I parked the truck and let Nacho out. He took off like a bumblebee, buzzing from tree to tree sniffing everything he could get his nose on. Meanwhile the door to the RV opened and there stood the man I hadn’t seen in at least two years.
He looked taller than I remembered, but that was probably just the smaller door of the RV making him look like a giant. The last time he’d been to visit Eli, Cooper had come up to my nose almost exactly. I was a big guy, so that probably made him a little shy of six feet. The sun hit him full-on, lighting up his bronze skin and picking up coppery bits in his brown hair. He wore old jeans that looked like they’d been sculpted to his body after years of constant use. Slices of bare skin peeked out from frayed holes here and there, and my eyes traced over them like I needed to map them to memory for some reason.
I blinked and shook my head before turning back to the truck to get something, anything, to keep myself busy while I caught my breath.
“Well, hello to you too.”
His voice was laced with its usual humor. For some reason, hearing it reminded me of the time he told a story about finding a litter of kittens in a cardboard box backstage in a community playhouse. He’d described how each kitten was a different color, and it had brought home how terrible he was in science class since he couldn’t wrap his head around how two cats could produce four different color kittens. My whole family had been in tears of laughter listening to him tell the story just like they always were when Cooper was around. He was the kind of guy who stole the show. When he was around, the oxygen left the room and the rest of us struggled to breathe.
“Mpfh,” I replied. After grabbing the duffle bag with my clothes in it, I headed toward the door of the RV. “We staying in here?”
What? Of course we were staying in here. Where else would we be staying? Idiot.
The corner of his mouth quirked up which drew my eyes to his lips. They were full and surrounded by the dark whiskers of late-day stubble even though it was only noon. It looked good on him, but then again, Cooper always knew he was a good-looking guy. I was honestly surprised Hollywood hadn’t gone nuts for him. At the very least I would have thought he’d be discovered by a model scout or something.
“Yeah, Nine. We’re staying in here. Unless you wanted to sleep with the termites and possums? Guy like you probably loves sleeping in nature, what with that Grizzly Adams thing you’ve got going on these days.”
I felt my nostrils flare. Not all of us were as blessed with good looks as the jackass in front of me. Some of us had to disguise our ugly mugs with thick beards and shaggy hair. Just because I wasn’t some kind of movie star like most of the other people he knew, didn’t mean—
“Stop standing there and get in here. I need you to open a jar for me. If I do it, I might break a nail.”
I glanced back up at him in surprise. “Oh, you think your manicure is going to survive this mess? That’s adorable.”
He glared at me, but I could see the hint of a smirk underneath. The apples of his cheeks reddened in frustration. “Believe me, it brings me no joy whatsoever to ask you for help. But if I don’t have a pickle with my sandwich, my entire day is going to go to shit. I can just feel it.”
He stepped back to let me enter the place, and the first thing I noticed was how expensive everything looked. The RV was clearly brand-spanking-new. The seats were a buff leather, and the floors were a laminate made to look like hardwoods. The kitchen appliances gleamed and the entire place had that new-car smell. I wondered how long that would last with two sweaty men and a dirty dog living in it.
After tossing the duffle on the nearest captain’s chair, I turned to him and rubbed my hands together. “Muscles ready for action.”
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I felt my cheeks incinerate. Cooper’s eyebrow shot up and he opened his mouth, no doubt to say something snarky, but I growled a warning before he had a chance to get it out.
He laughed and turned to the small kitchen area where it looked like he’d been in the middle of unpacking groceries. I spotted the jar of pickles next to a pair of half-made sandwiches and popped it open on the first attempt with no problem.