Operation Prom Date (Tactics in Flirting #1)(9)
Cooper finally spun enough for me to see his face, and his eyebrows were all scrunched up. “So you want to keep rowing?”
“I…” I blew my breath out past my lips, not caring that it made me sound like a horse. “I don’t know how much longer I can go—I’m actually questioning if I can even make it back to the shore, or if I should just start praying for a strong wind to help you.”
Cooper’s all-business expression remained, and he glanced at the damn watch again.
I nudged his hip with the toe of my shoe. “I’ll get faster and stronger, okay? It just might take me a week or so.” I had a feeling it’d take longer than that, but I didn’t want to kill any possible optimism that still might be hanging in the air, struggling to hold on to the idea that this might be fun.
“At least you don’t weigh much,” Cooper said.
“Thanks?”
“Actually, that might throw me off. If I get used to it, and then Jaden hops in, the extra weight will make me slower. Then again, he rows more effectively because of his years of experience, so…” I could practically see the wheels turning in his head.
“If you want, I can work up a story problem and then solve it so you can calculate exactly how much my weight and less experience will factor into your and his usual time.” Strands of my hair swirled in front of my face and I swept them off, vowing to bring my backup hair-tie tomorrow. “Of course if I die of exhaustion out here, I won’t be able to do it, and then I won’t be able to help. Mathematically, or with training. Just saying.”
Finally Cooper snapped out of it, his features softening. “I guess I shouldn’t let you die of exhaustion the first day. I’ll wait until right before Jaden is fully healed.”
“How very noble of you.”
He tipped his head and his dimples flashed in his cheeks. And then I might’ve checked out the muscles in his arms again, but only for a second—like a fraction of a second, really.
“You know, I didn’t think this through,” I said. “I pictured us facing each other. It feels like I’m hanging out with myself.” Well, myself and a super strong back, but I’m not going to focus on that, because it’s weird and why do I keep thinking about it?
Switching mental gears, I focused on the non eye-candy aspect. “But then I’d just have some mean rowing coach barking orders into my face.”
Cooper arched an eyebrow. “‘Mean,’ huh?”
I nodded. “Now I know why I skipped this sport. It had nothing to do with my lack of coordination. It was the barked orders and pressure to row until your arms fall off.”
“Whatever. You’re way better at this than most girls. Most girls who don’t have any training, anyway.”
“Again, thanks?”
The boat wobbled as he spun around to face me. “No more hanging out with yourself. Or a coach who only wants to challenge you to score your best time.”
I rolled my eyes, making the gesture nice and big so he knew I wasn’t buying the no-pain, no-gain rhetoric.
Cooper gripped the oars and started rowing us back toward the shore.
I eyed the ends of my oars, but even the thought of grabbing them made my shoulders burn. “I’d offer to help, but my arms feel like noodles and I’m pretty sure you’re going as fast without me as you did with me.”
He gave a quick glance to his watch. “You help a little.” I shook my head, but he simply grinned. “And keeping track of our beats and pacing will help a lot as we figure out which marks we need to hit in order to beat our previous times.” With a jerk of his chin, he indicated the paper next to me, the one where I’d scribbled in the times and distance markers like he’d asked me to. “I want you to be as obsessive about that as you were about our history project—more so, if that’s even possible.”
“Oh, it is, and I’m going to make you regret saying that.”
“Bring it,” he said, his grin widening.
Maybe I should force him to sit facing the rear of the boat all the time, because the carefree fun Cooper was back. Intense, obsessed-with-time Cooper scared me a little, even while I liked seeing he was capable of that much passion in some aspects of his life.
The drive to improve his time was admirable, truly, but it also made me wonder what I’d gotten myself into with this deal.
I made a halfhearted attempt to help as I scanned the horizon. The sun now hung low in the sky, turning the shore opposite us into a contrast of dark, pine-tree-shaped spires and fiery sky. The stretched-out clouds glowed around the edges, and the oranges and golds reflected on the surface of the water. The boat and oars left ripples in the colored lake as we glided through it, leaving a trail someone could follow to find us, but only if they hurried, because it quickly faded.
With my exhaustion over having to constantly move through the water fading, a peaceful calm feeling overcame me. Maybe I occasionally missed Amber because it meant I rarely came to the lake anymore, which was especially hard when it’d felt like my second home that summer two years ago. Almost like my first home in some ways, because my real home at that time was bursting with sadness and hard to face.
The boat bumped the shore before I realized how close we were. I stood, planning on jumping onto the dirt and grass embankment so I could help pull the boat to shore. I nearly fell in the water but managed to land on a muddy spot instead, my shoes making a sloppy squishing sound.