Page 53 of Out for the Night

Coop turned red and shook his head. “I’m not.”

“He is! And he’s really good!”

“Can I get a sample?” Aditi asked. It was such an innocuous request, but Coop’s stomach seized up at the thought of having an audience other than Matty.

“Aditi, shut it!”

“Fine. Tell me who your favorite rapper is,” she said.

“Easy. Drake.”

“I love Drake! He is so cute!” She squealed. “Do you agree?”

Coop’s attention was pulled elsewhere. To a test on Matty’s desk with a huge 72 scribbled at the top.

“I do,” Coop said.

“He wears this hoodie with an owl on it. It’s the cutest thing ever,” she said. “I just wish he’d shave his beard.”

“The beard’s the best part.”

A few minutes later, they signed off the call. One test successfully passed with flying colors. But Coop couldn’t stop thinking about a different test.

“I can’t believe my sister met my boyfriend.” Matty barely seemed capable of wrapping his mind around it. He collapsed on the bed and tried to beckon Coop, who stayed put at the desk.

He picked up the test and showed it to Matty.

“I don’t want to act like a concerned parent, but this is a C-minus.” Coop sounded like a jerk, but this was not like Matty at all. He couldn’t let it slide.

Coop couldn’t believe the kid wasn’t having a heart attack over the grade. He shrugged it off like Coop did to his B’s. “It’s okay. Really. There’s a curve that added fifteen points.”

“So you got a B with a curve?”

“It’s fine.” But it didn’t sound that way. Coop hated to think that he was responsible for this. They’d been spending a lot of time together. Maybe too much.

“Matty, I remember when I first met you at the library. That Matty would not think this was fine.”

Matty sat up and ripped the test out of his hand. “Relax. I get to drop one test a quarter. This was a warning, that’s all.”

Coop didn’t know why this was affecting him so much. Deep down, he felt partially to blame, and he couldn’t blame it on this being a job. Matty was acting cool, but this had to be killing him. “This isn’t like you.”

“It was one slip up.”

“Haven’t you been studying at the library?”

“Yes, I mean maybe not as frequently…”

Coop hung his head. “Matty, if we’re going too fast, we can slow down. I know this is important to you. We don’t have to go to Penn for the robotics expo.”

“It’s just one B, and it’s getting erased from my scores. I still have the top grade in the class. Why are you making such a big deal out of this?”

“Why aren’t you? This isn’t the Matty I know. Are you telling me that you’re okay with a grade like this?”

“No! But it’s not the end of the world if Matty Kapoor doesn’t ace a test, just like it’s okay that Evan Cooper isn’t some tough bad boy.” Matty leaned forward, and Coop met his lips for a kiss felt in his knees.

“I don’t want to hurt your future.”

“You’re not. You’re making it better.” Matty kissed his cheek. “I don’t want to lock myself away from you in the library, but I may need to study more to get back to my fighting self. Is that okay?”