04 - Shock and Awesome Read Online Free PDF

she added, flapping her right hand up and down with the nail file like a paintbrush.
     
          "It won't be the same."
     
          "You have to stop stalking this house."
     
          "What's it gonna do? Call the police?"
     
          An unearthly scream pierced the quiet air, long and haunting. All of a sudden it stopped. Lily and I looked at each other. A dog howled and Lily shivered.
     
          "Please tell me we didn't just hear someone getting murdered."
     
          "Nope, totally didn't."
     
          "Oh, thank God. I really don't want to see any corpses. It would ruin my O'Grady’s special and I'm really hungry. You think we should wait and see what happens?" Lily asked.
     
          "Maybe." We waited. Lily finished filing her nails. I counted all the panes on the bungalow's windows, then took some photos with my cell phone camera. Lily tapped her feet; I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel. "I don't hear anything else," I said, at last. "It was probably nothing."
     
          "Great! Can we go eat now?"
     
          "Yeah. Thanks for coming with me."
     
          "It was my idea to go out for dinner!"
     
          "No, I meant to see the bungalow. It's my happy place."
     
          "Not like I had any choice." Lily stroked her slightly protruding belly. It rumbled and we both looked at it. "Can you drive us to my happy place now? Please?"
     
          Gunning the engine, we got there in record time. Not that it mattered. Lily called ahead and placed our orders, ensuring the food was on the table the moment we sat down since I didn't want to eat at her bar as the tables weren't in situ yet. I don't know if the pregnancy was making her extra hungry, or she was just generally hungry, but she ate faster than a woman on a diet, locked in a cake factory without security cameras. Setting her fork down, she wiped her hands on the paper napkin and scowled.
     
          "What did I do?" I asked, glancing at my onion rings next to my half-eaten burger. I could give them to Lily. I didn't want to, but I could. She was my best friend and incubating my niece or nephew.
     
          "Nothing. It's your brother."
     
          "What did he do? Which one?" I had three brothers. It was hard to work out which one she was mad at, though I could take a guess as I stabbed an onion ring with my fork.
     
          Lily didn't say anything. Instead, she whipped out her cell phone and hit the button, pressing it to her ear. "Are you drinking?" she said. "Hah! Liar. I can see you, you know. Turn around, buster."
     
          I turned around, locking eyes with Jord , who was standing at the bar with our other brothers. Jord held a beer and looked sheepish. My brothers raised their glasses to us, and turned away, giggling into their beer mugs.
     
          "You know, it's not so bad just having a beer," I told Lily. "Don't get irrational."
     
          If steam could have come from Lily's ears and nose, it would have. Her eyes widened, and the vein at her left temple pulsed. Then, she slumped into the booth and stuck her bottom lip out. "I am, aren't I?" She dialed again. I glanced over my shoulder, and saw Jord contemplate not answering, before thinking better of it.
     
          "Enjoy your drink, honey. I'm sorry. I love you," said Lily. "No, I love you more. No, I do love you more. I love you so..."
     
          I grabbed the phone. "Can you order me a melon mojito and bring it over? Lily will take hers virgin. You suck. No, you suck more." I hung up and Lily giggled.
     
          "I wish I had brothers and sisters."
     
          "Sometimes, I wish I were an only child."
     
          "It gets lonely," Lily told me, not for the first time. Ever since we met at school, she pretty much became an honorary Graves, hanging out at our houseful of people day and night, loud people; and going home to a quiet house with uptight parents who didn't have a lot of time for her. Sometimes, I