My chest is heaving.

Cooper starts to laugh, but then the worst part happens.

The hot, wet eyeballs and clogged throat.

“Where. Is. He?” I ask.

No one’s laughing now.

Cooper’s laugh fades into a serious study of my face, his eyeballs wavering between waiting for me to drop the haha, just kidding, and barely holding himself back from launching into a tirade of his own if I’m serious.

I clench my fists and fight the damn tears that are threatening to make my voice crack. “Where. Is. Max? Where would he go?”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Tillie Jean—”

“I swear to god, if you finish that sentence, I will call Mom. And I’ll call Nana, and I’ll call Aunt Glory, and I’ll call Aunt Bea, and I’ll call Aunt Matilda’s ghost, and I’ll call Annika, and I will rain down the hell that is all of the Rock women angry at you all at the same time. You don’t get to decide who I do and don’t date.”

Dammit. I’m crying. I swipe the tears, get another bit of glitter in my eyeball, realize I owe Max so much more than I thought for glitter bombing him right after he got here for the inconvenience that is glitter in your eyeballs, and then I look at the door.

If I look at the door, he’ll walk through it, right?

And look at that.

The door’s swinging open.

I leap toward it, and—

And Grady walks in.

Right.

I called Grady.

His lips twitch as he looks at me, but only for a second before they fade into which one of you needs your ass kicked?

He’s such an oldest brother.

“Cooper. Sit down. Tillie Jean—” He shakes his head. “Are you mad because he out-pranked you, or are you mad because you weren’t alone when he did it?”

“He got Max.”

Grady clears his throat. “So you’re both starring in the live-action version of Trolls when it comes to Copper Valley…”

Luca coughs.

Henri coughs too.

Cooper grunts.

I glare at Cooper.

He glares right back. “There are things you don’t know—”

“Are there, Cooper? Are there? Or does it bother you that I might know and I might want to date him anyway?”

“I’m just trying—”

“Cooper. Stop talking.” Grady steps between us. “Tillie Jean. Do you need to go wash your tongue off?”

Dammit, I’m wiping it again. “I need to know Max is okay. Where is he? Would he be pranking you back, or is he mad?”

Cooper rolls his eyes. “The things you don’t—”

Grady gets him in a headlock and clamps a hand over his mouth. “Luca. Where would Max go?”

Luca’s green eyes slide my way. “Got a few ideas. I’ll go look for him.”

“Here, Tillie Jean.” Henri squeezes my waist, completely unaffected by the fact that I’m wearing mismatched shoes, sweatpants that are threatening to fall off my hips and have a chocolate ice cream stain in a bad place in the crotch, and a halter top that I might not be wearing correctly because it was the first thing I grabbed.

And glitter. I’m wearing all the glitter.

I pull away. “I don’t want to glitter you.”

“TJ—” Cooper starts from behind Grady’s hand.

“Where’s Max?” I ask Henri. “He was so mad, and—”

Luca stops next to us. “Trade me phones, angel? He’ll answer your number.”

Henri swaps phones with him and hugs me again.

Grady lets Cooper go, and he starts to talk, but Henri shushes him like she’s talking to a misbehaving twenty-one-year-old.

She’s too patient to shush anyone under the legal drinking age that way.

“Let’s get you home,” she says to me. “Let Cooper stew in thinking about whose lives he can and can’t dictate for a while, hm?”

“He shouldn’t be alone in case Max is waiting for him to be alone to murder him with mascot bobbleheads.”

“I’m sticking around,” Grady tells me. “Gonna bake him some shut-the-fuck-up-cakes.”

“I’m not being an asshole,” Cooper snaps. “She looks just like she did when Ben used to break up with her too.”

I suck in a breath and get glitter caught in the back of my throat, and then I try to cough up both my lungs and part of my spleen.

Henri shoves a water bottle at me, and I almost miss what Grady’s saying to Cooper.

Almost, but not quite.

“There’s a big difference between a guy who’ll date your sister because it’s convenient and he’s her only option, and a guy who’s resisted what he wanted for four fucking years since he knows you’d kick his ass. Why aren’t you freaking out about no one knowing where Max is?”

Cooper blinks, and suddenly my asshole brother morphs into a wide-eyed dummy who’s finally catching on to the fact that there’s a bigger problem here than me sleeping with Max.

I scowl at him.

He scrubs his hands through his hair. “This is exactly what I was worried about,” he mutters.

“Then maybe you should’ve considered the possibility that Tillie Jean isn’t an asshole and that if they’d felt like they could’ve talked openly with you about what they were doing, then a glitter bomb wouldn’t have made Max disappear?” Henri says quietly.

“Can we please go find him?” I ask her.

“As soon as we de-glitter you a little more.”

“Tillie Jean—” Cooper starts.

I hold up a hand. “Don’t. Not tonight.”

Henri insists on driving my car back down off the mountain, chatting the whole way about things that matter and things that don’t, while I look this way and that, trying to spot his car, even though I know it’s a long shot that he’s anywhere in the area right now.

By the time we get back to my house, I’m not angry anymore.

It was a good prank. Cooper had me convinced he was too good for pranks, and then he launched the ultimate revenge for everything.

But I’m worried.

“Max was really mad,” I whisper to Henri as she pulls into my driveway. “I’ve done everything in my power to make him mad at me the past four years, but I’ve never seen him that mad.”

“Dating’s hard enough without worrying about all the extra stuff like how it impacts your job and your friendships. Toss in where Max came from…” She twists to face me. “But he’s been happy, Tillie Jean. Darren told me during Fireballs Con that he’s never seen Max like this, and they’ve known each other a long time. You’re good for him.”

Her phone dings, and her face tells me everything before she opens her mouth. “Luca has him. He’s—he’s okay. Let him sleep it off, okay?”

“He’s not okay, is he?”

Her face twists again, which is answer enough.

“Henri—”

“Tillie Jean. He’s safe. He’s with a friend. And he needs a little space.”

“Thinking time,” I whisper.

He likes his thinking time.

She squeezes my arm. “You’re good for him. And he knows it. Don’t panic, okay?”