Snowed Under (Aspen Peaks #2)

25. Cooper

I remember when Finn first met Olive. How from that one plane ride back here, he was an entirely different person. I always thought it was so weird, and mostly terrifying, that he’d found a woman that made him want to change overnight. Then I met Olive. And she was sweet and pretty, although a little prickly here and there. But mostly, I saw how she looked at Finn when he wasn’t looking. That, I thought, was pretty cool. So in my head from then on, I thought, wow if I ever settled down with a girl, she would be so lucky. She could look at me like that.

Because I was genuinely that self-involved, that ignorant about relationships that I assumed that was how it was. Because I had never met someone and thought that I would be lucky if I could have just five minutes of her time.

But now I knew better. Now, I stood in the ski lodge lobby, holding a coffee order that I had memorized, with three Slim Jims stuck in my back pocket, because I knew that whatever this was, it was something more. Something beyond not-dates and friendly flirting. This was a next-level, could very well be a real thing if I played my cards right kind of situation. And I had a very obvious two-and-a-half-foot tall elephant in my way.

I had one kid down—Charlie loved me, that much was clear—and one to go. All I had to do was bribe her enough to make her love me. Or actually, you know what? All I had to do was make her tolerate me. Because I had no plans of going anywhere as far as Madeline was involved, and little Half-Pint was going to have to get used to me without her death glares shooting my way twenty-four seven.

I got to the lobby an hour earlier than usual, clocked in over at the regular station, and set all my bags and gear in the locker room, waiting for eight o’clock to arrive. It was kind of foolish, considering time really didn’t revolve around us, but I had nothing better to do, and I needed to go over the plan in my head one more time.

Last night, after I dropped Madeline off at her house, I’d driven back to my place and had sent Finn a text.

SOS. CALL ME AS SOON AS YOU LEAVE HER HOUSE.

The fact that I used any form of punctuation must’ve given a hint as to the gravity of my situation, because he called not even three minutes later.

“Are you okay?” He was panting.

Olive was practically shrieking beside him. “Do you need an ambulance?”

“No.” I considered it for a moment, the fact that my heart was doing somersaults like it was Cirque du Soleil in there, but then decided against it. “No. I need help, though.”

“With what?”

“Madeline.”

“Oh Jesus,” Finn groaned. “What did you do?”

“I tried not to fall for her, believe it or not. Just maybe not as hard as I could have tried.”

Olive sighed. “Yeah, I get it.”

“What am I supposed to do, seriously?” I ran my hands through my hair and tugged. “She has kids. Two of them. And we started this whole thing because I needed a fake girlfriend, and now everything is blurry, and I am so bad with kids and I can’t be a dad, but those kids need a—”

“Cooper,” Olive interrupted. “Slow down and breathe.”

I tried to do what she said, but each breath I took in felt sharp, like there was a spear in my side, pressing into my lungs. “I can’t do this.”

“Yes, you can,” she assured. “Let’s start here: Coop, you are wonderful with kids.”

Finn agreed. “This is true.”

“Your entire life’s work is being around kids. You are so good at it that all the parents brag on you.”

“It can get out of hand sometimes,” Finn added. “But it’s true. Plus”—he sucked in a breath, and I could picture them both in his car with their hands tangled together—“we would trust you to watch our baby any day.”

“You mean that?”

“Of course,” Olive answered.

And I tried to really picture it then. Something serious with Madeline. Christmas mornings in matching pajamas, watching them open presents and watching Elf on a couch under fuzzy blankets with hot cider. Or summers in Aspen, when the snow had melted and the flowers had bloomed, and we could go to local plant nurseries. Or trying the drive-in again in hopes that they don’t recognize us. It was easy to see. Except for one fuzzy little dot.

“But the little one hates me.” I sighed.

“Piper hates everyone,” Olive agreed. “But she’s not impossible to get to. You just have to know how to work your way in.”

“You’re in the circle?”

“I…don’t know what that means, but she doesn’t stare at me like she wants to hit me with a piano anymore, so I’d say yes, I’m successfully in the circle.”

“How?” I practically shouted. “What do I do?”

We stayed on the phone for an hour after that, Olive and Finn tacking on different pieces of advice until we formed a solid plan of attack. And I was more than ready.

Sure enough, when eight rolled around, I kept my eyes glued to that door until a curvy brunette swayed into the lobby in her regular work uniform with her blond niece in tow. Half-Pint had a familiar Elsa doll in one hand. The fact that I knew I’d bought it for her gave me a boost of energy, like maybe I could actually pull this off.

