Meg Cabot - Size 14 Is Not Fat Either

“I was even gonna give her this bracelet for her birthday—” Suddenly the kid slings himself out of bed, affording us a view I’d have preferred not to have of his snug black Calvin Klein briefs. He goes to a dresser and draws a small black velvet box from a drawer. Turning, he casually tosses the box to me. I fumble, but manage to catch it. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do with it now.”

I open the black velvet lid and—I will admit it—my eyes widen at the slender strand of diamonds lying inside the box on a bed of royal blue silk. If this is the kind of payback Lindsay was routinely receiving for her services, I guess I could understand it a little better.

Stifling a desire to whistle at the costliness of such a gift, I tilt the box at Cooper, who raises his dark eyebrows. “That’s quite a trinket,” he comments mildly. “You must have some allowance.”

“Yeah.” Doug shrugs. “Well, it’s just money.”

“Is it Dad’s money?” Cooper wants to know. “Or your own?”

The kid had been rooting around, looking for something on top of the dresser. When his fingers close around a bottle of aspirin, Doug Winer sighs.

“What difference does it make?” he wants to know. “My money, my dad’s money, my grandfather’s money. It’s all the same.”

“Is it, Doug? Your father and grandfather’s money comes from construction. I understand that you traffic an entirely different substance.”

The kid stares. “What are you talkin’ about, man?”

Cooper smiles affably. “The boys down the hall intimated that you know your way around certain hydroponics.”

“I don’t give a shit what they intimidated,” Doug declares. “I do not deal drugs, and if you accuse me of selling so much as one of these to someone”—He shakes the bottle of aspirin at us—“my dad’ll have your ass in a sling. He’s friends with the president, you know. Of this college.”

“That’s it,” I say, feigning terror. “I’m scared now.”

“You know what? You better be… .” Doug starts toward me. But he gets no farther than a step before Cooper blocks his path, a hulking mass of muscle, anorak, and razor stubble.

“Just where do you think you’re going?” Cooper asks lightly.

As Cooper had evidently hoped he would—guys are so predictable—the kid takes a swing at him. Cooper ducks, his grin growing wider. Now he has license to beat the crap out of Winer, as he’d no doubt been longing to do.

“Coop,” I say. Because suddenly I realize things are not going at all the way I’d hoped. “Don’t.”

It’s useless. Cooper takes a step toward the kid just as Doug is taking a second swing, catches the kid’s fist in his hand, and, by applying steady pressure with his fingers alone, sends Winer to his knees.

“Where were you,” Cooper growls, his face inches from the kid’s, “the night before last?”

“What?” Doug Winer gasps. “Man, you’re hurtin’ me!”

“Where were you the night before last?” Cooper demands, evidently increasing the pressure on the kid’s hand.

“Here, man! I was here all night, you can ask the guys! We had a bong party. Jesus, you’re gonna break my hand!”

“Cooper,” I say, my heart beginning to drum. Hard. I mean, if I let Cooper hurt a student, I’ll be in serious trouble. Fired, even. Also… well, much as I dislike him, I find I can’t stand by and see Doug Winer get tortured. Even if he deserves it. “Let the kid go.”

“All night?” Cooper demands, ignoring me. “You were at a bong party all night? What time did it start?”

“Nine o’clock, man! Lemme go!”

“Cooper!” I can’t believe what I’m seeing. This is a side of Cooper I’ve never witnessed before.

And am pretty sure I never want to see again. Maybe this is why he won’t tell me what he does all day. Because what he does all day is stuff like this.

Cooper finally releases the kid, and Winer slumps to the floor, clutching his hand and curling into a fetal position.

“You’re gonna regret this, man,” the kid wimpers, fighting back tears. “You’re gonna be real sorry!”

Cooper blinks like someone coming out of a daze. He looks at me and, seeing my expression, says sheepishly, “I only used one hand.”

I am so stunned by this explanation—if that’s even what it is—that I can only stare at him.

A tousled blond head peeks in from the bathroom doorway. The girl from the water bed has managed to pour herself back into a bright orange party dress, but she’s barefoot, her wide eyes focused on Doug’s prone form.

But she doesn’t ask what happened. Instead, she asks, “Are my shoes in there?”

I lean down and lift up two orange high-heeled pumps.

“These them?”

“Oh, yes,” the girl says gratefully. She takes a few hesitant steps around her host and seizes the shoes. “Thank you very much.” Slipping the pumps onto her feet, she says to Doug, “It was very nice meeting you, Joe.”

Doug just moans, still clutching his injured hand. The girl scoops some of her blond hair from her eyes and leans down, displaying an admirable amount of cleavage.

“You can reach me at the Kappa Alpha Theta House anytime. It’s Dana. Okay?”

When Doug nods wordlessly, Dana straightens, grabs her coat and purse from a pile on the floor, then wiggles her fingers at us.

“’Bye, now!” she says, and jiggles away, her backside swaying enticingly.

“You get out, too,” Doug says to Cooper and me. “Get out or I’ll… I’ll call the cops.”

Cooper looks interested in this threat.

“Really?” he says. “Actually, I think there are a few things the cops need to know about you. So why don’t you go right ahead and do that?”

Doug just whimpers some more, clutching his hand. I say to Cooper, “Let’s just go.”

He nods, and we step from the room, closing Doug’s door behind us. Standing once again in the Tau Phi House’s hallway, inhaling the rich odor of marijuana and listening to the sounds of the football game drifting out from the game room, I study the spray paint on the wall, which the maid who’d answered the door is trying to wipe off with paint remover and a rag. She’s barely started on theF inFAT CHICKS. She has a long way to go.

She has a Walkman on, and smiles when she sees us. I smile automatically back.

“I don’t believe a word that kid said,” Cooper says, as he zips up his anorak. “How ’bout you?”

“Nope,” I say. “We should check his alibi.”

The maid, who apparently hadn’t had the volume on her Walkman turned up very high, looks at us and says, “You know those guys are gonna back him up whatever he says. They’re his fraternity brothers. They have to.”

Cooper and I exchange glances.

“She has a point,” I say. “I mean, if he didn’t talk when you had him in that hand lock, or whatever it was… ”

Cooper nods. “The Greek Association really is a marvelous institution,” he remarks.

“Yes, it is,” the maid says, just as gravely. Then she bursts out laughing and goes back to scrubbing the F.

“About what happened back there,” Cooper says to me, in a different tone of voice, as we stand waiting for the elevator. “That kid… he just… the way he treated that girl… I just… ”

“Now who’s got the Superman complex?” I want to know.

Cooper smiles down at me.

And I realize I love him more than ever. I should probably just tell him that, and get it out in the open so we can stop playing these games (well, okay, maybe he’s not playing games, but Lord knows I am). At least that way I’ll know, once and for all, if I have a chance.

I’m opening my mouth to do just that—tell him how I really feel about him—when I notice he’s opening his mouth, too. My heart begins to thump—what if he’s about to tell me thathe lovesme? Stranger things have happened.