Read In Dreams for Free Online Page B

he actually seemed vulnerable since she’d met him all those weeks ago. “It doesn’t sound terrible at all. I can totally relate. My parents are great, but I don’t feel like I need to see them or talk to them all the time. I love them and all, but I love myself and my freedom more…you know?”
    “Exactly,” Cooper responded enthusiastically. “I feel the same way. And yes, by the way, I have two brothers and one sister.”
    “Holy cow. Big family,” Katherine was an only child, so she thought anything more than one was a lot. She couldn’t imagine that many kids under one roof.
    “We are Irish,” Cooper joked.
    Katherine forgot she was on the East Coast where Irish and Italian families were prevalent. They were typically large with family members that lived close by and constant family gatherings. She didn’t feel like family life was the same in Southern California at all.
    “It’s so different here than back home,” Katherine commented.
    “Good different or bad different?” Cooper asked her while their food was being handed out to them.
    “Definitely good different. Probably because it’s all new to me. Everything is different out here, from the people, the buildings, the trees and even the food.” Katherine looked over at Cooper’s face before she continued, “But I love it and I totally appreciate everything that is different from what I’m used to.”
    “You’re different from what I’m used to,” Cooper remarked, giving her one of his trademarked looks.
    He threw his arm around the back of the booth and his fingertips gently touched a part of Katherine’s shoulder. She glanced back to make sure it wasn’t her imagination playing tricks on her. Nope. Those were definitely Cooper Donovan’s fingers that brushed against her bare skin.
    She tried to concentrate on breathing again. It was the obvious the way he affected her. It partly intrigued and excited her, but it also annoyed her. The last thing she wanted to do was to come off like another one of those girls who couldn’t contain themselves in Cooper Donovan’s presence.
    “So, California, any more questions?” he asked politely.
    “Actually, I do have one more.” Katherine looked at Taylor whose expression told her she couldn’t wait to hear this one. “Why does everyone treat you like a god or something? What is the deal with you?”
    Danny and Taylor laughed out loud. “It’s true, bro. he girls are ridiculous when it comes to you!” Danny blurted out while he still laughed.
    “Yeah, Cooper, why are you New Jersey’s freaking royalty?” Taylor added, as she mimicked a reporter with a microphone.
    Cooper just looked at them all and fell silent. He gave Katherine one long glance before he said, “I guess it’s the hockey thing.” He shrugged his shoulders. “People think I’m going places and I think they just want to come along.”
    “You are going places, Donovan,” Danny added and then turned to Katherine. “He’s probably the best this college has seen in the past ten years. He’s going pro and everyone knows it.”
    Katherine smiled at Danny’s enthusiasm. “Is that true?”
    Cooper removed his arm from behind Katherine’s shoulder, and then crossed them both in front of his chest. “That’s the rumor. But we’ll have to wait and see.”
    “Is that what you want to do?” Katherine wondered.
    Cooper smiled, “No one ever asks me that. They always just assume that I do.”
    “So, do you?”
    “I don’t know,” Cooper answered nonchalantly and continued to eat his pasta.
    “What do you mean, you don’t know? Coop, come on. If the Rangers called you up right now and said they needed you to start playing for the team tomorrow, you wouldn’t go?” Danny asked in a surprised tone. “I’d give anything to be in your position.”
    “Well then I’d tell them to call my buddy D Rossi and they’d be in good hands.”
    “Ah, thanks man,” Danny said it so sweetly it made the girls