Embrace Me Read Online Free PDF Page B

pours the fresh pot of coffee into the mugs. “He was a good guy. A real hellion in his younger days. I can relate.”
    I set the sugar bowl on the table. “Yeah, I’ll bet, Rick. If, oh, say, staying out after midnight on a school night can be considered raising hell.”
    â€œI’m guilty of a little of that.” Augustine. “In my own way.”
    â€œMe too,” Blaze joins in.
    â€œNot Valentine!” Rick raises his hands. “Clean as a whistle.”
    â€œYeah. But you’d kinda expect that, looking as I do.”
    â€œHey, none of that around this house.” Blaze opens the refrigerator door. “So Augustine’s our pastor.”
    She’s got to be kidding.
    â€œDo the neck tattoos hurt more?”
    â€œYeah. Kind of a tender spot.” Augustine sits right around the corner of the table from me.
    Blaze turns around with a bowl of eggs. “Hard-boiled. Egg salad for lunch. What are you making for dinner, Valentine?”
    â€œPot roast.”
    â€œSo he’s a pastor. You hear that, Valentine?” Blaze.
    I roll my eyes. “I heard. I gotta have a smoke.”
    Augustine hops to his feet. “I’ll join you.”
    â€œYou smoke?”
    â€œUsed to. I just like smelling the secondhand smoke now.”
    â€œYou’re an odd bird.”
    Blaze begins peeling an egg. “Take it out on the porch, please.”
    â€œYeah, yeah. Hang on. Let me put some real clothes on.”
    I hurry back up to my room. Yanking open my suitcase, I decide to go for warmth. With the snow falling outside, a wet November snow, the kind with pillowy flakes, I don’t have many options. A pair of jeans, my fleece-lined moccasins, and a sweat-shirt from Oxford will do.
    Augustine follows me out onto the screened porch off the dining room at the back of the house. “You go to Oxford?”
    â€œYeah, right. Thrift store.” I light up my smoke. “This has got to be quick. I’m going to have to go up and get Lella soon.”
    â€œBlaze has mentioned her.”
    â€œPretty weird for you visiting the freak house, huh?” He winces. “You known Blaze long?”
    â€œJust this summer.”
    â€œRick?”
    â€œMet him last winter. He’s a good guy.”
    â€œYou know, he really is.” I light my smoke, turning away from him so he can’t see me as I lift the scarf I tied under my eyes. “He’s not a total freak though, you know?”
    â€œI guess not. He feels like one though. Does that count?”
    â€œYou asking that for Rick or for yourself?” I mean, look at the guy. He’s so weird!
    â€œYou’re pretty quick, aren’t you?”
    â€œNo. It doesn’t count. You made yourself look that way. Take Lella. She was born like she was.”
    â€œWhat about you?”
    â€œThis woman burned my face. I was dating her ex-boyfriend and she wanted some revenge.”
    â€œYou’re kidding!”
    â€œYeah. Right here in America. So, technically, I’m not a born freak, I’m a made freak too.” I turn away and inhale. “Just made by somebody other than me.”
    â€œNo kidding. Man.”
    â€œTell me about it. It puts me in a unique position.”
    â€œHow long ago?”
    â€œToo long.”
    â€œHow long until the pain was gone?”
    â€œMonths and months. I still get twitches of pain every so often. Nerve damage. I couldn’t get to a hospital right away so it ate down way too far. I’m lucky I can even see. I guess I should be thankful.”
    He breathes in my smoke and closes his eyes for a second or two. “You don’t have to play that thankful game with me.”
    â€œI thought you said you were a preacher.”
    He shakes his head. “That’s what the neighborhood calls me. I just hang around is all. They expect some kind of ‘message’”— he does the quotation thingee with his