Page 7 of Cooper & Jake (Gomillion High Reunion #2)

JAKE

God, it’s like no time at all has passed between us. The easy flow of conversation the entire time, the way he still makes my heartbeat faster, the way I want to take his hand with mine, or place a soft kiss on his lips.

Fuck Jake, get it together.

“Open it,” he tells me, scooting closer to me and tapping the water bottle.

“Do you remember what you put in here?” He shakes his head no, and I add on, “Me either. Hell, I had forgotten about the bottle at all until you brought it up.” His face falls, his eyes cast down, and I quickly tack on, “I mean, I didn’t forget.

I’ve thought about it over the years, but I was too preoccupied with other things today that it wasn’t at the front of my mind.

All right, let’s look what’s in this bad boy.

” I twist the top open, Cooper leaving his flashlight right on the bottle so we can both see.

“Oh damn, is that a watch?” he inquires excitedly as I pull out the first item and place it in front of the light.

“Fuck, I forgot about this. Remember, we took the batteries out so that it would keep the time of when we buried it?”

“What time does it say?”

I flip the watch around in my hand, then put it right under the light. “2:16. Damn, what the hell were we doing out here so late?” I glance up to see Cooper’s eyes widen, and I laugh loudly. “Besides the obvious.”

“Okay, what else is in there?” he chokes out, trying to look into the water bottle.

God, I love seeing that he’s still affected by me. Or, hell, even just by the memory of me.

I reach my hands in, pulling out two bracelets. “Damn, do you remember these?”

“They were our version of a promise ring,” he whispers, grabbing the two bracelets from my grasp and looking at them under the light.

“Put mine on?” I ask him.

“Okay.” He puts one bracelet on my wrist before putting the other one on himself. They’re a little tight, but that’s to be expected when you’re not the same size you were back then. I grab the last thing in the water bottle and hand it over to Cooper.

“Oh my god,” he whispers, tears forming in his eyes. “I forgot I put this in there.”

In his hand is a picture he took out of his wallet to put in the bottle. It’s an image from when we went to prom together, but it’s not just the two of us in the photo. It’s the two of us plus our parents. They loved each other, and I know my parents loved Cooper as though he were one of their own.

“How are your parents doing? I feel like we’ve talked about everything but them.”

“Oh, um.” He looks up at me, a tear sliding down his cheek. “They both passed away.”

“What? Oh my god, Cooper. I’m so sorry. How? I mean, if you don’t mind my asking.”

“Dad passed away right after graduation. A few weeks before I was supposed to head off to college, he had a stroke. It came out of nowhere. My mom was a mess. I couldn’t leave her.”

Fuck. I can’t believe I had no idea what had happened. “That’s why you didn’t go to college when I did?”

“Yeah, and I didn’t want anyone to know that I wasn’t going to school, so I deleted my Myspace page and worked at the grocery store to help my mom out. But then a couple of years later, she got sick, and I lost her too.”

“Fuck, Cooper.” My heart breaks for him. I can’t imagine losing both of my parents. And so close together, too. “Is that why you moved to Connecticut?”

“Yeah, after Mom’s funeral, I realized I had nothing keeping me here anymore. So, I applied to a school far away and packed up everything I owned and relocated. It was worth it, but damn, is it hard being back here.”

“I wish I’d known.”

Cooper gets up from the rock and grabs the blanket we brought with us. He flips it a few times before setting it down on the dirt. He takes a seat on the side, and I get up, taking the spot next to him.

“There’s nothing you could have done,” he tells me quietly, his hands rubbing back and forth on the picture.

“I could have been there for you. Even if we weren’t together, we were still friends, Cooper. I’m sorry you had to do it alone.”

“Yeah, to be honest, I completely shut myself off from everything. After losing Dad, I was so focused on making sure Mom was okay that I didn’t have time for anything else.

And I deleted all those apps because I did not want to see my friends living their lives at college, knowing that I wasn’t having the same experiences.

Once Mom got sick, I got extra busy, and then after that, I’d lived so long without any social media that I never downloaded or used it.

