When former beauty pageant queen, Ellie Wilde, hears of her grandmother's sickness, she's the first to offer to drive her to her chemotherapy. What she didn't know she was agreeing to was an obnoxiously cheerful blond boy somehow nudging his way int...
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"Are you sure you want me to do this?" She asks, holding her hand right above his head and trying to stop it from shaking with nerves.
"El. I wouldn't have written the slip if I didn't want you to do it. Now do it before I change my mind."
"Change your mind?!" She asks, panicked.
A short laugh leaves his throat and he turns his head, peering over his shoulder to make eye contact with her. "It's fine. We've already been over this. I need to do it. Now. Are you going to help me or am I going to have to enlist the help of someone else?"
"Okay, okay. I'll do it. Just shut up and turn around."
"Ouch," he says, feigning hurt as a smile plays at his lips. Still, he follows her instructions and turns back around.
She glances down at his beautiful head of blond hair, every fiber in her body trying to stop her from destroying it. But against her better judgment, she puts the brush to his hair to apply the brown dye.
"I feel so guilty," she mumbles, carefully brushing the dye down each strand of hair.
He continues writing on the piece of paper in front of him, a deal they'd made when they started this. Ellie dyes his hair. Cooper writes slips for their adventure jar. At the time, Ellie thought it was a fine arrangement. But now that the idea of him hating his new hair has sunk in, she's regretting ever agreeing to it.
"Ellie. My hair is falling out anyway. I've been blond my whole life. This is new, different. I've always wondered what I'd look like with brown hair."
As she watches his almost-white hair be covered by the dark dye she snorts involuntarily. "Well, you're about to find out." She looks back down to the bowl, dipping the brush in it to soak up a bit more dye before returning her attention to his head. "What're you writing?"
"Can't tell you. It's meant to be a surprise."
"Am I not supposed to be a part of this?"
He laughs as he continues scribbling on the ripped piece of notebook paper in front of him. "You are a part of this. You're dying my hair."
"I meant the jar thing. Didn't you say you wanted me to write things down too?"
He nods and she pulls down on his hair, mumbling, "Don't move."
Once he gets past the pain of her yanking on his head, he says, "Yes. You can write some slips later when I'm doing your hair."
She stops moving the brush along his head, giving herself a chance to let his words sink in before she kneels over in laughter, clutching her stomach in an attempt to stop the pain in her abdominal region. Cooper looks over at her, raising his eyebrows as his lips tug upwards. Half of his head is slicked back with the dark dye while the other half sits untouched. For some reason, this makes her laugh even harder.
