Autumn Read Free Page B

local video rental place had closed earlier that summer, meaning if Cooper wanted any new Xbox games, he now had to part with allowance money to buy them.
    He’d wanted to get a job, but his football schedule didn’t leave enough time for one.
    Mia had her phone out the whole drive over and didn’t let up texting once they were inside.
    “Who are you talking to?” he asked, not bothering to mask his annoyance.
    “Max.”
    “Is he telling you what kind of nail polish would look best with your complexion?” Cooper teased.
    Mia didn’t look amused. “Gay jokes? Could you be more Texas cliché, Coop? Next thing I know you’ll be joining the NRA and voting Republican.” She slipped her phone into her purse and shook her head so her long black bangs covered her eyes.
    “Jesus, Mia. I was joking. And besides, it wasn’t a gay joke. It was an observation that your boyfriend wears more makeup than you do.”
    She huffed.
    “What’s wrong with the NRA? I remember you shooting guns with me and Dad when you were little.”
    He knew he’d made a mistake the second the D word left his mouth. Much like the Reynolds family’s ban against discussing Jer, they also didn’t bring up their absentee patriarch.
    The men in their family had a long-standing tradition of bailing, and the ones left behind were well-practiced in the art of pretending it never happened.
    Cooper quickly covered his ass by adding, “And shouldn’t your Democrats be happy there’s a society that labels gun owners?”
    “ Your Democrats?” Mia snapped, and Cooper let out a sigh of relief. Playing the political card had been a good call. “How can you be so ignorant?”
    Politics was a hot-button issue for Mia. At fifteen she fancied herself quite liberal, and by extension determined anyone who wasn’t had to be a Republican. Being Republican, in Mia’s opinion, was about as evil as being a Satanist. Cooper reminded her, “I’m seventeen, Mia. I don’t vote.”
    “And in a year, when you can? Are you still going to be stupid about it?”
    Cooper wanted to point out it would be at least three years before he’d have to vote in a major national election, but he’d probably get a list of all local elections he’d be expected to participate in before then.
    Mia would need a bigger purse if she was going to carry her soapbox with her wherever she went.
    “I’m not trying to pick a fight with you,” he said, trying to take the high road. “Look, why don’t we go to Walmart and get some new school stuff, and when we’re done there, I’ll take you to that thrift store in Collinwood you like.”
    Mia stared at him thoughtfully. He knew it wasn’t in her nature to back down from an argument, but he also knew she had no way to drive to Collinwood to buy flowy skirts and black tops that made her look like a witch or a reject from a Fleetwood Mac album cover.
    “You’re not going to make me buy notebooks with flowers or dolphins on the cover, are you?”
    “What the hell do I care what kind of notebooks you buy? I’m not mom. And do you think she cares if your binder is girlie? She carries a gun, for crying out loud.”
    “But she does have pink handcuffs.”
    Cooper rolled his eyes. “Let’s just get the stuff and go. It’s a twenty-minute drive to Collinwood. I’ll be lucky to catch the last four innings, and that’s if you don’t try on a million things.”
    They worked their way down to the Walmart with only a brief sidetrack to the Orange Julius counter so Mia could get an enormous mocha-something smoothie, and Cooper purchased a bottle of Coke. Mia held the shopping basket when they got to the store and surprise, surprise, loaded it up with all-black goodies. Cooper was pretty sure most of his stuff from the previous year was still in passable shape, but the presence of his mother’s credit card in his wallet made him feel obligated to buy something .
    The sports-themed notebooks he used to favor seemed a little juvenile for his