Path of Destruction (Broken Heartland, #2)(50)

“Hayden isn’t taking me,” she informed him, his ears perking up to make sure he’d heard her right. “He’s not even coming.”

“No? Thought for sure you two would have crowns to accept tonight.”

“I don’t think so. Neither of us has really been campaigning to make it on court. Plus we aren’t really a couple anymore and they always pick a couple.”

“I see,” Coop replied, trying not the let her words affect him too much—at least not outwardly anyway. “Guess I’ll see you on Tuesday, then.”

“Wait...you’re not coming tonight?” she asked.

“Hadn’t planned on it. I’m not really the prom sort of guy,” he scoffed.

“Right.” She paused. “You’ve probably got, like, fields to plow or cows to tip, right?”

“Mm-hm,” he murmured with a grin. Damn it if she didn’t know how to get right under his skin.

What he really wanted to do was tip her in his arms and plow his tongue into her smart mouth. But he wouldn’t because that wasn’t part of their arrangement. He wouldn’t rock the boat and risk losing what they did have. She was willing to look past his asinine behavior at the pharmacy once, but he didn’t want to push it.

“Have fun at your dance tonight, Prom Queen.”



He repeated the mantra to himself several times. He wasn’t a prom sort of guy. He didn’t dance, not really. Maybe he’d twirled his mama around the kitchen a time or two in jest, but he didn’t play dress up and choke himself to death in some suit for the viewing pleasure of his classmates. There was work to do. Work he needed to be at home doing.

Except…she’d made it official. Cameron Nickelson and Hayden Prescott weren’t a couple. Sure looked that way sometimes, the way she paraded up and down the halls with him. But he knew they couldn’t have been too serious since it sure as hell wasn’t Prescott in that closet with her.

And the way she’d said, “You’re not coming tonight?” as if she were disappointed. Like she’d expected him to be there for some crazy reason. Did she need him to be?

He remembered the way her social committee “friends” had dismissed her upon her return, how they’d sided with Raquel so easily, a bunch of sheep following the new world order because Cameron didn’t really matter to them.

Tonight, she’d have to stand under the color spectrum of vomit as she’d called it, watch her friends dance, and laugh and have a good time. Would she have a good time? He shook his head as he drove past the mall beside the banquet hall for the fourth time. The real question was, would she have a better time if he was there or if he wasn’t?

Two hours later he was staring at his reflection as he put on his dad’s nicest tie. Granted, it wasn’t a tux, but he couldn’t afford that and he couldn’t afford the hit his dignity would take if he went all out and showed up to find her with someone else. So black jeans with a white button-down and a black silk tie would have to do.

He looked like a f*cking waiter.

Sighing at his reflection and deciding this was the best it would get, he realized this was why he’d always been a one-time hook up guy. Driving back to the hotel where prom was held, he contemplated his sadly lacking sexual history. He’d lost his virginity to a random girl at a party he’d attended with Kyle. Nicole something. He couldn’t even remember. He wasn’t sure he’d ever even known her last name. Then there was Courtney Billings, a track bunny that hung around, offering up sexual favors after each race. A few others had tried to vie for head track bunny when he’d had a winning streak, and a few had gotten a go at him. But each time, he’d found himself wishing they were someone else. Someone he wasn’t allowed to want.

“Coop?”

The familiar voice caught him by surprise and he turned to see Ella Jane standing between two of his least favorite Bluffs lacrosse players. Where their leader was, he wasn’t sure.

“Hey, EJ.” He loosened the stiff collar of the shirt he’d changed into. Jarrod Kent had an arm wrapped around her waist, just above where a dangerously short dress ended. “You ready to go in?”

Ever since he’d left the hotel that afternoon, all he could think about was Cameron. Better yet, Cameron all dressed up and at the prom—alone. But now, he was conflicted, because here was another girl he cared about—one he sure as hell had not expected to see here.

Ella Jane raised a skeptical eyebrow. “I thought this was lame and you’d rather be caught dead than at prom?”

That was pretty much exactly what he’d told her when she’d asked if he was coming. Cooper gently cleared his throat while trying to figure out how to explain something he didn’t even completely understand himself. He knew what he was thinking on the ride over, but was he really going to tell Ella Jane that he was about to go make a significant play for the girl she seemed to hate?

“Yeah. Still true. I just had to help set up, and then Cameron was all alone, so I—”

Ella Jane put a hand up. “No need to explain.” She took something from the guy on her left and waved Coop off. “Enjoy the prom. Tell Cameron hello for me.”

Cooper frowned at her, trying to make up his mind about whether or not he should throw her over his shoulder and drag her away from Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumbass.