Me & Timothy Cooper (2 page)

“What’s up?” he asked.

Eric
jerked his head
in
t
he direction of Timothy’s
former attention
. “What
are
you talking to her for?”
he asked.

“
P
roject.”

“Class or personal?”

Tim smiled out of
one side of his mouth.
That was up for serious debate.
“Class.”
For now.

“
MmmMmm
,” Eric grunted as the last vision of her
turned the
corner.
“I’m betting five bucks you make it personal.”

Tim
laughed and headed for the exit
.
Eric
never had
five
cents, much less five
bucks.

“Hey, man,
can
you give me a ride home? My mom took my keys … again.”
Eric spun in a circle to avoid
colliding with
the water fountain.

Tim raised his eyebrows. “What for this time?” Eric was forever getting in trouble, and his mom a
lways took his
keys, though this didn’t seem t
o stop him from messing up the next time
.

“Grades.
I failed my
Science test.”

Science.
Figures.
Eric hated science.

“I
should
make you walk,” Tim said.
T
he clatter of the front doors
preceded the rush of a
fterno
on heat
in
his face
.
He pulled his t-shirt from his already moist skin.

“You should, but you won’t.”

Tim dug his ke
ys from his pocket
and unlocked his car
.
No, he wouldn’t.
Not that Eric ever paid for gas. Not that he lived on the way home.

The purr of the engine brought serious satisfaction to a deep place in Tim’s soul. Running his hands around the steering wheel, he inhal
ed the scent of warm leather
and automobile protectant.
This car was special.
A 1970 Chevy
Chevelle
SS big block.
As if that didn’t make it
unique
enough, h
is father
gave
him this car before
shipping
out for Afghanistan
on his second tour, and that
made it
more than
the classic it
already was. I
t
was a part of his dad, who
he rarely
got to see.

The
thunk
of the
passenger-side door
brought him
awake
.

“So tell me what’s this project
that has you all tied up with Southern
?” Eric laid an arm on the ledge of the open window.

“
Southern
?” Tim
frowned
as an elderly lady in
a battered Corolla cut in front of him.
Her
head barely cleared
the dashboard.

“Yeah, that’s what I’ve always called her.
She’
s got that
sexy
accent which pulls you in.
”

Tim braked as the elderly lady made a sharp right-hand turn.
Senior drivers.

“
And s
he’s all
round and curvy
,” Eric continued, “a
bout like this car.”

Tim
glanced at him
. “You’re comparing her to my car?”

“Yep.
One’s sweet the other is sweeter. But you haven’t answered my question.”

The light changed from yellow to red, and Tim
brought the car to a stop
. “We’re supposed to write a paper on each other. Something about what we would change about the other person and what we wouldn’t.”

“I’d change her into something skimpy.”
The smirk on Eric’s face stretched from ear to ear.

Tim laughed.
“
If you
felt like that
, t
hen why haven’t
you
asked her out?”

Eric’s smile faded.
“Are you kidding?
She
won’t give me the time of day. Now, you on the other hand …”

No sooner had the words left Eric’s
mouth, than Tim spotted her. Only something was wrong. She was limping. “Check it out,” he said
, nodding her direction
. He pulled his
car over to the curb and leaned
across
Eric’
s bulky form toward
the
opposite
window.

“
Taylor
? You okay?”
he called.

And she turned around. Her face was white as a sheet, and her shirt was ripped down the
left-hand
side.

CHAPTER 2

Taylor
clutched at her shirt with one hand, her purse and book bag with the other. “I …
uhm
… tripped,” she said. She tu
rned her left side away from his view
.

“Why don’
t you get in?”
He jabbed Eric in the
side and mumbled, “In the back
.
”
Eric tossed himself over the seat.

“Oh, I
can’t … I shouldn’t.”
S
he took a
faltering
step forward.

She’d keep walking?

He
tapped the gas and rolled after her.
“C’mon, Southern, get in.
You can’t walk
with your ankle like that
.”

She screeched to a halt. “What did you call me?”

Oops.
Rule #
1
2.
When you’re interested in a girl, never call her a nickname.

