Read Online The Science of Second Chances by Nicky Penttila - Free Book Online Page A

compose the sentence in her head. “I regret that something has come up.” “My dog died.” “I refuse to stand in the same room as your baby-mama.”  
    She canceled the message. What was the use of making up your mind to do a thing if you changed it ten seconds later?
    He had her again.
     
    ****
     
    That night, her dreams were all Matt. She was eighteen again, a stick of a girl, athletic and hard. Even her breasts were hard. And he was always wet, from playing ball, from swimming in the pool or the river, or fresh from the shower like that night they discovered oral sex could work on girls, too.
    In his parents’ basement, he had her cutoffs down, her bikini bottoms too, and she could not stop moving under his hand. Finally, he clamped both hands on her butt and held her tight. He blew on her overheated folds, and she bucked; he just squeezed harder.
    “I read something. Wanna try it?”
    While “Cribs” played on MTV, he laved her, there, her honey-brown-haired boyfriend with the bobbing Adam’s apple. She’d thought she’d lost her virginity right there.
    In real life, he’d given her one quick lick, a flick, really, and she’d gone wet. Embarrassing. Then the sound of the garage door opening and a car entering – his mom! – had them scooting away from each other, scrambling into their clothes.
    But now in her dreams, he simply licked his lips and plunged on. Her hands lifted from deep in his so-fine hair to over her head, over the back of the couch, anything to push herself deeper into his mouth, deeper into him.
    And this time, he brought her right to the edge, shivering at the brink, before rising to claim her mouth, and settling himself to claim her core.
    And claim it he did, again and again, all that night.
    Sam woke late, and spent, making her morning rush-around all the more frantic. She’d set her outfit out on the chair like always before bed, but now she didn’t like the blouse. And those shoes? What if they walked all over the museum? Wouldn’t the espadrilles that tied around her ankle be more practical? They were way less sexy than the Grecian sandals, but she wasn’t going for sexy. Was she?
    On to the bathroom. The makeup terror was even worse than usual. Every five years, Sam took herself to the local department store with the biggest makeup counters and had a stylist “update her look.” Then she stuck to that regimen until the next visit. No one wanted to think about makeup at six in the morning.
    But here she was, digging out a blue eye shadow that was already two stylists out of date. Matt had liked blue. But who knew what he liked now? And who cares what he likes? What if the baby-mama was wearing blue, too?
    She barely got out of her condo in time to catch the bus, even with skipping breakfast and not reading the news. The day promised to be dripping hot . The bus’s fans barely counteracted the heat of the standing-room crowd. She grabbed an unwise croissant with chocolate and a triple latte from the coffee shop and sat down at her desk to count the minutes.
    All these years, and you’re still a fool for him.
    At eleven -forty, she got up, took off her gloves, folded her fleecy, and left for the museum. It should take only fifteen minutes, but she wanted to move slow and minimize sweating. The day was lovely: hot, yes, but with one of those surprising breezes off the Potomac. Her spirits lifted. For a moment she considered going to the American History museum instead, saying she got confused. But that would be wrong .
    She was right about how crowded the Science galleries were, though. The spring migration of high schoolers to the nation’s capital was in full swing. Cadres of chirpy, chattering or muttering teenage girls and boys wearing headphones, all in matching T-shirts, ping-ponged around the vaulted entryway. Orange, red, blue shirts of all sizes, even a gaggle of kids and adults in tie-dye off to the side near the dinosaur hall.
    Sam hadn’t seen so much