Brazing (Forged in Fire #2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

doing that!” I laughed hysterically into the thin cell phone. “You’re out of your mind!”
                  “Please,” Carter begged me from the other end. “Please, please, please !”
                  “Now you’re just being pathetic.” I hovered outside the library doors, knowing I wouldn’t be able to keep my voice down while talking with Carter. I had an issue with talking quietly. An issue as in I was incapable of doing it. When I spoke to anyone, my voice got obnoxiously loud and my laugh was worse. My friends were constantly shushing me.
                  It was a miracle and also a kind of ironic joke that I got a shelving job in the library. While I loved my place of employment, even more so because it was perfectly convenient to my college life, I didn’t exactly fit in.
    The library, and consequently most of the other employees, had this certain stoic severity about them. The books were lined up perfectly. The volume level kept to a studious whisper. My coworkers wore modest, preppy clothes that matched their trimmed, perfectly coiffed hair and their dull, lifeless shoes.
                  My boss had told me once that she hired me to “spice things up” around the mundane routine that hardly ever changed from day-to-day. And the thing was, I didn’t blame her. The library was boring . And that was an emotion I could not tolerate.
                  But I stayed for the good of the people I worked with. I didn’t even want to imagine their lives without me to brighten the mood and bring a little crazy to their rigidly scheduled programming. Plus, when I wasn’t stacking books, I could study and I always got the books I wanted when I needed them because as soon as they were returned, I set them aside for myself.
                  “Listen, we’re going tonight,” Carter continued on. “And if I have to blindfold and gag you again to get your ass there, then that’s what I’ll do.”
                  The thing was… I believed her. “Come on, Carter. Really? Karaoke? I would rather go to the silent film marathon in the student union then endure a bunch of my peers singing bad boy band remixes while drunk off their asses.”
                  She snorted a laugh. “What happened to carpe diem , Tate? I thought we were living the college life to the fullest? Especially before you-”
                  “I never said it included every bad song from the nineties,” I snickered. But she’d already said the magic words and she knew it.
                  “Tatum Mackenzie Halloway, you’re going tonight, even if I have to drag you there myself. Plus, those guys from my Econ class are going to meet us. I can finally introduce you to Sawyer.”
                  “And his friend Huckleberry Finn?”
                  “You laugh now, but this guy is seriously hot, my friend. And he’s interested in you.” She sounded so smug on the other end. I could just imagine what Sawyer had already heard about me. If it was coming from my optimistic BFF, the sky was the limit.
                  “Yeah right. Just wait until he hears me sing… that interest will die a very painful, very slow, very tone-deaf death.”
                  “Maybe we’ll just watch other people sing,” Carter suggested wisely.
                  I started laughing again, loudly. “This was your idea!”
                  “But mostly for the half-price beer and free peanuts.”
                  “Ah, my frugal friend, this is why our college years are going to be epic.” I looked out at the sprawling campus in front of me. We were way into fall at the beginning of November and all of the trees had turned to beautifully muted tones of dark orange and rusty red, burnished gold and rich purples. The sun had settled low on the horizon and the