AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Penny cut the cupcake into six pieces and dished them out to everyone, keeping the smallest piece for herself.
“What are you going to do about Kenneth?” Jinny asked, digging in her purse for a Lactaid.
“I’m going to break up with him. Duh.” Penny scooped a bite of chocolate cupcake into her mouth. It tasted just as heavenly as it looked.
“Yeah, but how?” Esther asked. “Like, in person or over the phone?”
“You want us to go with you?” Vilma said. “For solidarity.”
It was tempting, but Penny couldn’t imagine trooping over to Kenneth’s apartment with her entire knitting group in tow just to break up with him. “I’ll probably just call him.”
“Screw that, send him a text,” Cynthia said. “He’s not even worth the time it would take to tell him you’re dumping his sorry ass.”
Penny stabbed another bite of cupcake. “I think I need more closure than a text.”
“Closure’s overrated,” Jinny said around a mouthful of icing. “Remember when Stuart cheated on me? He kept calling, begging me to take him back for weeks—and I almost did it. Take my advice and block Kenneth’s number as soon as you dump him.”
“When are you going to do it?” Esther asked.
“If you call tonight you might catch him in the middle of sexytimes with his lady friend,” Jinny pointed out, wrinkling her nose.
“Do it tonight.” Esther bobbed her head eagerly. “Cockblock that motherfucker if you can.”
“One bottle of New Zealand sauv,” Roxanne announced, pulling a corkscrew out of her back pocket as she arrived at their table. She wore a sleeveless black T-shirt that showed off her tattooed arms and pulled tight across her pregnant belly.
Before she’d gotten pregnant, she’d been a regular on a local roller derby team and still looked like she could break a man across her thighs. Penny had once heard her threaten to kick a customer’s teeth through his skull for making a lewd comment about her ass.
She cast a sympathetic look at Penny as she stooped to fill their glasses. “Sorry about your boyfriend, sweetie.”
“Did you know?” Penny asked. It was one thing for Caleb not to tell her—he’d never really acted like he wanted to be her friend—but Roxanne was different. Penny liked Roxanne. She was halfway through knitting a blanket for her baby. If she’d been protecting Kenneth too…
Roxanne shook her head. “I didn’t. I swear. They never came in when I was working.”
“Would you have told me if you knew?”
“Hell yeah, I would have. Solidarity, sister.” She extended a fist and Penny gave it a half-hearted bump. “Besides, you’re a way better customer than he is.”
“No wine for me,” Olivia said when Roxanne got to her glass. “I’m on call again tonight.” Olivia was a systems analyst for a power company and spent a lot of nights on call in case any of her systems went offline.
Roxanne obligingly poured Olivia’s portion into Penny’s glass and took the empty bottle with her back to the counter.
“A toast,” Esther said, and everyone raised their drinks. “Good riddance to bad rubbish.”
“Here here,” they all said as they clinked their glasses against Penny’s. She tried to smile, but couldn’t quite pull it off, so she took a big gulp of wine instead. Followed by another.
Jinny set her glass down and picked up her knitting. “He did you a favor, you know.”
Penny squinted at her over the top of her wineglass. “By cheating on me?”
“By getting caught so early in the relationship.”
“It’s true,” Olivia said, leaning back on the couch. “Can you imagine if you hadn’t been here tonight? Who knows how long you might have gone on dating him, totally unaware that he was a chickenshit dickweed.”
Penny shuddered at the thought. She’d actually thought Kenneth might be the one. They hadn’t exchanged I love yous yet, but she’d assumed they would soon. Even though it was only April, she’d already been planning to take him home to meet her family at Thanksgiving and fantasizing about a trip to England to meet his parents over Christmas. She’d figured sometime next year they’d probably get engaged. Plan a June wedding for the following year. Start trying for a family after their first anniversary. She’d be able to stay home and keep working, and maybe by then his company’s IPO would have gone though, so they could afford to buy a house in a neighborhood with good schools.
It was possible she’d gotten a little ahead of herself.
“I’m going to be honest,” Esther said, picking up her knitting again. “I never liked that guy.”
