In My Dreams I Hold a Knife(25)

“Actually,” Coop said, “you’re the one who finds me.”

“Sorry. I’ll go. I thought I’d be alone.”

He dropped something on the floor and ground it out with his foot. He walked closer, both hands in his pockets, eyeing me cautiously. His hair was so mussed he looked a touch feral.

“Should I get Mint? I think he’s with his parents at a steak house, but I can find him.”

I tried to smile. “No. But thanks.” Mint was the last person in the world I could tell about my debt. And the thought of his parents catching wind made me sick to my stomach.

“Okay. I cede the room, then.” Coop tucked his hair behind his ears and walked to the door.

“Wait.”

He stopped. I swallowed, looking out the large windows at Duquette’s campus, in the process of being swallowed by dusk. “Will you stay, actually?”

Coop turned, and we locked eyes. I tried to read his face, but he kept it carefully blank.

“Sure,” he said finally. He made his way back, standing awkwardly beside me. “Are you going to make me guess why you’re crying?”

I dropped to the floor, drawing my knees to my chin. “It’s nothing.”

“Liar.” He sat, too, keeping a careful distance between us. But it didn’t matter; I could still feel him, a humming energy across the empty space.

I clutched my bill tighter on instinct, and the movement caught his eye. Before I could stop him, he lunged and snatched it.

“Coop—no!”

He unfolded the paper from the envelope and scanned it. My heart plummeted. This was it. The moment my veneer was shattered, when my ugly truth came out. First, Coop, then surely everyone would know.

He whistled, eyeing me. “Damn, Jess. That’s a lot of money. You better pay it fast.”

I stared at him, wide-eyed.

He frowned. The magic-hour sunlight played over his face, dappling it with shadows from the trees. “What, you’re embarrassed?”

I couldn’t move.

“Jess, my dad split when I was five. I was raised by a single mom who worked two jobs my whole life, three for a couple of years. If you think I’m a stranger to the red envelope, you’re wrong.”

I released a breath. “Really?”

He laughed. “Are you kidding? None of the rest of those spoiled assholes would understand, but I do.” He shot me a coy look. “Apologies for slandering your boyfriend. I know how much you adore the golden boy. King of the frat and beloved of professors and all that.”

“You sound jealous.”

“I am. But not of those things.”

I pressed my legs together against the sudden charge in the air.

His eyes dropped to my knees. “So, you’re going to pay it off, right?”

“I can’t.” Saying the words out loud made the tears well again. I dragged my hand over my eyes before he could see. “Neither can my parents. They’d kill me if they knew I opened this credit card. I did it secretly, so I could have the same things as everyone else.” I didn’t know why I was confessing so much, but here it was, out in the open.

Coop ran a hand through his hair, and it went wild again. It stayed upright even after he dropped his hand to the floor and leaned back to brace himself.

“I’m fucked,” I said. “I’m going to get sued.”

He studied his legs, stretched over the floor, then took a deep breath. “I’ll give you the money.”

“That’s absurd. How would you get ten thousand dollars?”

“Come on, like you don’t know.”

“I really don’t.”

Coop’s voice rose a notch. “I sell things. I thought you knew.”

Did he mean drugs? Like an actual drug dealer? Somewhere in the back of my mind, the pieces fit—Coop always had drugs, he went mysterious places at mysterious times—but it didn’t lessen the shock.

“Say something.”

“Does Mint buy his molly from you?”

“Everyone does. Pot. Molly. A few other things.”

“That’s bad, Coop. It’s dangerous. People get killed over drugs.”

“Yeah, well, my scholarship only goes so far. And there’s no way I’m adding to my mom’s plate when she can barely make rent. I told myself if I went to college, I’d make sure she never had to worry.”

I eyed him sharply. “You got a scholarship? What were your SAT scores?” I hadn’t made the cut for a scholarship to Duquette, but Coop had?

He leaned closer, dark hair falling over his forehead. “Seriously, that’s your takeaway? You know I’m prelaw, right?”

I laughed, even though a small voice said it was mean. “A drug-dealing lawyer sounds like a pretty big conflict of interest. What if you get caught?”

“The law is nuanced and complicated, and I like nuanced and complicated. Plus, knowing the law helps me break it better. Didn’t you get a scholarship, too? I assumed, you know…”

And just like that, the old wound opened. The ruined remains of my relationship with my mother, dug up from the grave. “No,” I admitted. “I’m paying for it all myself.”

He looked at me with wide eyes. “Why the fuck would you come here, then? No one who isn’t rich as sin could afford this tuition.”