Complications
A Heather Wells One-shot
By ChocolateEclar
A/N: I just finished reading Size 14 Is Not Fat Either, the sequel to Size 12 is Not Fat by Meg Cabot, for pretty much the thousandth time, so I figured I'd write this little one-shot for the perfect Heather Wells World in which Cooper and Heather have finally gotten together. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own Size 12/14 or the wonderful characters to my saddess.
I actually managed to do it. I somehow was able to wake up twenty minutes earlier than I had set the alarm clock, in the hopes that Cooper wouldn't notice if I left early.
This has proved more difficult than I thought after the initial hurtle. Cooper, who actually weighs more than I do, probably because he is taller than me, is lying across me and has thrown one arm across my stomach in the night, so that I am effectively pushed down against the mattress. I can't get up and I don't really want to anymore because he's so warm and comfortable, but I have a case to solve.
I tried wiggling, shoving, and even poking him in the ribs, but it seems I will have to actually wake him up. That would be all right if he weren't a private investigator who has this crazy ability of knowing exactly when I'm lying to him. Not that I lie that often. It's only when I want to do something he doesn't think will end well.
That's why I know this isn't going to be good when I push the longish dark hair away from his left ear and call his name. I thought that maybe if I woke him up just a little he would be more inclined to just roll over and not ask where I was going.
No such luck.
Cooper opens his eyes and stares blearily at me. Frowning, he then looks at the alarm clock on his side. "You're getting up early?" he grunts.
"I'm capable of it sometimes," I reply, as I try to discreetly push him off of me.
He latches his left hand on my hip so that I can go no farther. "Where are you going?" he asks. He makes direct eye contact with me, and I know I'm lost. No lie would get him to let me leave early by myself.
I thought I would try anyway though.
"I want to go in early to make a good impression on my new boss," I claim.
"What is it now? Your fifth new boss?" Cooper asks. "I'm sure he or she already knows all about you and Death Dorm."
I glance at the clock to see that I have lost five minutes in my schedule. I have to wrap this up. Quick. "It's a residence hall and no one is dying on my watch anymore," I say.
"Heather," Cooper says. "If you think for one second that I'm going to let you question that girl about her dead boyfriend again…"
"I'm not!" I declare a little too loudly. Okay, it was probably way too loudly because now Cooper is grinning at me.
"I'll go with you," he says with a shake of his head. "I don't want her clawing out your hair like that last girl."
"Hey," I argue. "I totally had that under control. I just sat on her. That little size 2 – "
Cooper is laughing against my neck, which feels really good, even with the stubble on his chin.
"I guess I don't have to get up until the alarm rings now," I say with a smile.
"Well, as long as you're up early…" Cooper says, while pulling me even closer.
When I walk into work that morning, straight from talking to Mary Joe Ages, the girlfriend of this dead alto saxophone player guy, who apparently died because he played his instrument at a club and saw a little too much backstage, Magda notices my ridiculously wide grin after Cooper drops me off in front of the building. "You won't be smiling when you see your new boss," she says. I try not to groan when I see this walking replica of my first boss Rachel standing next to my desk, complete with sharp business suit and freakishly small waist. The last Rachel I had did not end well, but there's always hope, right?
"You're Heather Wells?" asks the Rachel Replica with her hands on her hips.
"That's me," I say, extending a hand out to her.
She doesn't take it. "I hope we won't have any more deaths in the building. They seem to follow you around. My name is Lisa Sparks by the way. You can call me Ms. Sparks."
She says this in this really freaky wide-eyed sort of way that later makes me say to Cooper when he visits me at lunch, "My new boss is going to try to kill me like Rachel."
When Cooper looks skeptical, Magda, who is taking a break from her post at the cash register in the cafeteria to back up my opinion of my new boss, informs Cooper of how we have to call the woman Ms. Sparks despite the fact that she is at most thirty-five. Or, at least, I think so. The skin on her face did look a little tight around the eyes so it could be Botox. In which case, she could easily by sixty and we would never know. She could be a zombie lady who sucks the life out of young college students and is really like four hundred years old.
I point this out to Magda, who laughs and goes back to work. Cooper shakes his head and stands up. "I'll see you at home," he says and kisses my forehead.
I sit there for a few more minutes watching Cooper leave and Magda greet her "byootiful movie stars," then I go out into the lobby where Pete is checking in some obvious frat boys to see their girlfriends. He's looking through their packs suspiciously for beer bottles and drugs.
It's good to work here. I passed remedial math, despite breaking up with my boyfriend in the middle of it who was also the professor – oops, awkward – so I have been finally able to take real classes.
