Page 18 of Chasing Elliott
“Take your pick, Elli,” he said as he turned to look down at me. I glanced around at my options with a grin tugging at my lips, teasing myself in my head. I had been silently judging Cooper for acting like a little kid, yet here I was feeling like a kid in a candy store.
I glanced at the couple life sized bears and shook my head, knowing I not only wouldn’t want to haul that around all night but also couldn’t get it home. I looked over at the medium sized stuffed animals and my face instantly lit up as I pointed at the elephant.
The man walked over, taking it off the hook and handing it to me. I quickly ripped it from his grasp and hugged it tightly to my chest as if it were now my most prized possession. Cooper chuckled as he wrapped an arm around my shoulders, leading me away from the booth and toward the food trucks.
“So, elephants, huh?” Cooper asked once I finally decided on what I wanted to eat. I was starving so everything had sounded good which, at a carnival, definitely made things a little more difficult.
“God, I love them,” I responded instantly as I involuntarily squeezed it towards my chest. The elephant was about the size of my torso and had an actual trunk and oversized ears. “I don’t know what it is, but they’re just so cute.”
I held the elephant up to Cooper’s face like a child and shook it which caused him to laugh as he smiled at me. Grinning, I pulled it back into my chest as the person in front of us got their food and walked away. I trailed behind Cooper up to the truck, glancing around as heordered.
“I’ll take two taco-in-abag’s, one with no cheese and the other with no tomatoes,”Cooper informed the guy standing behind the window. “Oh, and two cherry cokes.”
I sucked my bottom lip between my teeth as I looked up at him in awe. He must have feltme staring because his gaze drifted down and locked with my own as he raised a brow.
“How on earth did you know I didn’t like tomatoes?” I wondered, my face contorting slightly.
“You didn’t want ketchup on your burger at the restaurant and you also said you don’t like, and I quote, ‘most red foods’ which, while I find it strange since you love the color red, is also kind of extremely adorable.”
I blushed profusely as I looked down at my shoes, noticing that they were covered in dust from the dirt we had been walking through all night. “Cooper, there’s something we should talk about.”
The man at the window suddenly handed him our order, stopping me from continuing on with what I had wanted to say. I grabbed the drinks from him before he reached for the food, and I followed behind him as we walked toward an unoccupied bench. I sat down on his left and smiled, handing him his drink in exchange for my food. I wasted no time in picking up my fork and scooping up a bunch of meat, cheese, sour cream and Doritos and shoving it into my mouth.
“Oh,my goodness, this is amazing,” I mumbled through my mouthful of food, not caring one bit that it was considered distasteful to do so.
Cooper chuckled next to me as he dug into his own food but not as aggressively as I had. We sat there in silence for a few minutes enjoying our meal when I decided to finish what I was saying before.
“Cooper, this date doesn’t mean anything, does it?” I rushed out, avoiding his gaze as Ikept my eyes trained on the empty chip bag in my hands. “I mean, we’re just two people getting to know each other since our friends seem to be together now, right?”
“If that’s what you want to call it, sure.”
I raised a brow at that and turned my head to look at him. He wore a smug grin before hedug into his food, finishing off the bag. “What are you calling it?”
“A date,” he responded easily with a shrug of his shoulders, setting his empty bag down on his other side.
“Cooper, I don’t date,” I informed him, a slight tightness to my voice. “I know that you’re interested, and trust me I’m flattered, but it’s just not something that’s in the cards for me right now, I’m sorry.”
The look on Cooper’s face told me he either wasn’t grasping what I was saying, or he justdidn’t care, and his next words confirmed it. “Challenge accepted.”
I guess Kara was right: he wasn’t going to be deterred so easily.
“So, you’re a lefty, huh?” He asked, changing the conversation before I could say anything to his response. I glanced down and noticed I was still holding my fork in my left hand and couldn’t help it as I chuckled.
“Guess I’m odd in more ways than one, apparently,” I noted with a shrug.
Cooper glanced down at me with a raised brow as if something had dawned on him. “Is that why you always have to walk on my left side?” He brought one of his legs up to rest on the bench as he turned his body to face me, his left arm resting over the back of the bench near my shoulders.
“I don’t always have to be,” I argued but Cooper only chuckled in response.
“Anytime you’ve ended up on my right side, I see you subtly trying to make your way back to my left,” Cooper pointed out as he smirked at me like he was just waiting for me to try to tell him differently,but we both knew that I couldn’t.
I rolled my eyes and grabbed my soda, sticking the straw between my lips as his laughter reached my ears.What on earth am I going to do with this boy?
The rest of the night, I’ll admit, was amazing. We played a few more games, some of which I actually beat Cooper in, finding out that we are both extremely competitive. After wefinished with the carnival games, not stumbling upon any more that piqued our interest, Cooper insisted that we go on a few rides, ending with the Ferris wheel.
Once the night was over, we walked out to his bike with my arm looped through his, my stuffed animal wrapped up in my other. As I climbed on the bike behind him, I made sure my elephant was firmly planted between our bodies and I heard Cooper release a soft laugh at thesensation.
The silence of the ride back allowed me to work through my thoughts, but it didn’t takeme long to realize that I had no idea what to do. If he couldn’t take me saying that I didn’t want a relationship, that just meant that I was going to have to be careful with how I acted around him. However, with how comfortable and easy it was to be around him, something in my gut told methat’d be easier said than done.
