Bounce Read Online Free PDF

it’s rude. It has a bad attitude, my hangover. By lunchtime, I feel like I’m dying. I get half an hour to raid the craft services table, then I’m back on. My energy’s completely gone, so I start napping on the couch during the three-to-five-minute intervals between reads.
    The p.m. hours drag past, even slower than morning. This was never fun, but now it’s torture. My band’s practicing tonight. I tell Adam I need to be there. That I won’t miss it. But around six o’clock, I’m still saying that I fucking love Emma and always fucking have.
    â€œI’m done, Adam,” I say, after the thirtieth girl who looks the same and sounds the same. I lie back on the couch, closing my eyes.
    â€œNo you’re not, Grey.”
    â€œFeel free to go off script if the mood strikes,” Brooks says.
    They’re getting desperate. I don’t think they’ve found a single girl they like. I know I haven’t. They want my help in drawing these girls out, but I’ve nothing to give. “Must. Go. Home.”
    â€œOne more hour,” my brother says.
    â€œCan’t. I hate Emma, Adam. I really do. I hate her.”
    A nudge on my boot surprises me. “Hey. Could you scoot over?”
    Lifting my forearm, I force my eyes open though they want to slam shut. And then they don’t. Then I’m suddenly wide-awake, because what do you know?
    It’s the girl with the pink hair.

   Chapter 6   
    Skyler
    T he kid gives me the sleepy-eyed look of a sloth on Thorazine and slowly, really slowly, straightens his massive frame, scooting up and back against the arm of the sofa. There’s a lot of him, filling the space. Broad chest and thickly muscled arms, long legs that spill everywhere. Giant pair of scuffed-up motorcycle boots that look to be the size of my forearm. I need him to at least make a pretense at some life here, or I’m sunk.
    â€œTold you I’d see you again,” he says, and gives me a sly grin. “Didn’t get your name before. I’m Grey. Blackwood.”
    No.
    Really?
    Shit.
    â€œSo, you’re Adam’s—”
    â€œServant. Like I told you outside.”
    â€œBrother,” Adam answers from behind a long table about five feet away. He and the others sit there with ramrod postures, like the panel at a parole board hearing. I can tell this guy, Grey, is working every nerve today, not just mine.
    I take a deep breath and then another. The only way out is through, I decide, so I sit next to him. “I’m Skyler,” I tell him. And then I smooth my skirt and glance over the pages because I have no idea what I’m actually supposed to do.
    Paper rustles, and I look over to Mia, who gives me a sympathetic smile. “Why don’t you start us off, Sky?” she nudges. “Start with, ‘What did you come to tell me, George?’ ”
    I nod, look over the script again, only it’s like one of those anxiety dreams where words turn to squiggles and slide off the page. I can’t find the line. I don’t know what I’m doing. My heart doesn’t speed up but makes these giant thuds in my chest— boom, boom, boom . Like someone’s using a battering ram on my sternum.
    Grey sits there, looking at me with this crooked smile on his face. That grin again. The one that says it’s all just fun and games to him. I want to strangle him, but I make myself settle down, home in on my desire to wake him the hell up, make him pay attention.
    Magically, the words reassemble themselves on the page, and I start. “What did you come to tell me, George?”
    It sounds angry, but in the waiting area, I’d imagined delivering the line in a way that spoke of weariness, resignation. Emma’s lost her chance at love, and all she expects from George is further confirmation of that fact.
    Grey starts, but it comes out in one mumbled rush. “