Meg Cabot - Big Boned

And that’s the sight of my landlord, semi-employer, and love of my life, Cooper Cartwright, hurrying up to me, panting, “I came as soon as I heard. Are you okay?”

“Well, hello, there.”

That’s what Muffy Fowler says to Cooper after she turns to look at him. The next thing I know, she’s pivoted her weight to one hip and propped a hand to her infinitesimally small waist, her doe-eyed gaze going from the toes of Cooper’s running shoes (well, he’s a private detective after all. One assumes he often has to run after people, such as bad guys and… I don’t know. Perps. Or something) to the top of his dark, slightly-in-need-of-a-haircut head.

“Uh.” Cooper looks from me to Muffy and then back again. “Hi.”

“Muffy Fowler.” Muffy sticks out her hand—the cocktail ring (which I now realize is the engagement ring from her called-off wedding) glinting in the noonday sun—and Cooper takes it in his to shake. “New York College public relations. And you are?”

“Uh, Cooper Cartwright,” he says. “Friend of Heather’s. I was wondering if I could speak with her for a few minutes?”

“Of course!” Muffy holds on to his hand a little too long—like she thinks I won’t notice—then flashes me a smile and says, “You take as long as you need, now, Heather, you hear? I’ll just be right inside with President Allington if you want anything.”

I stare at her. Why is she talking to me like she’s my supervisor—or sorority sister—or something?

“Um,” I say slowly. “Sure thing… Muffy.”

She gives me a quick but supportive hug—enveloping me not just in her arms, but in a cloud of Chanel No. 19—then hurries into the building. Cooper stares at me.

“What,” he says, “was that.” It’s not exactly a question.

“That,” I say, “was Muffy. She introduced herself. Remember?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I noticed. I thought it might have been a hallucination.” He glances over his shoulder at the press, who, far from taking Muffy’s advice and packing up to go home, are stopping students as they cross the street, trying to get back to Fischer Hall for lunch after class, to ask them if they knew Owen Veatch and how they feel about his brutal and untimely death. “This is unbelievable. Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” I say, in some surprise. “I’m fine. Why?”

“Why?” Cooper looks down at me, a very sarcastic expression on his face. “Gosh, I don’t know. Maybe because someone shot your boss in the head this morning?”

I’m touched. Seriously. I can’t believe he cares. I mean, I know he cares.

But I can’t believe he cares enough to come over personally and check up on me. Granted, the Sixth Precinct’s taken over my office and I was being interviewed by Fox News so it wasn’t like I was picking up my cell.

But still. It’s nice to know Cooper’s got my back.

“So what do you know about this guy?” he wants to know, balancing a foot against one of the planters the residents routinely use as ashtrays, despite my well-placed and artful sign age exhorting them not to. “Anyone you know of might have reason to want him dead?”

If one more person asks me this, I seriously think my head might explode.

“No,” I say. “Except Odie.”

Cooper looks at me oddly. “Who?”

“Never mind,” I say. “Look, I don’t know. Everybody and his brother has asked me this. If I knew, don’t you think I’d have said something? I barely talked to the guy, Coop. I mean, we worked together for a few months, and all, but it’s not like he was my friend—not like Tom”—my last boss, with whom I still meet regularly for after-work beers at the Stoned Crow. “I mean, aside from this whole GSC fiasco, I can’t think of a single person who had something against Owen Veatch. He was just… bland.”

Cooper blinks down at me. “Bland.”

I shrug helplessly. “Exactly. Like vanilla. I mean, for someone to hate you enough to kill you, you at least have to… I don’t know. Have done something. Something interesting. But there was nothing remotely interesting about Owen. Seriously.”

Cooper glances across the street, at the reporters and their vans with the satellite dishes sticking up out of the roofs. Standing to one side of the vans, still in the chess circle—but on the outer rim of the chess circle, because the old guard who ruled the chess circle have finally gotten fed up with them, and thrown them out—is Sarah and her GSC posse, including a slouching Sebastian, muttering darkly amongst themselves because the reporters have gotten all the sound bites they need from them, and won’t interview them anymore.

“And you don’t think any of those characters could have had anything to do with it?” Cooper asks, nodding in Sarah’s direction.

I roll my eyes. “Puh-lease.Them? They’re all, like, vegetarians. You think any one of them could have the guts to shoot some guy in the head? They don’t even eat eggs.”

“Still,” Cooper says. “With Veatch out of the way… ”

“Nothing changes,” I say. “The administration still isn’t going to budge. If anything, the GSC has lost the only voice of reason they had in this crazy mess. Now… ” I shudder. “God, Cooper. If there’s a strike, there’ll be no end to the trouble around here.”

Cooper looks thoughtful. “And who stands to benefit if there’s a strike?”

I glance up at him. “Who stands to benefit if there’s a strike? No one. Are you crazy?”

“Someone always benefits from murder,” Cooper says, still looking thoughtful. “Always.”

“Well,” I say dryly. “I don’t see who’s going to benefit from having three feet of garbage piled up everywhere… and toilets backed up… and no security… because if the grad student union strikes, the housekeeping and security unions have to strike out of sympathy, as well. It’s part of their agreement. This place will be a zoo.”

“Private sanitation companies will have to pick up the slack,” Cooper says, nodding. “Private security and housekeeping companies, as well. Could be exactly what the owners of those companies were waiting for. Little mid-year pick-me-up.”

I gape at him while the meaning of his words sinks in. “Wait. You think… you think Owen’s murder was a MOB HIT?”