“Southern. What’s wrong with that?”

She leaned her el
bow on the roof of the car, her breath hissing
through her teeth.
“Depends on if you’re ma
king fun or admiring.”

He chuckled.
S
punk.
“Admiring.
Now, get in, I’ll take you home.”

Her mind appeared resolved to the issue because she
seated herself
in the car
with a groan.

“You tripped, huh?” he said.

She shot him a
sharp
look.
“Over a k
id on a bicycle.
Stupid moron s
ent me flying into the gutter.
I caught my shirt on the metal grate and twisted my ankle.”

She fisted her shirt in her hand and reached for her leg, but was unable to make contact
with it
without releasing
her grip and thus displaying herself.

He
eyeballed the problem, and
without
further thought
shucked his shirt and tossed it in her lap
. “Here, put this on.”

Her eyes
about
bugged out of her head. “But …”

“But what
?
It’s only a shirt and seems like you need one.
”

Girls.
Sheesh.

She
twisted in the seat,
thereby concealing the
gap in her clothing, and s
hook his shirt out in her hands
. S
lipping it over her head,
she worked beneath the cloth to
remove the remains of her
her
own
.
It fell into her
lap
within seconds
.
She
then
stuck her arms through his t-shirt’s
sleeves.

“That was …
talent
,” he said.

She flicked her hair from beneath the collar. “All women can do that.”

And he seriously decided to let that one go.

He pulled back out into traffic. “So tell me, Southern, why are you walking today? Doesn’t your mom usually pick you up?”

Her eyes opened a fraction wider. “
You kno
w that?”

Lord,
s
he has
great eyes.

He smiled. “I know lots of things about you. I
know your mom picks you up and
dumps you off at
home to work her second job. Then
you’re alone until
your dad gets home around seven.”

“You’re spying on me?”

He spun the wheel
to enter
a residential neighborhood
lined with cookie-cutter homes
.
Brown paint.
Brown roofs.
Cracked concrete driveways.
H
alfway down t
he street, he stopped
in front of
a
house hiding beneath a
tattered palm tree
. He flung his door open and leaned forward in his seat.

“See
ya
, man,” he
told Eric.

Eri
c
shimmied out
behind him
and
poked his head in the window. “You pick me up in the morning?”

Tim
gave
a laugh. “Dude, pass your test and get your keys back.”

Eric slapped the side of the car and took two steps in reverse.
Good luck
, he mouthed.

Tim waved him away.
“Tomorrow.”
He waited until Eric entered his
house before continuing
to drive
.

“You let him mooch off you,”
Taylor
said.

He glanced at her.
“Yeah.
But Eric is Eric, and he isn’t going to change.” He hit his blinker. “
W
hy don’t you let my mom look at your ankle? She used to be a
nurse
.”

“Your mom?
As in
…
at your house?”

He smirked. “Well, yeah, that’
s where she is.
Y
ou afraid of my mom?”

“
No,” she retorted, and her brown eyes flashed.

“
Besides,
like I said, your folks aren’t home.
Which reminds me,
you never answered my question. Why were you walking today?”

She laid her head sideways on the
seat back
,
and her hair curled around her throat. He stared a mite too long and a horn blew when he missed the stop sign.

“
You never answered mine,” she s
aid. “
How’d you know all that about me?”

“You first, then I’
ll answer.”

She
licked her lips
. “My parents are out of town tonight.”

He drew his brows together.
“
A
ll night?”

She nodded.

“
T
hey just left you alone?”

His mom would never do that.
She was all about knowing where he was and who he was with. It came from his dad being gone half the time. That and what happened to his brother.

“Well, they wanted to send me to
my grandmother’s
, but she lives too far from here and can’t drive. I insisted I’d be fine. Lock the doors and all that.”

“But you can’t
stay alone.
I mean,
with your ankle
that way
.”

She exhaled. “I’ll manage.”

“No, seriously, why don’t you stay at my place for tonight?”

He meant the question innocently
, but her reaction said she heard
different. Her hand trembled
,
and she
curled
it
into a fist in her lap.