When former beauty pageant queen, Ellie Wilde, hears of her grandmother's sickness, she's the first to offer to drive her to her chemotherapy. What she didn't know she was agreeing to was an obnoxiously cheerful blond boy somehow nudging his way int...
"How could you let this happen?" He hisses at himself, his hand balling up into a fist as he tries to calm himself down.
Unaware to the emotional turmoil going on in the bathroom, Ellie pushes herself up from the bed in search of her clothes. She quickly slips into her undergarments, sensing the tense air that this morning has already brought on. She's only been awake five minutes and already she's wishing she was back in bed.
Confused, she glances at her hand. Relieved when she sees that there's no shiny new diamond ring there, she wracks her brain for another cause to Cooper's odd behavior. The only other thing she can think of hurts too much to even consider.
Before she has a chance to dwell on it, Cooper steps out of the bathroom, still clad in only a pair of boxers. A blush creeps onto her cheeks as she diverts her gaze, walking over to her suitcase to find some clothes to cover up with.
Cooper doesn't say anything, he just grabs his own clothes and quickly changes into them before returning to the bathroom with his toothbrush. Ellie tries not to read into the mood too much. Maybe he's just not much of a morning person. After all, they haven't spent very many mornings together. She's unfamiliar with his habits when he first wakes up.
"We'll go to say bye to Ali and then we'll head home," he says when he emerges from the restroom, his eyes still trained on the floor instead of her. "It's early enough, we can drive straight home. We don't need to stay in another motel."
"Okay," Ellie says, nodding her head as she tucks her clothes back into her suitcase. She feels the tears welling up in her eyes, not expecting this morning to have as tense of an air as it has. She tries her best to keep them back, not wanting to cry over potentially nothing.
"Ready?"
She wipes away a loose tear before turning to him with a semi-convincing smile. "Ready."
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The car ride to Ali's lacks conversation completely, instead Cooper drowns out the silence with the music on his phone, tapping along to the beat as if everything is perfectly fine. Ellie doesn't fight it, finding that she's not exactly in the mood to speak anyway.
When they pull up to Ali's house, Ellie swallows down the lump in her throat before getting out of the car as quickly as possible. Cooper watches after her, taking a second to scold himself internally before shutting the car off and following her towards the house.
She doesn't wait for him to join her on the porch before she's knocking on the door. Part of her wishes he would've just waited in the car so Ellie could have a cry with her friend and vent about how shitty her morning has been, but she knows that would be selfish. Cooper is the entire reason she even got to come down here.
When the door finally opens, Ali stands on the other side, a squinting, hungover mess. "Damn it's bright."
"That's daylight for you," Ellie says blandly, shooting her friend a quick smile. Ali's forehead creases as she stares back at her, a concerned look in her eyes.