I watched as they sorted through the scattered crowd of early morning skiers and tourists. I stood and checked my back pockets one last time before following them back to the employee-only areas to clock in.

“Madeline!” I raised a hand and watched as she and Piper turned around, one with a bright, wide grin and the other sporting a scowl that seemed more like a threat than anything. Not today. Today, that was going to change.

“Hey, Coop.” She set her purse on a wooden bench on the side and plopped the toddler who’d been on her hip right beside it. “What’s up?”

I held the coffee in my hand, which now had a top layer of melted ice that we both chose to ignore. “Had to bring your coffee.”

She eyed it. “You don’t have to keep doing that. We’re even now.”

I shook my head. “Not quite yet. But we will be.”

“Well, that’s sweet but—”

Just then, right on time, a knock came from the door. “Hey Mad—Oh, hey, Coop.” My best friend stood at the door with the least suspicious grin possible, knowing exactly what to do.

“Hey.” I just dipped my chin, because my acting skills were far less superior to Finn’s. He’d played a tree in a school play once.

“Madeline, I was going to see if I could borrow you really quick. I had a push present idea for Olive, and I need your opinion.”

She looked over at me and back to Finn before shrugging. “Sure.”

Madeline set the coffee beside Piper and turned to me. “Uh, let me just—”

“I’ll watch her,” I volunteered.

“Are you sure? She can be a bit—”

“I’m sure. Go ahead. We’ll be right here.”

Madeline looked down to the rabid chipmunk on the bench and back to me. “Okay…just…good luck. I’ll be right back.”

She and Finn walked out while he gave me a curt thumbs-up behind her back.

Once they were gone, I turned to look at the toddler. “Listen here, Half-Pint.”

A half growl came from the back of her throat. “You Half-Pi.”

“Sure.” I reached a hand in my back pocket and wrapped my fingers around the thin meat stick. “Now”—I pulled it out, and immediately the growl from her deepened—“settle down, Cujo.” I unwrapped the Slim Jim and held it out to her.

“This…” I paused. “What do you call this again?”

She muttered something to herself like shmjm, and I said, “What?”

“Sham Jam.” Her growl was replaced by a whisper.

“Sham Jam. It’s all yours, but I need a favor from you too.”

The almost three-year-old stared at me, waiting. So I continued. “If you let me in on the circle”—her head tilted a little to the side—“you can have this Sham Jam.”

“Two,” she said.

“Two what?”

“Two Sham Jams.”

This sneaky little… “Urgh.” I groaned. “Fine. Two Sham Jams.” I pulled another one out of my back pocket, glad I’d brought reinforcements.

“Here.” I set both now unwrapped sticks in her tiny open palm. “But remember, I am in the circle now, got it?”

She eyed me like she had no clue what I was saying, but I knew one thing: kids were always smarter than they let on. She didn’t smile, certainly not like she did with her aunt, but she gave me this half-quirked lip before taking a large bite and chewing. Her way of letting me know we were at a truce, I supposed.

I sat next to her and pulled out the third meat stick in my pocket, opening it up for myself. She made a garbled sound next to me that sounded more like she slammed her hand down on a keyboard than actual words.

“What?” I asked, tone lighter than before.

“Mmm!” She pointed at the snack in my hand. “My Sham Jam.”

I shook my head side to side. “Nuh-uh-uh. You got two, Half-Pint. This one’s mine.”

Before I could react, her tiny ninja fingers reached up and snuck it out of my loosened grip. She took a bite off the tip for good measure and then sat there, smug as shit, holding three Slim Jims and leaving me with nothing.

“What?” I gasped. “What was that?”

“Half-Pi’s Sham Jam,” she said, like it was final. A judge banging a gavel, done for the day.

I leaned back against the wall and slumped. “You’re lucky she’s worth it.”

Just then, Madeline and Finn turned the corner.

“I think she’d like pink more than yellow, but that’s just me.” Her voice, like petals blooming or snow melting, came in a soft wave until they walked into view.

Finn took one look at me, lifting a brow. How’d it go?

I jerked my head down, and he glanced at the toddler with three Slim Jims hanging out of her mouth. Then he nodded back in satisfaction.

Phase one was complete.

“Well, I gotta get my nine-o’clock class set up. Coop, I’ll see you later?”

