Page 35 of While the Sun Shines

“For the Battle of the Bartenders tomorrow night.” Cooper shakes his head. “Colander brain, Drew. I’m telling you.”

“Oh. Right. That.”

“Yeah, that. Seriously, do you want help in here? Or listen, you haven’t even eaten. I can grab you some of what Abelardo made. It was fantastic; he did this thing with the asparagus where he—”

“No, I’m not hungry.”

“Snacking on contraband cheese, are we? I won’t tell Drew, don’t worry.” Cooper shucks off his work boots.

“What’re you doing?”

“Tell me honestly. If I take off the rest of my clothes, are you going to scream as loud as Penny does?”

“If you take off the rest of your clothes around my cheese—”

“Then I can eat it all?” Cooper washes his hands, soaping all the way up his forearms, like Drew taught him. “Fucking perfect. Naked, eating cheese—this is the life around here.”

“Cooper, what the hell are you doing?”

“Helping you, you giant, freckly dummy. Now, okay, wrapping, stickers—this is basically just arts and crafts, which is entirely in my wheelhouse, thank you.”

“No, don’t—”

“If you try to chase me out of here, I’m just going to send Abelardo in,” Cooper says.

No, Drew nearly blurts.

Cooper grins, and dammit, he probably knows exactly what Drew was going to say.

“I don’t—he’s fine, I just—”

“Yeah, you’re super fine, totally chill, extremely casual.” Cooper grabs the roll of stickers and smacks Drew on the arm with it. “Now spare me the twenty minutes of arguing—you don’t need help, you can do this all on your own blah blah blah, ‘I’m Drew, I’m perfectly capable of everything ever’—and pass me that Brie.”

“Coop—”

“Less arguing, more wrapping.”

I’m fine, Drew should say. He’s got it under control. Clearly.

But Cooper peels a sticker off the roll, grabs Drew’s shirt with one hand, and pastes it firmly in the middle of his chest.

Drew looks down. And despite himself, he smiles.

“You’re welcome,” Cooper says.

Get out, he thinks about saying. But instead, he peels the sticker off and shoves it against Cooper’s face. Laughs too, and yeah, that feels better.

When they step outside, Drew’s eyes hurt at the brightness of the afternoon sun, and it takes him a moment to adjust, blinking until the bright blur resolves into the familiar shape of the barnyard. “Baler?” Drew asks, looking around for it.

“Whit must’ve taken it out already,” Cooper says.

“He got it all set up?”

Cooper shrugs. “I guess.”

And Whit must have towed it using the farm truck because it’s gone from its spot in front of the barn. Drew tucks his hands into his pockets and walks toward the hayfield. Whit apparently took Abelardo with him, since he’s nowhere to be seen, and that means Penny as well—what with how they’re goddamn Velcroed to each other.

Unless they’re back upstairs in her room. Enjoying the empty house, and the hot, lazy summer afternoon and the fact that of all the bedrooms, Penny’s always seems to have a fresh breeze even on muggy days like this. Slanting sunlight too, that falls over her bed this time of year. And the two of them—