A Perfect Mess Read Online Free PDF

easy.
    “Sit down,” she finally said. “Please.”
    I grinned and slid into the booth. Betty Sue came over to wait on us and glared at me. “Booker Outlaw, you causin’ trouble?”
    “Who, me?” I asked innocently. “I’m just bein’ neighborly to Aubree, here.”
    Betty Sue looked at Aubree and Aubree shot back a long-suffering look with a side of he’s harmless .
    I wasn’t harmless, but I wasn’t about to tell them that.
    After Betty Sue left with our orders, Aubree leaned forward and hissed. “My hesitation doesn’t have anything to do with your reputation, Booker. That’s offensive, and you did it on purpose to get a rise out of me. It’s just…you remind me of that night.”
    Ouch. That was brutally honest. Sick inside that she associated me with what happened, I couldn’t help saying, “Then you and I should make some new memories. I’m having a party next Saturday. Why don’t you come on by?”
    She shook her head and my pulse jumped like frog legs on a skillet. Aubree posed a challenge I couldn’t resist.
    “It’s best we don’t make any memories at all. I intend to go back to Tulane, and you will surely stay here in Suttontowne and do…whatever…it is you do.”
    She said it like I was an idiot for not going to college. She didn’t know that I made it big. I smirked and she huffed. “Well, not all of us can go to college. I find pounding sand to be most enlightening.”
    Her lips tightened and I wondered for one glorious moment how they would soften with my mouth fused to hers. How her body would melt.
    “Just like you not to take me seriously,” she said, her jaw tightening. “Education is so important, vital in fact. Don’t you want to live up to your potential?”
    I leaned back. Intense was the only way to describe Aubree right now. She was able to get this amazing holier-than-thou-attitude, as if I was some kinda slack-jawed moron. “Bullshit. I don’t need some teacher or college degree to tell me I’ve measured up. I get my education from just laying back and living life.”
    Aubree took a deep breath and rolled her eyes. “ Lying back is for hound dogs and old men on porches. For one, you’re the wrong species, and for the other, you’re not old enough for a rocking chair yet. A university offers structure and disciplined study for civilized men.”
    I leaned forward, enjoying the debate, enjoying her. I gave her a direct stare, capturing that green fire all for myself. “I’m not exactly a civilized man.”
    Her eyes widened and she licked her full, pink lips. Goddamn . I salivated, waiting for her response.
    Just then Betty Sue slammed down our orders.
    I dug right in, but eventually noticed that Aubree was barely touching her food. “What are you studying at Tulane?”
    She looked up. Her chin lifted like she had a chip on her shoulder. “Statistics.”
    I made a face and she looked irritated. “What?” she said in a demanding voice.
    “What the hell kind of major is that, sugar?”
    Her voice was carefully controlled when she responded, which said to me that she was offended by my question. Aubree got more buttoned up and uptight when she felt threatened. But I believe in being tested. What was the point if there was no challenge?
    “It’s mathematics, only the foundation of everything. There is math in the clothes we wear, the things that we use to make our lives convenient. It’s in the very air we breathe. So how can statistics not be a good major? Math is the framework of the universe .”
    “It sounds boring. How is it going to get you to your potential? Do you have an equation for that?”
    She tilted her head like she was trying to figure out if I was really dense or just being contrary. “By applying myself. I’m a whiz at it. I can relate it to a number of real-life problems”
    “If it comes so easily, how does that test you?”
    For a moment she stared at me like I’d just stood on my head and started making monkey noises. Then she took a