I lazily raised a hand. “See you later.”

Finn went through the exit, back out toward the hall, leaving the three of us.

“Sorry about that.” Madeline huffed a small breath. “He wanted me to pick what heart-shaped jewelry I thought Olive would want after pushing the baby out.”

“And you said?”

“That heart-shaped jewelry was made for children to give to their mothers or for people you hate.”

I nodded. “Noted, so what did he go with?”

I listened intently as she rattled on about bathrobes and candles and other eccentric items that I imagined I would want too, if I’d pushed a watermelon out of my asshole.

“But mostly, I think it was the heated blankets and unlimited Red Hot apple cider that would really tip the scale.”

“Sounds like Olive.”

She nodded. “So, what were you going to tell me?”

I hummed and stood, closing the gap between us. “Oh. I was going to ask if you were busy the week before Christmas.”

Madeline hummed back in this singsong tone. “I don’t think we have any plans. Other than the usual family stuff.”

“So…you would be available to come to this with me?” I reached into my back pocket and whipped out the white envelope I’d stuffed in my not-Slim-Jim-full pocket.

Madeline eyed it with reservation. “What would I be saying yes to?”

“Open it.” I jerked my chin to the envelope in my hands.

She reached slowly, like there was a bomb in there, and opened it with such ease that if I was desperate here, then I’d honestly be offended. When she pulled out the papers, she seemed to read them three times over before looking up at me—smiling—and looking back down. She fanned the papers out, counting each copy.

“We’re…going to see Disney on Ice?”

I nodded and tapped the tickets that I’d ordered at Olive’s suggestion. “Yup. Center seats too. Felt like I was securing courtside Avalanche tickets or something.”

“Cooper.” She glanced over at Piper, who had begun listening in at the word Disney. “There are five tickets.”

“Yup.”

“Why?”

“Me, you, Mini Coop, Half-Pint, and Mini Coop’s friend. Or maybe my mom? I don’t know. She gets freaked out by people in costumes.”

“Why?” she asked in a small breath.

“I think it’s because of the whole uncanny valley thing, where something somewhat resembles a human but not fully—”

“No, no. I meant why are you taking all of us to see Disney on Ice?”

“Oh.” I smiled. “I thought it would be cool, all of us together.”

She looked back down at the papers, and a slow smile pulled at her lips before tucking back down, like she couldn’t show it. “This is a week after the interview?”

I heard the question in her voice there. The wondering about more. This was a week after the interview, where we would be pretending to be together and kind of the whole purpose of our not-dates. There was no need for any more after the interview. Except there was a need. Way down deep in my belly, I had enough need for more for the both of us.

I nodded. “It is. Consider it my formal invitation of our first not-not-date.”

“Not…not-date?”

“Mm-hmm.” My chin dipped.

“So a date, then?”

I held up my hands in defense. “If that’s what you want to call it, then by all means.”

The slow smile of hers transitioned into the bright, shining one. The one that made my heart feel tight and my pulse speed up. Like suddenly, I could feel every nerve ending in my body being heightened when that smile came around.

“So…you’re asking me on a date?”

“Yes.”

“A real one.”

I nodded and matched my smile to hers. “Nothing artificial about it. I’ll even buy you some Mickey ears if you’re feeling influenced.”

Madeline glanced over at Piper, who was no longer listening to us but was now down to half a Slim Jim left, and all her focus was directly on it. “You want our first real date to be with the kids?”

“You’re a package deal, right?”

She bit on her bottom lip and kept that shy smile to herself. “I think so. Yes. But we should probably give Charlie a heads-up beforehand.”

“Already on that.” That was somewhere between step four and seven. I figured that during our next lesson, we could have a talk, man to man, and duke it out on a ski lift, where he couldn’t run away mid-conversation and I couldn’t chicken out.

Madeline pulled the tickets to her chest. “Well, then I’m excited.” She turned to Piper. “Pipes, look we can go see Elsa!”

Half-Pint let out this high pitched squeal that was so cute it almost made me excited to watch a random woman dressed in a wig dance around on fake ice too.

Madeline turned back to me. “Thank you, Coop. That really was so sweet.”

I shrugged. “It’s not that sweet. I have selfish intent behind it.”

“Really?” She raised a brow. “What kind of selfish intent?”

I looked up at the time and saw I only had ten minutes to change clothes and go outside. So I shot her a wink and said, “Wouldn’t you like to know?"