of napping. Clearly he cared a lot about what I wore.
“Okay, well hurry up. We’ve got to be out the door in fifteen.” She rushed down the hall toward her bedroom.
I crossed to my shelves, where my jewelry box sat among my Funko Pop collection, and put on my three-tiered gold necklace. Naturally, I’d paired up the figurines in the couplings they should be in, whether or not the TV show or book series they belonged to was currently doing the right thing and allowing them to be together.
You’d think all my time spent analyzing fictional relationships would help me have one of my own. But those relationships probably only gave me false expectations, because outside of movies, books, and TV, the most popular guy in school didn’t usually notice the smart, semi-awkward girl who would be perfect for him.
But Cooper’s going to help me, and it’ll all work out. I still couldn’t believe the deal I’d struck with him. Two summers ago he was just the scrawny guy Amber and I constantly bumped into as we were running around by Massabesic Lake. They both lived nice and close to the banks, the sparkling water visible from their big front windows. That was back in the day when she and I were best friends, before I learned what betrayal felt like. It was also back when Cooper talked about constellations a lot. He knew them all, and one night he pointed out several with this app he had on his phone.
Amber had told him no one cared, so to stop rattling off boring facts, and while I didn’t agree, I didn’t stand up for him, either. I usually just went along with whatever she said. It was how being her friend worked. It made me feel stupid now, but back then I’d been the new girl who’d transferred because her mom thought her other school’s students were too rough, their classes too basic. The basic classes theory was true, the too rough debatable. Auburn Academy was also closer to the real estate office where she worked and showed houses, and as a parent now doing the job of two, that made a huge difference for both of us.
Honestly, I liked it at AA better, although my status as the kid on the far outskirts, the lake nowhere in viewing range, sometimes made me feel like an outsider. Not that I didn’t appreciate our charming—if a bit outdated—two-bedroom house that boasted a view of lots and lots of trees. Unless Mr. Morris was working on his vehicles or RV in his yard, when our view had a bit more butt crack than I preferred.
I crossed the hall to Mom’s room and opened her summer drawer. A tangerine beaded tank top sat on top, and I decided it was just what I was looking for. And that my mom was cooler than me, but I tried not to linger on that thought.
Apparently I took more after my dad when it came to style—we went for easy and comfy. After all, we never knew when one of our impromptu “top-secret missions” would crop up.
My gaze automatically lifted to the picture of my parents on top of the dresser. The sorrow that pressed against my chest was a ghost of what it used to be, something that faded a bit more every year, although I knew it’d always be with me. He’d enlisted in the Air Force in order to help pay for an engineering degree, but then he fell in love with flying.
Constant deployments were all I’d ever known, those long stretches without my dad. They passed by slowly, but Mom and I would gradually adjust and get used to it being just us. Then he’d be home for about a year.
But last deployment we lost him for good, and there was a big difference between missing him because he wasn’t home for long stretches and missing him because he was never coming home. That was two and a half years ago—sometimes it felt like an eternity and sometimes it felt like yesterday. It just depended on the day.
“Kate! I swear if you don’t get your butt in the car in five minutes, I’m going to leave you!”
An empty threat, but I hustled all the same, quickly exchanging my T-shirt for the flashy tank top. I resisted the urge to throw my hair in a ponytail and stopped in my room for lip-gloss and my backpack before taking the stairs two at a time and rushing out the door.
By the time I arrived in the passenger seat, I was out of breath.
Mom looked at me, her eyebrows scrunching together.
“What?” I smoothed a hand down the shirt. “Does this not look okay?”
“I like it. I’m just wondering what inspired the change in fashion.”
“Just felt like trying something new.” Like trying to actually land my crush instead of staring at him from afar. Usually I told Mom quite a bit about school and my crushes, but I knew she would tell me to just be myself, and it was hard to convince her that being myself simply wasn’t cutting it. She didn’t understand, because she was the kind of woman who got attention from attractive men all the time. She accidentally flirted, as in it took no effort or thought and she didn’t even realize she was coming across as flirty.
Whereas even the thought of talking to my crush made my palms start to sweat.
So for right now, Operation Prom Date would remain on a classified, need-to-know basis. And I was as surprised as anyone that it somehow included Cooper Callihan.