Baited

Chapter 2. The Plan - 3 months earlier

"Coop."

"No."

"Coop! Get up now."

"Nahhhh. I'm good."

This was almost every morning with him. It didn't matter if it was a school day, a weekend or even a holiday like Christmas. When he wanted to stay in bed sleeping, it was a fight to get him up. If I stayed at his house, I'd get his Mom to come up and deal with him but last night we crashed at my house. My Mom was already up and out, otherwise I'd have her deal with him.

See, Cooper and I have known each other since birth... literally. We were born in the same week, only three days apart. I'm the older one! Our Mothers have been best friends since high school and both married their high school sweethearts. We joke that they planned our conception and birth but how could that be possible. With them though, you never know. They even convinced our Fathers to stay in our small upstate New York town and bought houses on the same block. Cooper lives only two doors down.

Our families spend every holiday together, we've shared the same birthday party since our first, went on the little family vacations our families could afford together AND mandatory shared Sunday dinners. In fact, we were ALL so close, it felt like I had four parents. When we would get in trouble, we'd be sat down with 4 parents scolding us, not just your standard two.

"Cooper Marcus Jones, get your ass up or you'll regret it!" I stood above his corpse-like body, spread out across my bed snuggled up in my comforter. The comforter he hogged all night, leaving me tired from waking up every hour to the cold and fighting with him to share.

Cooper stirred in his sleep and opened one eye just enough to see me. "I don't wanna." He whined like a toddler.

It's not that I really cared about being late to school but it was the end of our senior year and I wanted to enjoy what was left. I didn't want to waste time in detention for being late. I wanted to spend any free time we had with our friends and soak up the memories that we would laugh about in years to come.

Deciding enough is enough, I pulled the covers off Cooper resulting in more whines escaping his pouty pink lips. With his legs free for me to grab, I held onto his ankles and with as much force as I could, I pulled him straight off the bed. His bottom met the floor with a hard thud before the rest of his body followed.

Dazed, Cooper let out a loud grunt and then began looking around the room helplessly until realization hit. "Spence! You're a dead man." His head snapped in my direction and his body sprung from the floor. With no time to react, I found myself on my back with Cooper hovering above me.

"You're up!" I smiled up at Cooper but he wasn't smiling back.

"You're going to regret that." Cooper spoke as a mischievous grin slowly formed on his face.

"Coop. Don't." I knew what he was going to do, the panic evident in my voice. "Bro, we have school. You wouldn't wake-"

I was stopped by his two hands meeting my rib cage, performing their tortuous task. I was being tickled. Yes, I am overly ticklish and not your standard easily tickled type. The mere thought of being tickled and I begin to hyperventilate... type of ticklish.

"Nah-no-nnn" I cried between breaths.

"Say you're sorry!" Cooper insisted as he moved his fingers up and down my ribcage moving further to my armpits each time; my most sensitive spot.

"Pa-P-pleasssse. I-I I'm so-sorry."

"Who do you love?" He wouldn't stop. "Come on. Say it."

"Co-C-Coopppp. I l-love Cooper." I cried as my breathing became erratic, my face flushed and the pain of it all kicking in.