So, I really haven’t kept in touch with anyone at all. ”

“Neither have I. Growing up in the military, you get used to moving every few years and having to start over. Sometimes you keep friends, and sometimes they fade away. When I left this place, you were the only friend I wanted to stay connected with, but even that fizzled out.”

“I’m sorry,” he tells me.

“Don’t be. We were kids, Cooper. Things happen. Now, though, you won’t be able to ghost me so easily. I’m going to make you download Facebook or Instagram or something before we leave.”

“You can also just get my phone number.”

Lifting my head, I lock eyes with him. “Yeah,” I rasp, swallowing roughly. “I’ll get your number.”

“Sorry to bring down the mood,” he mumbles.

“No,” I rush out, scooting closer to him. “We’ve been strangers for twenty years. I want to hear everything you’ve done since I last saw you.”

“Okay,” he whispers. His watch illuminates the small space around us as he looks at it. “How would you feel about meeting for breakfast?”

Chuckling, I stand, reaching my hand out for him to take. “Sounds good. It’s getting late. Can I catch a ride back to the hotel?”

“No, I’m just going to leave you here,” he deadpans, snatching up the blanket and rolling it under his arms.

“Hey, you could. No one except Peyton knows I’m here, and I guarantee he won’t notice if I don’t make it back tonight.” My cheeks warm when I realize what I just said. “Not that I was implying I wasn’t going to make it to my room tonight.”

Cooper laughs, pushing at my stomach. His touch sends a spark throughout my body, and he must feel it too because he pauses, looking up at me. Clearing his throat, he backs away slowly. “I wasn’t thinking that,” his husky voice replies.

“Come on, let’s go so I can get my beauty sleep. Someone is taking me for breakfast tomorrow.”

“He didn’t get home until, like, one in the morning. I know. What a wild old man. He disappeared at like ten thirty, maybe eleven, and then I came here to wait for him. I’m so proud of our little guy.”

“I can hear you,” I mutter from under my pillow. “And I’m not a little guy,” I add, blinking my eyes open.

“Oh shit, he’s awake. I’ll let you ask him yourself. Here.”

“So, Jakey boy, how was your night?” Wyatt’s voice drawls from the other end of the phone.

I take the pillow off my face and sit up glaring at Peyton. “It was fine. I didn’t do what you two are thinking of.”

“So he says, Wyatt. But let me tell you this: there I was, all alone, by myself in the hotel room watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine on the Netflix, right? And beep-boop the door clicks open at one am. One, Wyatt! Anyway, there I was sitting there by my lonesome, and here comes Jake barreling into the room, all loud and shit?—”

“I was not loud,” I cut him off, rolling my eyes.

He clears his throat dramatically, looking at me.

“I’m telling the story here. As I was saying, Jakey enters the room with the brightest, biggest smile I’ve seen on the man’s face since I met him.

And get this—all he did was hang out with Little Dude.

Just hang out! And it still caused him to have the hugest grin on that ugly mug of his. ”

“Fuck, I hate that I’m missing all this,” Wyatt’s voice booms through the speaker.

“You’re not missing anything,” I tell him, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. “We just hung out for a few hours. We only talked. That’s it.”

“Oh!” Peyton yells, my ears ringing from how loud he is. “And now he’s going on a breakfast date!”

“It’s not a date,” I mutter.

“A date already, Jakey. I don’t know. How do we know this guy is good for you?” Wyatt says.

“Oh, trust me, Little Dude is amazing. I like him. You would be fond of him too. But the issue is how to make sure they keep in touch.”

“I can figure it out myself,” I tell them, both loving and hating my best friends at this very moment.

“ Psh , no. We’ll figure it out. We’ll make a plan while you’re out at breakfast. Speaking of which, you’re going to be late.”

Looking at the clock next to the bed, I jump up when I realize I slept in.

“Why didn’t you wake me up earlier?” I hiss, running to the dresser and grabbing a fresh pair of underwear.

I hurry through a shower, and when I reenter the bedroom part of the suite, Peyton is still talking to Wyatt, who is now devising a plan for me and Cooper.