He shrugs. “Wouldn’t be unheard of. It’s New York City, after all.”

“But… but… ” I stand there, flabbergasted. “I’ll never figure out who killed him if it was a MOB HIT!”

Which is when Cooper drops his foot from the planter and swings around to grasp both my shoulders in a grip that, I won’t lie to you, hurts a little. Next thing I know, I’m pressed up against the red bricks Fischer Hall is made up of, my now mostly dry hair plastered against the circa 1855 plaque to one side of the front door.

“Don’t you even think about it,” Cooper says.

He isn’t shouting. He isn’t even speaking above a normal conversational tone, really.

He’s just very, very serious. More serious than I’ve ever seen him. Even that time when I accidentally dried his favorite sweatshirt from college and shrank it to a size small. His face is just a few inches from mine. It’s so close, it’s blocking out the blue sky overhead, and the leafy green canopy of trees below that, and the satellite dishes on top of the news vans, as well as the line of taxis going by on Washington Square West, and the stream of students walking into the building, going, “What’s with all the cops over there on Waverly? Somebody jump, or something?”

“God,” I say nervously, noticing from Cooper’s razor stubble that he apparently hadn’t had time to shave this morning. And wondering what it would be like to run my hand across that razor stubble. Which is ridiculous, because I already have a boyfriend. Who proposed to me this morning. Well, practically. “I was only kidding.”

“No,” Cooper says, his blue-eyed gaze never leaving mine. “You weren’t, actually. And this one, Heather, you’re staying out of. This wasn’t a student. You didn’t even like the guy. This one’s not your responsibility.”

Dorothy. From Golden Girls. We’re both Dorothy, from Golden Girls.

It’s weird what goes through your head when the lips belonging to guy you’re in love with are just inches from your own. Especially, you know, when you’re sleeping with someone else.

“Um,” I say, unable to tear my gaze from his mouth. “Okay.”

“I mean it this time, Heather,” Cooper says. His fingers tighten on my shoulders. “Stay out of it.”

“I will.” My eyes have, inexplicably, filled with tears. Not because he’s hurting me—his grip’s not that tight. But because I can’t help thinking of Magda and Pete. How much time have the two of them wasted, when they could have been together? When really, all that’s kept them apart is Pete’s basic male cluelessness… and Magda’s female pride. I mean, if Pete likes Magda back. Which I’m almost sure he does. Maybe if I just tell Cooper how I feel…

“Cooper.”

“I’m serious, Heather. This guy may have been into stuff you have no idea—no earthly idea—about. Do you understand me?”

True, I’d tried telling him before. But he’d mentioned something about not wanting to be my rebound guy.

Hadn’t Tad proven more than adequate in this position, however?

Still. Poor Tad! How could I do this to him? He has that question he wants to ask me, after all.

But come on. Tad doesn’t even own a TV! Could I seriously be entertaining the idea of spending the rest of my life with a guy who wants me to run five kilometers with him every morning, avoids all meat and meat by-products, and doesn’t even own his own television?

No. Just… no.

“Cooper.”

“Just let it go. All right? Any thought you might have of solving your boss’s murder yourself? Give it up right now.”

“Cooper!”

He loosens his grip on my shoulders and unhitches his own a little. “What?”

“There’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about,” I say, after taking a deep breath.

I’ve got to do this. I’ve just got to swallow my pride and tell Cooper how I feel. Granted, standing outside my place of work the day of my boss’s murder may not be the best place or time. But where is the best place, and when is the best time, really, to tell the guy you love unrequitedly that you love him unrequitedly?After you’ve already accepted a marriage proposal from another guy?

“What is it?” Cooper asks, looking suspicious—as if he thinks I might break into some song and dance about how it’s important for the sake of my employment that I personally look into my boss’s murder.

“I,” I begin nervously, feeling as if my heart has suddenly leaped into my throat. He has to have noticed, right? Between my madly throbbing pulse and the tears in my eyes, he has to know something is up, right? “The thing is, I—”

“Heather!”

I jerk my head around in surprise as a familiar figure lopes toward us from West Fourth Street. It’s Tad, his long blond ponytail bobbing behind him, a white paper sack in either hand.

Oh God. Not now.Not now.

“Heather,” he says, when he reaches us. His eyes, behind his gold-rimmed glasses, are concerned, his expression worried. “I just heard. Oh my God, I’m so sorry. You weren’t there when it happened, were you? Oh, hi, Cooper.”

“Hi,” Cooper says.

And then, as if suddenly becoming aware that they were still resting there, he drops his hands from my shoulders and takes a step away from me. He looks almost… well. Guilty.

Which is absurd, because it wasn’t like we were doing anything to feel guilty about. Well, I was about to confess my undying love for him.

But he doesn’t know that.

“I came as soon as I heard,” Tad says to me. “About your boss, I mean.” He glances over at the news vans. “Looks like they’re out in full force, huh? The vultures.” He heaves a shudder, then hands me one of the paper bags. “Here. I picked up some lunch for us.”

I take the bag he’s offering, touched by the gesture. I guess. “Oh, you did? Tad, that’s so sweet… ”

“Yeah, I stopped by the student center and picked up two three-bean salads,” Tad says, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. “And a couple of protein shakes. I figured you might need something high in nutrients after the shock you had—and we had that awful breakfast… ”

“Uh.” Three-bean salad? Is he kidding? Do I look like a girl who could use a three-bean salad right about now? Three-bean bowl of chili with about a pound of melted cheddar cheese on top would be more like it.