AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“How’s it hanging?” Paulie asked, jerking her chin at Mom.
“I thought we talked about wardrobe,” Colleen murmured as Bryce continued to flirt with her mother.
“It got chilly,” Paulie said.
“Fine.” Those watermelons had to weigh fifteen pounds each. “Let him carry one of those and feel manly and stuff,” Colleen suggested in a whisper.
“Manly, right. I get it. But his hand is really hurt.”
Sure enough, Bryce’s hand was still bandaged to boxing-glove proportions. “He can hold a watermelon, Paulie. Give him a chance to be strong and helpful. Right? Remember? Girl/boy stuff?”
“You’re gonna dance with me later on, right, Jeanette?” Bryce was saying. “I’ve had a crush on you for ages.”
“You’re adorable, you know that?” Mom said, much cheered. “Oh, there’s Mrs. Johnson, probably gloating about Faith being pregnant. There’s Carol, too. She has eleven grandchildren, Colleen. Eleven.” She leveled the famed Catholic martyr look over her shoulder. Colleen merely raised an eyebrow.
“Bryce,” she said, turning back to the project at hand, “help Paulie out, okay? What a champ you are, Paulie, but heck, those must be getting heavy.”
“No, they’re fine,” Paulie said. “Oh! Wait, I mean yeah, they’re pretty heavy. Really heavy. So heavy. Uh, Bryce maybe you could hold one of my watermelons?”
“You bet.”
Perfect. Colleen smiled as Bryce fumbled for a watermelon, Paulie’s face practically bubbling as her blushing took hold. All good, Bryce groping in the general area of Paulie’s chest.
She left the young lovers and headed inside to look for Savannah. The sound of her father’s fake laugh floated over on the breeze, and Colleen looked in his direction. He saw her...but instead of a smile or a nod, he gave her the drive-by glance, his eyes passing over her but not acknowledging her in any meaningful way.
Her chest felt hollow.
When she was little, Colleen had been prone to stomach bugs, and Dad would sit on the edge of her bed and read to her. Mom would get the sympathy pukes if she was too nearby, so it was just Dad and his good smell, his starched shirt and steady voice that marked those nights, making them almost fun, the vomiting aside.
Dad laughed again.
She couldn’t remember the last time they’d had a real conversation.
Swallowing the lump in her throat, she headed inside. The house was quiet; everyone was outside, and who could blame them? It was a beautiful night.
She heard a voice.Thevoice, as it were. Impossibly deep, with that rumble that scraped her special places in a most satisfying and yearnful way.
Lucas and Savannah were sitting on a curved-back sofa. He was reading to her...The Wind in the Willows,a book Colleen had read over and over as a kid. Lucas had on a pair of glasses; that was new. And hot. He looked sinfully well-educated, like a professorial Lucifer. And she felt like the slutty college girl who was about to offer whatever it took for that B to become an A.
“‘But Mole stood still a moment, held in thought. As one wakened suddenly from a beautiful dream, who struggles to recall it, but can recapture nothing but a dim sense of the beauty in it, the beauty!’”
Lucifer—er, Lucas—was a good reader. Savannah was pressed against his arm, looking at the pictures. She could read to herself, of course. Then again, if Lucas had offered to read Colleen something...anything...the instructions on how to use her three-in-one remote, for example...she’d fall over herself saying yes. Especially if she could cuddle with him on the couch. Naked.
“Hi, Collie!” Savannah said, catching sight of her.
Colleen jumped guiltily, then feigned surprise. “Hey, you two,” she said.
“Want to see the secret room I found?” Savannah asked, wriggling off the couch.
“Um, maybe we shouldn’t—”
Savannah was already running up the stairs.
Lucas stood and slipped his glasses into his shirt pocket. “After you,” he said.
“Right,” she breathed. She went up the stairs, Lucas close behind her. Could he see up her dress? Was she wearing nice underwear? Well, of course she was, she was Colleen Margaret Mary O’Rourke, after all, but—
“Up here!” Savannah called. There was another staircase, this one not so ornate as the first, going to the third floor.