This is good because sometimes it comes in handy to take a class on self-defense in which they tell you that that gun aimed at you can only hold three bullets in it. Unless the guy is an excellent shot and you don't run very quickly like me. Then, you're screwed. But hey, you felt like you actually learned something kind of useful before you died.
When I return to my desk, Ms. Sparks is barking at Sarah, who has been really stressed lately. Basically, she's trying to write her thesis on why psychoanalysis is crap. I squint at Ms. Sparks' eyebrows to see if they move at all. They don't. That settles that then. Sarah is going to become zombie food. At least I'm too old to be the next victim. Pushing thirty as I am, I don't think I'd be very tasty. Or give the zombie much energy. I'd probably just slow her down because she'd gain all the weight from eating me and then she'd be easier to shoot because she'd be as slow as me, so really I would have saved the day…
But enough about me becoming a martyr by being eaten by a zombie. I have to figure out if my guitar will allow me to sneak into the band nerd place where the ex-sax player used to hang out.
If Cooper played an instrument, he could come with me, but I can totally handle this on my own. Maybe it will show him that one day he should actually allow me to work on one of his cases with him. You never know. Stranger things have been known to happen around here.
When I leave Fischer Hall at five, I hurry home instead of going to the bar across the street with Pete, Magda, and Sarah, despite the fact that my old boss Tom and his boyfriend Coach Steve Andrews are going to be there. I wish I could go because Tom is the best boss I've ever had, but now he works at Waverly Hall and watches over all the frat boys.
I run home and grab my guitar. Dad and Cooper are nowhere to be found, but I let Lucy out for a minute to do her business. Meanwhile, I check the answering machine, but there's nothing important ("Ms. Wells, we would really like to talk to you about your credit. Please call back…" and "Heather, it's Jordan, about what I said about Cooper…"), and go up to the room I share with Cooper – Oh my God – and pull on a sweater and put on some makeup in the hopes that no one will find me too suspicious on the case. After I let Lucy back in, I step outside and heard towards the café three long blocks away.
When I see all those instrument-carrying students in the backroom tinkering with their instruments, I almost want to forget I'm staking out possible suspects. I have work to do though.
The good news is that by the end of the night no one clobbers me with a trombone and stuffs me in a tuba. So when Cooper looks at me with that frowning, I-know-you-did-something-dangerous-again expression when I get home and sit down to dinner, I don't mind much because I have several very good leads that I'll only share with him if he's nice.
Dad lays out the roasted lamb and minestrone soup he's cooked up on the table. I could fight the paparazzi and a psychotic boss on this stuff, it is so good. Living with my father and my boyfriend isn't as weird as I thought it could be, probably because I'm in a perpetual haze of happiness every time Cooper smiles at me. He's not my rebound guy, by any means, and he knows it.
When Cooper says, "Allan, you should hear what your daughter did today," I know he's trying to use Dad just to annoy me. Two against one is totally not fair.
"I didn't do anything dangerous," I claim, while silently pleading with Dad with my attempt at Vulcan mind powers. "I was just practicing my guitar where there happened to be murder suspects."
"Now, Heather," begins Dad. Darn it. I try to glare at Cooper, while my Dad talks, but it never works very long because most of the time Cooper is the one trying not to laugh despite the fact that he really, really doesn't want me investigating any cases.
"I can see I have no effect in this," Dad finally says, and I realize guiltily that I hadn't been paying attention to him at all this time. "You can't drag me into this anymore, Cooper."
Cooper finally breaks out into a grin around the glass of water he had brought up to his face. "I was wondering how long you would be able to help me with this," he says after taking a sip.
"I don't seem to make a difference on my twenty-nine year old daughter."
"No offense, Dad," I claim.
"None taken," he replies and he's smiling, so I know he means it. He's been really very I-told-you-so about Cooper and I because of my lack of faith in it every happening. I still think I looked like a hooker in that short skirt, despite what he said, but I also don't think Cooper really objected to it either.
Cooper shakes his head at us, and life goes on. Of course, we will probably be discussing my involvement in this case like fifty more times until I will probably solve it somehow that will involve me almost dying.
I would think Cooper would be used to it by now. I think the people in the ER are starting to recognize me for reasons other than me being an ex-pop star.
Gavin graduates in two days. What if he asks me out on a date like he said he would? Can I go as a friend? I might have to talk to Patty about this, although it'll be an interesting topic to bring up. ("Hi, Patty. I'm fine, except this former student of mine who I almost got killed several times asked me on a date, despite how I am currently seeing my landlord/boss. What do I wear to dinner with him?")
Yeah, life goes on all right. It also gets way more complicated as we go.