Page 29 of Breakaway

“Alfred,” she corrects, her lips twitching as she fights a smile.

“—but I understand that it’s hard to follow up after me.” I grin, so she knows I’m mostly joking, and she rolls her eyes.

“You know,” she says, “for a second, I forgot how arrogant you are.”

“Not arrogant. Just confident.”

She cocks her head to the side. “Callahan.”

“What?”

Now she smiles, and it’s distracting and suspicious all at once. “You played well at your game, right?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Why?”

“And you said that you just needed a hookup to relax. Which it clearly helped you do.”

“Is that how correlations work?”

“Shut up, you know where I’m going with this.” She runs her fingers through the ends of her hair, her head still cocked to the side. She takes a step forward, the ghost of a smile on her face. “Take me through The List. I’ll get what I want, and it’ll help your game. Playing like that, you’ll be captain in no time.”

Tempting, but impossible. There’s a litany of reasons it wouldn’t work, and at the very top of the list is one Lawrence Ryder. If he ever finds out about our seven minutes in heaven–style hookup, I’m toast, but if he learns that I’ve been sneaking around with his daughter repeatedly, I’ll find myself selling skates in Dick’s Sporting Goods for a living after graduation. And that’s if I’m still breathing.

“Your father—” I start.

“Doesn’t decide who I sleep with,” she interrupts. “He won’t find out. Trust me, it’s not like I want him to know about this either.”

“Except he will, and he’ll forgive you because you’re his daughter, but me? I’ll be lucky if I stay on the team.”

“He wouldn’t do that.”

“Don’t underestimate what a pissed-off father will do.”

She huffs out an annoyed breath. “Look, I’m not going to beg.”

“As tempting as it would be to see you on your knees,” I can’t help but say, because apparently, I’m an idiot; now the image is in my brain and I want to see that more than anything, “you already know I don’t do repeats.”

It’s physically painful to open the door. I can’t make myself take the first step into the hallway. Even though it’s ridiculous, she has a point; I played better than I had in ages. I look over my shoulder. Part of me desperately wants to say yes, if only for the chance to kiss her again, but I’d be playing a dangerous game. When a hookup goes on for too long, feelings inevitably get involved. I don’t know what happened to Penny to get her to this place, but I don’t want to have to break her heart. “Don’t do it like this, Penny. Find a nice guy to take you out.”

She gives me a light shove. “Thanks for the unsolicited advice, but if it’s not you, I’m sure I’ll find better matches than Alfred.”

Then she shuts the door in my face.

Chapter 15

Penny

Is it masochism if you offer sex to a guy and he turns you down, but then the next time you get yourself off, you think about him?

When Cooper left last night, I knew I should have done yoga or something to calm myself down, re-center, whatever, but I was so wet I could barely hold it together. We didn’t even do anything, and he made it clear that he doesn’t want to do anything with me ever again, but my body was gleefully traitorous. From the moment we were alone in his car, a truck that he told me he bought with his own money and restored to glory when he was seventeen, to when I slammed the door in his face, I struggled not to jump him. Whenever he called me Red, my pussy literally throbbed.

And so, instead of doing the smart thing, the moment I was alone, I took out Igor and fucked myself with it. I didn’t even pretend to conjure up a fantasy; I just replayed what we did in the closet together, and when I ran through that, I imagined what it would be like to go down The List with him. I didn’t stop until I came three times, trembling and sweating, and now, in the light of day, I know I should muster up some regret, or at the very least embarrassment, but I can’t. Cooper is in a class all his own, and nothing made that realization starker than seeing him in the same room as Alfred.

Ugh, Alfred. I can’t believe I was ever going to blow him. This whole “seize the dick” plan is getting shakier by the day.

I really ought to refocus on the chemistry textbook in front of me, since next week’s test is looming and all I’ve done so far is add a new spicy scene to my book. It’s been over an hour since I dragged myself out of bed. I’m in the library, nestled in my favorite chair. My bag of gummy bears and upbeat studying playlist would help in any other scenario, but I’ve been staring at this one page for the better part of my time here.

I give in to the urge to take out my phone and send Mia a Snap. She replies almost immediately, so she’s finally awake. When I left earlier, she didn’t even stir. I have no idea what time it was when she came in last night, but it was a lot later than me. She says she’ll head to the library with coffees, which is a draw on the productivity front—I could use more caffeine, but she’ll want to know about last night. I’m about to accept defeat and move on to my Spanish homework when my dad calls.

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