Me & Timothy Cooper (6 page)

“Well, I sprained my ankle, and he was driving by at the time.” That part was true and harmless. “He gave me a lift to his house. His mom is a nurse.”
Also factual.

“You met his mom?”

This must have seemed like quite an accomplishment to her because she appeared to be in awe. Our conversation had by now drawn in two other girls from nearby desks – Maria Sanchez and
Chond
r
a
Price.

“She was nice,” I said, “She said I sprained it and wouldn’t let me leave.”

“Go on,” Lisa said.

I debated again about how much to tell.
“Well, so I stayed.”

“But Macy said she saw you get out of his car this morning, and he was like all … over you.”

He wasn’t all over me in the sense she said it. He was all over me in the sense I couldn’t stand up. But I didn’t make an issue with her about it.

“That’s true. I did ride to school with him.”

“You are killing me.” This remark came from Maria Sanchez. “Tell us.”

“What is there to tell? My parents are out of town on business and so his mom wouldn’t let me go home.”

You could have heard a feather fall. It got that quiet. I had somehow, by the looks on their faces, achieved mythical status. I had not only entered the sanctum of Timothy Cooper’s home, I had no
t
only met his mother, I had …
gasp
… stayed there all night. I wanted to laugh, really I did, but it seemed
unfitting
.

“Girl, you are so lucky,”
Chond
r
a
Pri
ce said, breaking the silence.

And heads bobbed all around, now
most of
the class – at least the female portion of it – nodding in agreement.

“So what now … like he takes you home today, right?” Lisa said.

I couldn’t help it. I grinned. Maybe I’d picked that up from Tim. He was
always grinning at
me. I also couldn’t help but say what I said, hang the consequences as they say.

“Actually, no,” I replied openly, “I’m staying there for the week.”

CHAPTER 7

Tim looked behind him into the classroom, his neck stretched like a rubber
band to an uncommon length. “Why did they look at me like that?” he asked.

I giggled. Giggling is so girly and should be reserved for children under five, but I was overcome by the w
hole thing. “Because you are a g
od and I have
gained
epic
renown
.”

An eyebrow shot up. “Care to explain?”

I swung myself along the corridor toward my next class. “Well, let’s say by the end of the day we’ll be married with two kids.”

And he burst out laughing.
“Oh my God.
What is up with this school?”

I would have shrugged but the crutches prevented it. “They like a story, so I gave them one.”

“Truthful, I hope,” he said.

“Absolutely.”
I paused outside my next class.

Laughter danced in his eyes, and I stared for a bit. I liked that I made him laugh.

“Tell me,” I said. “What are the guys saying?”

He pulled back a smile. “If you are epic, then I am legendary.”

I shook my head. “I don’t get that. I’m just me.
Kinda
plain and way too
normal
.”

“You mean you don’t know?” he said.

I leaned myself against the wall. The bell was about to ring, and we’d both be late. But this conversation seemed way more important.

“Know what?”

He cleared his throat. “Gosh, Southern, you have to be the most humble person I know.
Not a guy in this school wouldn’t go out with you.”

I almost choked.
I
steadied myself on my good leg, which was growing mo
re and more tired by the minute, and coughed for a good sixty seconds.
“Me?” I finally squeaked. “Why?”

And his grin returned as the bell rang. We neither one moved.

“For the answer to that, look in the mirror,” he said. He shifted my books to his other arm. “Now,
if we stand her much longer, I’ll get a
detention,
so
let me help you to your seat.”

We entered the room into the
curious
eyes of the kids in the classroom, who followed our movements down the aisle to my desk. I plopped down, and he set my books on top.

“See
ya
after,”
he said, nonchalantly, and
he did something that ruined me for the rest of the day. Bending over, he kissed me on the cheek.

I sat there, stunned, my hand on my face until he disappeared from view. Then the girl behind me, Gina Conroy, poked me between the shoulder blades. I turned a
round
.

“Tell me,” she whispered, albeit loudly, “what’s he like?”

***

Mrs. Walker’s class
,
being the last class of the day
,
capped off the rumors swirling around us.
Since
Tim sat right beside me within hand-holding distance and
since
the entire school now thought we’d done things together we hadn’t, we both decided to milk it.

It
all started when Mrs. Walker paused to watch him help me to my seat. “I see you’ve had an accident,” she said.

I nodded. “I sprained my ankle.”

“And Mr. Cooper has been of help to you today?”

I guess teachers are as nosy as students. Why else would she ask that?

“Well,” I said, casting a look at him, “He and I decided to take your project seriously. We’ve moved in together.”

He was laughing. The class was laughing. I really wanted to be laughing. But Mrs. Walker was not laughing.

“Taylor
Lawton
,” she said, “We will not be inappropriate in this classroom.”

