Page 43 of Breakaway

Then I get down to the serious business of queuing up The Fellowship of the Ring.

Chapter 23

Penny

“I just can’t believe he’s gone,” I tell Mia.

We shuffle forward in line. Halloween is coming up soon, so the theater in town is showing The Silence of the Lambs. I don’t really like horror, but Mia is obsessed with Jodie Foster, so the plan is to eat a bunch of popcorn and cover my eyes whenever anything particularly creepy happens. I’d rather watch the next Lord of the Rings movie, but I haven’t seen Cooper in a few days.

Mia glances at me. She’s wearing an enormous black scarf wrapped around her neck twice, giving the impression that her head is detached from her body. “I guess it was his time.”

“He was fine just yesterday!”

The girl ahead of us in line turns around and says, “I am so sorry for your loss.”

I glance at Mia, who says, “We should hold a funeral. Although I’m not sure how, it’s not like you can flush him down the toilet.”

The girl gets a confused look on her face and turns back around. I try to control my laughter. “We could have a ceremony over the garbage can down in the laundry room.”

“Or maybe we should nick a spade from the greenhouse and dig him a grave.”

“Here lies Igor,” I start. “A loyal servant.”

“Devoted to the pursuit of pleasure until the end,” Mia continues.

I bow my head gravely. “A true hero. He will be missed.”

“What the fuck,” the girl mutters with a glance back at us.

We just giggle. It really is sad that Igor kicked the bucket while I was trying to spin a really hot fantasy about a werewolf who kidnapped me and—I haven’t admitted this part to Mia—had eyes just like Cooper’s. I may have been working on my book before I abandoned it for my bed. I tried to revive him with fresh batteries and a recharge, but neither worked. Maybe his flight across my room was his swan song, and I didn’t even realize it.

I have my rabbit vibrator, the one last used when Cooper teased me out of my mind, but it’s not the same. You’d think that hooking up with someone on the regular would mean I wouldn’t care, but I’ve been hornier than ever. It’s like getting a taste of the real thing has just supercharged my fantasies; I had a wet dream the other day that involved another blue-eyed hottie spanking me with his belt instead of just using it as a restraint. Damn that dark mafia romance reading binge I went on over the summer.

“I just can’t believe he would abandon me in my time of need,” I say. “I need something to distract me from the fact I’m actually going to fail chemistry.”

We step up to the ticket booth, so Mia has to wait to answer until we’re in the concessions line. “Are you serious? I thought you passed your midterm.”

I nod glumly. “I went to office hours to talk about it and the professor all but said that she didn’t fail me so I have a chance to scrape by with an overall pass in the course, but I should have failed. Without the curve, she couldn’t even have fudged it enough to be a pass. There’s the next test, and the final, but still.”

“Shit, Pen, I’m sorry.”

I give a little shrug. “Maybe Dad will finally realize this is a terrible idea.”

Mia gives me a surprisingly serious look. “Or you could just tell him. Say you’re going to declare a different major and be done with it.”

“Doesn’t your family think you’re studying to be a teacher?”

“Ugh. Don’t remind me.” She scowls, but it turns into a smile a moment later. “Hey, it’s your hockey player.”

I turn around. Cooper and Sebastian and a third guy I vaguely recognize from the hockey team are walking to the concessions line, cutting through the crowd of college students and Moorbridge locals with ease. They blend into the line right behind us, and when someone protests, Cooper says, “Sorry, man, just joining my girl.”

I glare at him. You let a guy spank you and then watch his favorite movie after, and he acts like it means something. He shouldn’t be talking like that in public, anyway, you never know who my dad might know.

He winds his arm around my waist. Despite the windy, miserable weather outside, he’s just wearing a sweatshirt, his Yankees cap backward like usual. What is it with boys and acting like the weather doesn’t affect them?

“Didn’t peg you for a horror fan,” he says.

“I’m just here for Mia.” I should shrug away, but I can’t quite make myself. I glance at his friend. “You’re on the team too, right?”

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