“You do know I’m an adult and I know what I’m doing, right? ”

“Hey, we’re just making sure you’re doing it right. But do us a favor and don’t fuck it up at breakfast, okay?”

“Whatever,” I mumble, getting dressed while they keep chatting away. “Are you doing anything this morning?”

“Taylor and I are going to go for a run down Main Street.”

“Taylor?” I try to think of who he’s talking about when it hits me. “Cooper’s Taylor?”

“Actually, she’s Jared’s Taylor. She’s so nice and sweet. When you and Cooper left, we got to talking at the bar. I even met her husband and kids on FaceTime. We figured we would get ditched at some point today by you two, so we made plans of our own.”

“Oh, well, that’s good, I guess.” More time with Cooper by myself. “I’m going to head out. I’ll be back in a little bit, and then we can head over to the reunion to see what events they have on for today.”

“Sounds good, man. See you later.”

I say goodbye to them both, then slip on my shoes and head out of the room.

Cooper is staying at the same hotel, so when we parted ways at the elevator, we made plans to meet down in the lobby.

The entire ride down, I’m a mess. My hands are slick and sweaty, my heart is beating way too fast, and there’s sweat all over my head and neck.

I don’t know why I’m so nervous now, when I wasn’t at all last night.

Fuck, last night was full of so many emotions.

First, hanging out with Cooper was just like it was twenty years ago.

We were so at ease with one another, no nerves in sight.

But then it turned dark when he told me about his parents.

Fuck, if I had known about what happened, I would have tried to reach out.

Hell, I should have reached out to him no matter what.

But I can’t change the past; all I can do is move forward.

The elevator chimes, and when I walk off, I’m blown away by the gorgeous man standing in front of me.

He’s wearing these tan chino pants with a pastel green polo shirt.

Because he’s not looking at the elevator, I ogle him longer while he stares out the window.

He has changed so much, but in many ways, he’s still so similar to the young boy I used to know.

The nerves are picking up in my stomach as I approach him.

“Hey,” I say, getting his attention by reaching out to touch his arm. “You ready for breakfast?”

Cooper smiles at me, nodding his head. “Yeah, let’s do it. Where should we go?”

“I searched for brunch places and found one that’s just down the road. Figured we could walk there if you’re up for it?”

“Sure.”

Cooper leads me out of the hotel, and I follow right behind eagerly. “How did you sleep?” I ask, trying to fill in the silence.

“Okay. You?”

“It was all right. Peyton was waiting for me when I got back. Had a million and one questions for me.” I chuckle, remembering Peyton quizzing me on what happened. Luckily, I was able to sneak away into the bathroom, and when I got out, he was asleep.

“What did you tell him?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh,” Cooper’s face falls, and I rush to add on more details.

“I just mean that I didn’t tell him anything about what we did. I told him we had a good time at the waterfall and that I was tired. He tried to pester me, but that’s just Peyton. Always having to nag.

“He seems like a fun person to hang around with. Like the life of the party,” he says, a genuine smile on his face for my friend.

“Oh, trust me, he is. But he’s also so damn fun to hang out with. Which is why he’s one of my best friends.”

“Damn, maybe we should have invited him. I kinda feel bad that we didn’t think of our friends.”

“If Peyton really wanted to come, he would be here right next to us, walking down the street. There’s nothing that would stop him from doing what he wants to do.

” I laugh loudly, thinking of my best friend.

“But I think he was more willing to give us some time alone since we haven’t seen or been around each other in so long. ”

Cooper stops in place, cocking his head as he stares at me. “Is it weird? Us hanging out like nothing happened?”

“I mean, technically, nothing happened. I had to move away; we were kids. We lived our lives. Luckily, the reunion happened, so we’re able to see one another.

But there’s nothing weird that happened, so no.

I think we’re both adult enough not to be too focused on the past and can focus on the present. ”

“I like that.”

We reach the restaurant, and I pull the door open, letting Cooper go in first. “I really want to get to know you again.”

“Same.”