A Good Dude Read Online Free PDF

after he got out. It was too close to call.
    * * *
     
    Rilla gave her a nice hug and kiss on the way out. CC didn’t say anything to her, but that was pretty much the norm.

Chapter 4
    MAMA’S BABY, DADDY’S MAYBE
     
    Candace got dressed and went to school thirty minutes after the guys left. She drove a 2008 Nissan Sentra. It was champagne-colored, sitting on chrome sixteen-inch rims. She wasn’t particularly impressed with big wheels, but Rilla put them on anyway. He said he wouldn’t feel right unless his girl was riding in style.
    Rilla’s car was a 1994 Fleetwood Cadillac. He had twenty-inch rims on his flashy ride. Candace didn’t like big, bulky cars, but there were advantages to rolling around in the Fleetwood. She once fell asleep in the back seat and found plenty of room to stretch her legs out. Rilla once joined her back there, and there was plenty of room for everything else, too.
    Overbrook Meadows Community College was only a fifteen-minute drive from the apartment. Candace hit the campus ten minutes early for her first class. After being accepted to prominent universities like Syracuse, Cornell, and Columbia, she felt a little odd paying for classes at a Texas community college, but running away from home didn’t mean Candace was running away from everything she believed in. Education had always been of upmost importance in her household. Getting drunk, high, and even pregnant didn’t diminish this motivation.
    She had two classes today. Government was boring. As always, they sat and listened to the professor lecture for the whole period. He didn’t look up from his notes once. Her anatomy and physiology class was more interesting. They got to slice into baby pigs and label the colorful innards.
    On the way back to her car, a familiar face approached Candace, but she couldn’t place him.
    “Hey, your name’s Candace, right?”
    She turned and watched a Hispanic man approach her. Actually, he was more like a boy; only eighteen, the same age as her. He was about Candace’s height, too. He wore a white golf shirt with faded blue jeans and white sneakers. He toted an armful of books rather than carry them in a backpack. Candace thought he had a baby face. He looked like a young Joey Lawrence, with the long hair to match.
    “Yeah,” she said. “How do you know my name?”
    “Hi. I’m in your Economics class,” he said, producing a hand for her to shake.
    She shook it and smiled. “Sorry, I remember you now.”
    “It’s okay,” he said. “A lot of people forget me. I was voted ‘ Most Likely to be Forgotten ’ in high school.” He smiled. It was a pleasant smile. He had nice teeth and pink lips. Candace grinned back at him.
    “That’s pretty sad,” she said, “but I didn’t forget you. I just never knew your name.”
    “I listened for yours when the teacher called roll,” her classmate said. “I don’t like to run up on people yelling, ‘ Hey, you !’ ”
    Candace giggled, still unsure why he approached her in the first place.
    “Is this your first year here?” he asked.
    “Yeah.”
    “Where are you from? Did you go to high school here?”
    “No. I’m from New York.”
    “ New York City? ” he said, in an imitation of the Pace Picante Sauce commercials.
    Candace laughed.
    “So, you like it here?” he asked. “Met some nice people? Seen some sights?”
    Candace was walking now, towards the parking lot.
    The stranger followed. He didn’t have an accent at all. If not for his bronze skin, he could have passed for white. “I’ve been to a few clubs,” she said.
    “Have you seen the stockyards?” he asked.
    “No, but I heard about it. That’s the ‘ Cowtown’ part of the city, right?”
    He grinned. “The whole city is called ‘Cowtown.’ They used to do cattle runs right down Main Street. Back in the day, there were cowboys everywhere. The stockyards still look like that. Everyone’s got on boots and big hats.”
    “You lived here your whole