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Was it Cooper?

Let's revisit the new physique for a second: The Cooper I knew did not have big, solid, pommel-horse-Olympian-style shoulders. He did not have the kind of muscles you could see through a T-shirt and under a rucksack. He didn't have forearms that seemed to be looking for something to squeeze, or a way of standing on the floor like he owned it, or a manly look that would make anybody—least of all me—stop in her tracks.

The Cooper I knew—the Cooper I'd hung out with every day for ten-plus formative years—was a boy. This French Alps hiker crashing my wedding was...

A man.

Impossible.

And yet.

My brain was saying 'No, it can't be while every other part of me was saying Um—hello?—it definitely is. I was like a hunting dog on point—frozen in his direction. There was something to see here. Something important. For a minute, the rest of the world blurred away and left only the two of us there.

The organ music quieted. Mrs. Allen faded. The itching stopped. All I could see was this total stranger—who I already knew.

I stepped closer. "Cooper?" I said, peering at him. It couldn't be.

"Hey, Joey," he said. "Happy wedding day."

Holy shit!

It was.

Cooper's normal greeting was to grab me around the neck and clamp me into a headlock. But he wasn't doing that now—yet.

I shook my head. "You were boycotting! You put it in writing."

Cooper shrugged. "I changed my mind."

"You're going to be in so much trouble when my mom finds out," I said, uttering our childhood catchphrase.

But Cooper shook his head. "I emailed her. She approved."

"She didn't approve that," I said, gesturing at his mountain-man ensemble. "You look like hell."

It's possible I was lying.
 
He looked like hell only if like hell also meant very, very...surprisingly sexy.

I took a deep breath to pull it together.

This was Cooper. He used to sit on me and fart.

But that's when Cooper lifted those dark blue eyes and looked right at me through his black lashes.

I felt a buzz in response. Like I was a doorbell, somehow, and he was...ringing me.

Had I just tried to convince anyone that Cooper looked bad?

Even Cooper didn't buy it. He gave me what can only be described as a flirty look and said, "Liar."

Now he'd gone too far.

It was one thing to crash my wedding—late—in full Patagonia and walk in here with all those muscles. It was quite another to give me a flirty look.

This was a kid I'd peeled grapes with so we could call them eyeballs. This was a kid who'd dared me to suck a spaghetti noodle up my nose. This was a kid who'd hocked Jell-O cubes out of his mouth into the air so I could catch them in mine.

We were way past flirting.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

He shrugged. "My oldest friend is getting married."

"So?"

"So, I should be here."

"You RSVPed no. With extreme prejudice."

"I was being an ass."

"Yes. You really were."

"I'm sorry about that," Cooper said.

"No, you're not."

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