Breakaway (Beyond the Play, #2)(27)

“She doesn’t live in the dorms?”

“Nope,” Cooper says. “We all live here.”

I step into the entryway. “That’s cute.”

“It would have been better with James,” Izzy says with a pout. “I miss him.”

I look around the house. The entryway has a staircase to the left, and to the right, it opens to a living room. There’s a big leather couch, a matching loveseat, and an armchair with a plaid blanket folded neatly over the back, grouped around a wall-mounted television. It’s easy to tell what belongs to Cooper and his brother, and what touches their sister has added; the bottle-opener in the shape of a skull must be theirs, but the tapered pink candles on the coffee table, hers. “He lives in Philadelphia, right?”

“With his fiancée,” Izzy says with a sigh as she flops down on the couch. “We haven’t seen them since the summer. He abandoned us to go play football.”

Sebastian ruffles her hair as he walks past, heading into the kitchen. “You can call him whenever.”

Izzy brightens at that. “Coop, where’s my phone?”

Cooper shakes his head. “Not now, he’ll have my ass for letting you go wild at a senior party.”

Izzy rolls her eyes. “You didn’t let me do anything. Besides, I won’t tell him.”

“Iz, I love you, but secrets aren’t your strong suit.” He sighs, looking down at his shirt again. “Come on, let’s get changed. You should have some water and go to bed, so you’re good to go for your game tomorrow. I’ll drive you home in a minute, Penny.”

When they troop upstairs, Sebastian gives me a narrow-eyed look, clearly unwilling to let go of the fact that Cooper brought a girl he’s already been with—because I don’t believe for a second he wouldn’t tell his brother about the indignity of accidentally sleeping with his coach’s daughter—to their house, and apparently is going to drive me home himself instead of offering to pay for an Uber like a normal guy. I shuffle my feet, unsure what to do with myself. There’s a slamming sound from upstairs, and then a high-pitched giggle.

“Sebastian!” Cooper roars.

Sebastian’s gaze flickers to the stairs before settling on me once more. “You should have told him who you were beforehand.”

I swallow. He doesn’t even sound all that upset, but the words chastise me all the same. “I didn’t know.”

“When the consequences only go one way, you make sure.” He nods once, like he’s pleased with himself for that cryptic, metaphorical slap, and then bounds up the stairs two at a time.

Of course, he doesn’t know that the consequences wouldn’t just go one way; if my father finds out, it could ruin the relationship I’ve fought carefully to repair. What better way to remind my father of the version of me who forced us out of Arizona than recklessly getting involved with another hockey player? His hockey player? I’ll lose the little respect of his that I’ve built back up, and it wasn’t until I did something as monumentally stupid as asking Cooper Callahan to go down on me that I realized how much I treasure it. If I tried to explain The List to him, on top of being mortifying, he wouldn’t understand. It wouldn’t be growth to him; it’d be regression.

Yet despite knowing that, I know something else, too: I’m about to ask Cooper to do it again.





14





COOPER





“Thanks again for helping me with Izzy,” I say as we climb the stairs to Penny’s dorm room. “I still can’t believe she threw up on me.”

“It happens,” she says, looking at me over her shoulder. I’ve tried not to stare at her too much, but it’s hard with that dress she’s wearing. It clings to her ass deliciously, and the neckline, combined with her bra, is doing its best to remind me that when we hooked up, I didn’t even get to see her tits.

She clearly went to that party with fun on her mind, and I can’t stop stewing over it. She obviously didn’t know the guy she was with, and she made no effort to go after him when he ran away to blow chunks in private. There’s something up with her, and maybe it’s not my business, but I’m curious anyway.

At the right landing, she leads the way to the room at the end of the hallway. This is one of the older dorms, so she pulls out an actual key to unlock the door. When we parked in front of the dorm and sat for half a second in awkwardness, I nearly stopped myself from offering to walk her to her door, but I couldn’t quite manage it. Now we’re here, and weirdly, I’d rather be standing in this hallway with her than back at the party with any number of girls, and that odd ache in my chest still won’t kick the bucket.

She blushes as she opens the door. “Do you… want to come in for a few?”

“Only if you want me to.”

When she replies, there’s some of that teasing back in her tone. “I thought we had something to unpack. What are you studying, anyway? That’s an academic word if I’ve ever heard one.”

“English.” I step into the room. It’s actually a small suite, two separate bedrooms instead of one. I suppose being a staff member’s daughter has advantages beyond free tuition. “I’ve spent most of my college career unpacking.”