Page 112 of Oblivion

“What? I totally left you some.”

I huffed. “Hardly. And we’ve already had this conversation, so I won’t repeat myself.”

“Are you done?” Hope made her tone buoyant, and I took great pleasure in dashing it.

“Not even halfway.”

Before heading to the upright rower machine, I plucked up my phone and connected to the Bluetooth speakers mounted on the wall. Surely music would reroute my focus back to my workout and away from Penny sitting pretty watching my every move.

The first beats of The Offspring cranked through the speakers, and immediately took me to the zone. 90s punk rock was my jam while working out, and these guys always got me pumped. The entire playlist did.

“Who sings this?”

Three innocent words knocked the wind right out of my sails. I turned to Penny and gawked.

“You can’t be serious! The Offspring!”

She gave me a blank look. “Totes serious.”

“We can no longer be friends, Penelope Prescott.”

“Friends with benefits?”

“You’ll be lucky,” I drawled. “Your benefit status rides on the next song.”

I waited for the new song to kick in and watched her reaction closely. The little pucker of concentration between her eyebrows became a full-on frown, and her lips quirked to the side.

“You don’t know this one either, do you?”

“Uhhhh…” She hedged. “I can’t think of their name right now.”

“Blur,” I deadpanned.

“Blur?”

“Yes, Blur.”I started dumbbell reps while listing off the other kickass bands on my playlist. “Blink 182, A New Found Glory, Nirvana, Queens of the Stone Age, Foo Fighters, Green Day, Jimmy Ea—”

“Okay, okay! I get it. Your taste in music is old school.”

I barked a laugh and dropped the dumbbells. “They’re not old school, babe. Creedence Clearwater Revival isold school.”

“Who?”

“Jesus fuck!”I cursed under my breath as I moved to the upright rower. Once I’d pumped out twelve, I moved back to the dumbbells.

“You need to stop talking. You’re making me feel old as hell.”

Penny cradled her chin in her hand. “I mean, you’reolder,but notoldold. You know?”

“Would you just stop already?” I laugh-yelled.

She threw up her hands, and her tone pitched. “What! I’m just saying that old guys are hot. And I think I’ve heard of Nirvada.”

“For fuck’s sake,” I boomed. “It’sNir-va-NA!”

“Ohh,” she drawled, then burst into laughter. “So, are you done yet?”

“Five more songs,” I snapped, pushing through the burn in my biceps. “And no more talking!”

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