Read Online I Love You, Beth Cooper by Larry Doyle - Free Book Online

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    â€œSame alcohol as beer,” pitched Rich, selling hard.
    â€œMore,” Denis said. “Two-point…” He quickly calculated:

    â€œâ€¦two times as much alcohol, on average.”
    Rich could only shake his head in admiration at his friend’s determination to be true to himself, no matterwhat the cost. Rich himself was willing to be anybody anyone wanted and would keep trying on personalities until one of them became popular. For some reason, his most recent persona spoke a lot of half-assed Spanish.
    â€œLet’s pop this pupito, rápido! ” habla Rich with insouciance, belied a bit by the way he was clawing at the gift bag Denis was clutching.
    Denis removed the bottle from its bag.
    It was Freixenet, one of the finer sparkling wines in the under-$10 category.
    â€œCristal,” Rich said. “Black Label.”
    â€œCristal seems to have changed its logo,” Cammy said. “And spelling.”
    Treece bit her pinkie. “Champagne,” she said, “makes me do… things .”
    Denis would never hear the word things the same way again.
    Cammy snorted. “ Water makes you do things.”
    â€œNot regular water.”
    If Rich were a paper-and-ink cartoon rather than a flesh-and-blood one, a lightbulb would have appeared above his head.
    â€œUno momento.” He raced out of the room and romped up the stairs.
    â€œ Un momento,” Cammy said.
    THE SPECIFIC MECHANICS of the champagne bottle were alien to Denis. “Seems self-explanatory,” he mumbled as he propped the bottle on his thigh and began peeling the foil back slowly, sweat speckling his forehead, as if dismantling a party bomb.
    Beth reappeared in the kitchen, pissed.
    â€œYeah, well, Kevin, maybe, Kevin, maybe I have better things to do!”
    She looked up and pointed at Denis’s lap.
    â€œI want some of that.”
    She meant the champagne, but neither Denis norhis lap immediately figured that out.
    Beth started out of the room, her voice rising.
    â€œI’m not going to tell you where I am! Or who I’m with! But I will tell you this, Kevin: I’m having champagne !”
    She wants champagne . Denis flailed away the foil and furiously twisted the wire, ten or fifteen times, stopped, then started to untwist it.
    â€œChampagne coming right… Yi. ”
    His fingertip was bleeding. He pressed on with no concern for his own safety. Cammy and Treece watched with morbid fascination.
    Denis placed both thumbs under the cork and applied steady pressure, suavely at first, desperately thereafter. He leaned against a wall for leverage, clasping the sweaty, slippery bottle between his forearms and applying insufficient force accompanied by girlish exertions. Blood dripped over his knuckles.
    â€œThis is…odd,” he she-grunted. “The internal pressure is 90 psi. It should just—”
    In walked Beth, screaming into the phone.
    â€œDon’t you dare GPS me!”
    Denis couldn’t even begin to analyze the health ramifications of that, because at that exact moment, Rich appeared behind Beth. He raised his arm and opened his hand. A ribbon of condoms cascaded behind Beth’s head.
    Ribbed, Rich mouthed lubriciously.
    Denis’s eyes widened just in time for the cork to pop and ricochet off his cornea.
    HE OPENED HIS MOUTH TO SCREAM. A foaming column of lukewarm champagne geysered into the back of his throat. He gasped, gulped, and gurgled in various combinations. That it was not school milk but champagne that came out his nose did not make Denis feel any more sophisticated.
    This, as it turned out, was exactly the kind of thing Cammy found amusing: the pain and suffering of others. Her laugh was surprisingly husky, somewhere between a chortle and a guffaw. Treece was too nice to laugh, but not nice enough to offer help.
    Beth snapped her phone shut and rushed to Denis’s side.
    â€œYou all right?”
    â€œYeah, I’m