Cinderella Steals Home Read Online Free PDF Page A

flip-flops.
    "Come down to the pool," he says.
    "Oh, no, I can't."  
    He raises an eyebrow. "Why not?"  
    "I don't want to intrude."  
    He sighs. "Holly, come on, I told you."  
    "I know, I know. But I would just feel weird."  
    "Well, don't," he says. "Get your suit on and come downstairs. I have some friends coming over, too."  
    "Oh, then I'd definitely rather not -- "
    "I'm not gonna take no for an answer," he says, leaning against the door frame and crossing his arms over his chest. "Just so you know."
    I let out a sigh. "I'm not going to win, am I?"  
    He shakes his head. "Nope. Never. Just like when we were little."  
    I tense up at the thought of some trip down memory lane with him. There's something I definitely don't want to explore. "Okay, okay. I'll meet you down there."  
    He gives me a big self-satisfied grin before he turns and walks away, whistling to himself, and leaving me to find a bathing suit and gather my thoughts.  
    I root through my suitcases since I haven't bothered unpacking yet -- I don't know when I'll be ready to do that and really move in -- but I can only come up with two bikinis from back home, and I don't really want to wear either, considering it's been months since I've let the sun really touch my skin.  
    I lay both of them out on my bed and stare down at them -- one is purple with big white polka dots, the other red and stringy -- before remembering that I'm just going downstairs to meet my brother and I don't care about impressing his friends, especially if they're all like that girl from yesterday, so it doesn't really matter what I wear.
    I grab the red one after examining the pulls on the butt of the purple bottoms and change into it quickly. I toss a short blue cotton dress over my head as a makeshift cover-up and jam my feet into a pair of jeweled sandals. A quick head-to-toe application of sunscreen, lip balm and a messy ponytail later, and I grab my headphones and book, and head down to the pool I'm supposed to consider my own.  
    Fat chance.
    I walk out onto the deck and see Justin coming out of the pool house with a stack of dry towels in his arms as I walk over to an empty lawn chair.  
    "Here." Justin tosses two burnt orange towels down onto the lounger. "Use these."  
    "Thanks."  
    I spread out my towels, lower the back of the chair to a sleeping position and flop down, pulling my sunglasses over my eyes, and let the hot desert sun soak into my pale Pennsylvania skin.  
    My feet bop in time to the beat of the song playing over my headphones, but I barely hear it. I'm slowly losing track of this world as the heat warms my bones. It's perfect right here and now, with the slight breeze rustling through the palm trees. All my cares, as they say, are slipping away, and it's getting easier and easier to forget the craziness of the last year of my life.  
    And that's when I hear the shouts distant through the headphones. My eyelids flutter a few times before popping wide open at the shrill scream of a girl.
    Four guys and two girls stand on the deck on the other side of the pool with Justin, all of them talking at once, and all of them ruining my peaceful state.  
    I'm grateful right now for the privacy my sunglasses offer; I can be a total creep on them without having them realize I'm staring.  
    I don't recognize anyone, not that I would even if I had known them when I was little and lived out here. Justin's girl from the other day isn't with them, and two of the guys have their tanned, shirtless backs to me. The ones that I can see aren't particularly cute, either. I shrug and hope they aren't going to be too loud, or else me coming down the pool was a bad idea like I'd originally thought it was.
    I close my eyes, hoping to get back to that happy place I'd found just a few minutes ago.
    But it isn't long before the shouts and splashes and cries of excitement seep into my ears and filter in even with the headphones. I let out a sigh and prop myself up on my