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

great,” Denis claimed. “Oh, ow. ”
    He cupped his bloody hand over his bludgeoned eye, and without even realizing he was doing it, slid down the wall to the floor.
    â€œYee,” he said.
    â€œWe need ice.” Beth turned to Rich, who was tucking the last of the prophylaxis into his shirt pocket. “Ice?”
    Rich hurried to the kitchen island “bar area” and stuck his hand in the plastic bowl of ice. It came out wet.
    â€œFrozen peas,” Beth ordered, snapping her fingers at Rich and directing him toward the refrigerator.
    Rich resented being snapped at. This dickhead from Stevenson High School did that at José O’Foodle’s once, and Rich spat in his O’Salsa, nearly killing him. Apparently the guy had a peanut allergy and Rich had been eating only Snickers bars that month. No one ever found out how peanut and cocoa traces made it into a salsa made only from fresh tomatoes, chiles and beer, but it cost the Dining Thematics Corporation nearly $2 million.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” Beth yelled at Rich, who had been reminiscing the above paragraph. “This is your friend down here!”
    Rich abandoned his reverie and went to the refrigerator. He opened the freezer door and began picking through the contents.
    â€œFrozen peas…Frozen peas …Fro- oh -zen pa-puh peas…”
    â€œAnything cold!”
    Rich hurled a box across the room.
    â€œStat!”
    Beth snatched it out of the air.
    â€œFrozen waffles?”
    Rich peered in the freezer. “Either that or Lean Cuisine.”
    â€œWhatever,” Beth said, meaning whatever .
    His mission completed, Rich took out a pint of ice cream and went looking for a spoon. He singsang to himself:
    I scream, you scream…
    WITH PARAMEDIC SPEED, Beth ripped open the box and extracted two frozen waffles. She dropped to her knees, straddling Denis’s thighs, a bodily juxtaposition Denis had only experienced with Greg Saloga prior to a belly-pinking.
    Beth took his hand and lifted it off his injured eye. She tenderly pressed the waffles against it.
    â€œAgh,” Denis said.
    â€œIt’s okay,” Beth soothed. “This will help.”
    Why was Beth being so nice to him? Was it because she was so nice, or because it was to him? Either way, she sure was nice. Denis gazed at her through his surviving eye.
    â€œI’m sorry I’m so pathetic,” he thought, and then realized he had also said it.
    Beth laughed, so lightly and so kindly that Denis felt it in his chest, not his stomach.
    â€œCan I tell you a secret?”
    Yes, tell me all your secrets, Denis kept to himself.
    Beth leaned in, whispered: “All boys are pathetic.”
    THIS WAS NEWS TO DENIS, perhaps the bestnews he had ever heard. If Beth thought all guys sucked, he didn’t need to not suck, only to suck less . This was doable. Possibly.
    Denis relaxed for the first time since the previous Sunday. He became the smart, sweet, moderately clever and only medium pathetic boy he usually was.
    â€œOn behalf of all boys, then,” Denis said, “I apologize.”
    Beth made a serious face. “Accepted.”
    â€œIt’s 150,000 years late, but it needed to be said. Also, I’d like to apologize for all that war and stuff.”
    â€œYou’re funny.”
    â€œSometimes even when I’m trying to be.”
    Beth took Denis’s hand and led it back to his eye, transferring responsibility for the waffles.
    â€œGentle pressure.”
    Denis twisted a flinch into a grin. “Thanks, Lisbee.”
    The moment vanished.
    â€œDon’t call me that,” Beth said. “I hate that.”
    â€œBut Kevin—”
    â€œThat is one of the privileges that Kevin enjoys,” Beth explained coldly.
    Cammy concurred. “Kevin has many privileges.”
    â€œFront door privileges—” Treece began, working into another sodomy whinny.
    Beth raised her hand, silencing