Finding Perfect (Hopeless, #2.6)(9)

Chunk starts giggling. “Dude, you’re gonna be in so much trouble.”

Hannah laughs, too. I glare at her, because I thought we were on the same team, but that cruel excitement is back in her eyes.

“You know,” I say, “for a moment there, I felt like the three of us bonded. But now I see that the two of you still find pleasure in the idea of my failure.”

I open the door and motion for them to leave my room. “You can go now. You two are no longer needed here.”

Hannah hops off the bed and grabs Chunk’s hand, pulling her out of the chair. “We want this to work out for you, Daniel,” Hannah says on her way out the door. “But we also look forward to shit hitting the fan when Mom and Dad find out.”

“Yes,” Chunk agrees. “Looking very forward to that.”

I close the door and lock them out of my bedroom.





Chapter Four


We decided on Sky’s house for our friendsgiving because Karen and Jack will be gone most of the day. Six recruited me to help cook the dressing and I’ve never cooked in my life, so I’ve been more of a nuisance than a help. Sky is doing the baking because she makes the best cookies in the world, according to Holder.

But when I drop the second egg in two minutes, Six finally regrets her choice. “Just go hang out with Holder and Breckin in the living room,” she says. “I feel like it’ll be easier without you in the kitchen.”

I don’t take any offense because it’s the truth.

I go to the living room and sit next to Breckin. He’s playing a game with Holder. “You winning, Powder Puff?”

He lazily turns his head and looks at me, annoyed. “We went an entire week without you calling me that. I thought you actually learned something in college.”

“What could I learn that would make me stop calling you Powder Puff?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Decency?”

Holder laughs from the recliner he’s sprawled out in. I glare in his direction. “What are you laughing at, Pimple Dick?”

“Breckin’s right,” Holder says. “Sometimes I think maybe you’re maturing, but then you go and say something ignorant again to set me straight. Still the same ‘ol Daniel.”

I shake my head. “I thought that was why you like me, because I don’t change. I’m myself all the time.”

“I think that’s the problem,” Breckin says. “You don’t evolve. But you’re getting better. I haven’t heard you use the R word in a derogatory way since you’ve been home.”

“What’s the R word?” I ask. I have no idea what he’s talking about.

He begins to spell it out for me. “R-E-T-A-R—”

I cut Breckin off. “Oh. That,” I say. “Yeah, I learned not to say that when a chick in my economics class smacked me in the back of the head with her notebook.”

“Maybe there’s hope for you yet,” Breckin says. “Come to think of it, I did seem to hate you a lot more in high school. But I wouldn’t hate you at all if you’d stop calling me Powder Puff.”

“Aren’t you on Twitter?” Holder asks. “Don’t you see what happens to people like you?”

“People like me?”

“Yeah. Guys who say insensitive shit because they think it makes them look cool and careless.”

“I don’t think I’m cool and careless. I just had no idea Powder Puff was insensitive.”

“Bullshit,” Holder says with a fake cough.

“Okay, so maybe I knew it was insensitive,” I admit, looking back at Breckin. “But it’s a joke.”

“Well,” Breckin says, “as someone who identifies as a gay male, I feel it’s my duty to teach you how to be more sensitive. Powder Puff is insulting. So is the R word. And most of the nicknames you give to people.”

“Yeah,” Holder says. “Stop calling my girlfriend Cheese Tits.”

“But…it’s a joke. I don’t even know what Cheese Tits or Powder Puff mean.”

Holder turns his head and looks at me. “I know you don’t. Neither do I. But Breckin is right. You’re an asshole sometimes and you should stop being an asshole sometimes.”

Shit. I seem to be learning a lot of what people think about me over Thanksgiving break, whether I want to or not. So far, I’ve learned I’m insensitive. I’m an asshole. I’m annoying. I’m a guy. What else is wrong with me?

“That means I have to come up with a new nickname for you,” I say to Breckin.

“You could just call me Breckin.”

I nod. “I will. For now.”

That seems to satisfy him. I lean back, just as my phone rings. I fish it out of my pocket and look at the incoming call. It’s an unknown number.

I stand up. My heart feels like it’s still on the couch. I can feel adrenaline rush through me as I swipe to answer the phone. It might be a telemarketer, but it might not be, so I rush across the living room and go outside to take the phone call in private.

“Hello?” No one says anything, so I repeat myself. “Hello? It’s Daniel. Hello?”

If it is a telemarketer, they’ve probably never heard a guy sound so desperate to talk to one of them before.