Inappropriate.
Her choice of words stuck with me. Was that what I’d
done? Was spreading all those tales
, though some of
them were
true,
actually
a bad thing to do? I’d only been having fun, but maybe now … maybe now I couldn’t get rid of the stigma.

I squirmed in my seat, and Timothy noticed my discomfort.

He rose to my defense.
“It’s really not a big deal, Mrs. Walker. Her parents are out of town, and she had nowhere else to go.”

Mrs. Walker sniffed in disdain and returned to the front of the classroom.

What she said after that, I have no idea because I was swimming too deep in regret. What if my parents heard the stories? What if the entire town
talked about
them? Oh, I’d messed up and messed up big.

Class ended, Tim drove us home and made every attempt to get me to talk without actually bringing the subject up, but to no success.

His mom noticed my mood. She didn’t ask, but tried to lighten it, telling stories of him in his youth. Good fodder for the project. Problem was
,
I couldn’t have cared less about the project. It wasn’t until about ten p.m. in the middle of a CSI rerun that he’d apparently had enough.

“Southern, talk to me.”

His mom had left the room, so we were quite alone.

“About what?”

Yeah, about what.
I knew what he wanted, but I couldn’t say it.

“Scoot.”

I looked up to find him standing over me. I adjusted my position on the couch, and he slipped in beside me. Then drawi
ng me to his side, he pressed my
head to his chest. He smelled great.

“What’s bugging you?” he asked.

I sighed, the sound long and deep. “I blew it.”

He wrapped his arm
around
my shoulders. “How did you blow it?”

“Spreading rumors about me and you.
I didn’t mean to … to …”
Be inappropriate.

“You think people believe any of that? They were just having fun.”

I tugged myself upright. “They believe it. They … they think you and
I
… we … and that’s wrong
.”

He tilted his head. “Yes, it is, but we didn’t. My mom can testify to that.”

“So what … we drag her to school and make her tell everyone?”

He smiled.
“If you like.”

I gave a huff and tossed myself back against him. I liked it there.
Me and Timothy Cooper on the couch.

“I’m not like that. I would
never … never
…” And I decided to say it up front. I mean, who knew where this was going? “Never sleep with someone outside of marriage.”

His breath blew warm in my ear. “I would never ask you to do that.”

That hit me full force like a semi-trailer.
Me and Timothy Cooper sleeping together.
We were old enough to know w
hat that meant, but to think
it was powerful. And here we were in the same house with an attraction for each other we couldn’t deny.

But I wanted to know. Would he? So I asked.

“Would you … I mean, if not for … rules and such.” Rules being the Bible, and those were pretty strong rules.

He chuckled. “You ask the strangest questions.”

“What’s strange about it?” I asked. “We’re here,
me
and you, and you’re
a guy
…” I was going to say,
and I’m
a girl
, but he didn’t give me a chance.

“Point four against
guys
.”

I laughed. He always made me laugh. “Well, so answer the question.”

“Why do you want to know?”

Ego mostly and that was wrong
too
.

“Forget it,” I said.

But he tipped my face upward. “No, tell me. Why do you want to know?”

My tongue dried in my mouth. How could I speak with him looking at me like that?
“I … We … You …”
I stammered.

“Which is it?” he said
.

I sighed.
“All three.
Can’t you just answer me?”

He looked away. “If there were no rules, no boundaries, would I sleep with you? So we’re talking purely physical here.”

“Yes.” I gulped.

“What if instead of answering that, we answer something else?”

He was forever challenging me. I liked that about him.

“Like what?”

“Like what if we were inside the rules, but it was w
ay in the future. What if two
years from now I proposed to you and we married?”

I glanced back at his face. He was serious. “You would propose to me?”

“What if I did? Would you say, ‘Yes’?
”

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

“Uh huh.”

“And then what? We’d get married and …”

“Sleep together,” I said.

“But it’d be legal and right.”

My head was spinning. Had he
just
talked to me about proposals and marriage? Timothy Cooper was
way
more complicated than I thought.

“But what if we couldn’t?”

“Southern.” His voice was stern. I’d never heard him talk like that. Taking hold
of my shoulders, he turned me
to face him, which was awkward given my ankle. But I managed it. “Why don’t you let this go and let’s start by being friends? Then if things get more serious, we’ll deal with that when it comes.”

“Do you want things to be more serious?”
I asked.

And he had a comeback.
“Do you ever stop asking questions?”

I smiled. “I guess not.”

CHAPTER 8

She was right about what people believed, only he didn’t want to admit it, especially not to her.
Especially not at school.

He first had an inkling of the damage
created the previous day
when
Martin Costas
approached him
. Martin was an all right guy on any other day. They’d never really had dealings with each other past attending the same s
chool, but the fact he stopped Tim in the hallway to say what he said meant bad things.

Curly black hair sprouted all along Martin’s jaw and over his chin.
He jerked his head
upward in greeting. “‘Sup.”