Between Friends Read Online Free PDF Page A

having your own business, hitting what my father liked to call the “gravy mark.” Once you hit it, everything after that was gravy.
    As they left, Laura turned back at the door and said, “Thank you,” in a clear, distinct voice, filled with the genuine warmth her mother lacked. I told her to come back anytime, and she smiled as the door shut behind her. I stared after her, comparing her to Letty. I should have asked where she went to school, though I’d be willing to bet that Laura went to a private school.
    I’d tried to interest Letty in music, even forced her to take piano lessons for a few years, but nothing ever took. She learned to walk at the mall, pushing her own stroller. I placed my hand low on my belly imagining another baby growing inside me, smiling at the thought of being pregnant again.
    Letty checked in with me when she got home from school, and I promised to bring her home Thai food for dinner, feeling generous about my bright, pretty daughter, thinking that she’d make a wonderful older sister.
    I left early, skipping my drive down Crayton, anxious to get the food and get home. Tonight I wouldn’t be put off by Benny. Hitting the gravy mark felt auspicious, and I was looking forward to sitting with Benny in the backyard and talking about our new lives.

LETTY

    She hardly remembered how they got to her room. Well, that wasn’t really true. She’d brought Seth there, feeling really excited, walking backward and pulling him with her, but when she was close enough to breathe him in, she barely remembered her own name. They had more than an hour and it seemed like forever, but also not enough time to really get in any trouble.
    He pulled away before she got him through the door, making her face redden, as if she were acting desperate.
    “My mom’s not going to be home for a while,” she protested.
    “It’s not your mom I’m worried about, baby.”
    “My dad?”
    “You think? Damn, I don’t feel like gettin’ popped. I’m gonna find a place for us.”
    “What do you mean?” she asked, feeling uneasy for the first time. She felt okay in his car and in her house, but she wasn’t sure she should go to a place for us .
    “I can’t keep staying at Paul’s, his mom’s getting tired of me.”
    “How long have you been there?”
    He shrugged. “Week or so.”
    She thought back over the past month and the different friends he’d said he was staying with. “Do you go home at all anymore? Doesn’t your father get mad that you’re not there?”
    He laughed and kissed her and didn’t answer.
    “We could check out that house,” he said.
    “What house?”
    “That empty one you showed me. Come on, you didn’t take me there by accident.”
    She blushed again, and he turned around and left her in the hallway.
    “Wait, Seth . . .”
    He was looking out the front window, cracking the plantation shutters, then snapping them back up.
    “So when’s he supposed to be home?” Seth asked.
    She shrugged. “I don’t know, after my mom.”
    “Where’s he keep his guns and stuff?” he asked, setting off toward the master bedroom.
    She hurried after him. Her dad had a safe he kept his guns in. She’d never known the combination, so she wasn’t worried about Seth getting it open, but still, she didn’t want him bothering anything. She knew her parents would know. Her dad had been a cop since before she was born. He knew everything.
    Almost everything.
    He didn’t know about Seth, but only because he hadn’t thought to ask.
    Seth was already in the closet, looking at the safe.
    “It’s locked, it always is,” she told him, listening for the sound of her mom’s car even though she wasn’t due home. He didn’t turn around, just ran his hands around the outside of the safe, like he was looking for a hidden catch or something.
    “Come on,” she said, tugging at him. He turned in her arms, and finally, finally , bent to kiss her. She started moving out of the closet, tugging him with her.