Flying Read Online Free PDF

and blow away.”
    “I’ll take my chances,” Stella said.

CHAPTER FOUR
    At birth, Tristan had weighed six pounds, four ounces. He was sixteen inches long. He had no hair, bald as an egg, and had cried nonstop, round the clock, insatiable and inconsolable for the first month and a half of his life.
    Sixteen years later he was taller than both his parents, outweighed Stella by about sixty pounds and had the same insatiable appetite, though fortunately he’d replaced the constant screaming with incessant commentary on the world. At least, he used to talk all the time. Now, instead of the hugs and the “love you, Mamas,” Tristan’s conversations had become stilted and intermittent. He’d replaced his formerly goofy sense of humor with a more sarcastic edge that sometimes bordered on cruel but was nevertheless bitingly funny. Stella hated to laugh at him but usually did, especially when he was making fun of his stepmother.
    “That’s not nice,” she murmured at his demonstration of how Cynthia’s mouth was always slightly parted. “Eat your grilled cheese.”
    She’d made his favorite with thick slices of rye bread and cheddar, along with a few strips of crispy bacon and thinly sliced tomato. Not the healthiest dinner, but Tristan had grown up and stretched out so much she figured he could stand the extra calories, especially with all the running he’d been doing. For herself, she had a grilled chicken and spinach salad.
    Tristan looked at the plate, then at her. “Can’t I have what you’re having?”
    She paused with her fork ready to stab the spinach. “You love grilled cheese.”
    Tristan said nothing. He cut his gaze from hers, looking so much like Jeff it hurt her heart. Tristan pushed the plate with the tips of his fingers. “No, I don’t.”
    “Since when?” Stella tried to keep the edge from her voice, too aware how easy it would be for them to slip into an argument. He not only looked like his dad; he had a lot of Jeff’s personality too. All the things that had driven her nuts about her ex-husband were blooming in her son. No matter how much she’d determined Tristan would never be the sort of man who expected the world to hand him a living on a platter, it seemed nature sometimes did win over nurture. She loved her son, always, with every breath inside her. But there’d been a lot of days lately where she found it very difficult to like him.
    “Since always.” He muttered something else and moved the plate another half an inch away from him.
    Stella stabbed her salad. “What was that?”
    “Nothing. I didn’t say anything.”
    “You did,” she said. “I heard it.”
    “Nothing. Forget it,” Tristan repeated stubbornly. He got up from the table, leaving the plate. “I’m not hungry, anyway. I’m going out for a run.”
    He was already through the kitchen doorway before she called out to him, “Hold up. Put the sandwich away for later and put your plate in the dishwasher.”
    He did, dragging his feet and heaving a sigh as if she’d asked him to amputate all his limbs with a rusty carrot peeler.
    “I shouldn’t even have to ask you that. C’mon, Tristan.” She managed to keep her voice steady and focus on her salad. “You should know better.”
    “Yeah?” he challenged. “Well, so should you!”
    Before she could ask him what the hell he meant by that, he’d stomped away. Footsteps pounded up the stairs and down the hall to his room. The door slammed.
    Stella’d lost her appetite too but forced herself to eat anyway. When Tristan thundered down the stairs and toward the front door, she called out again, “Where are you going and how long do you think you’ll be gone?”
    “For a run, I told you, and I don’t know.”
    There was no way for her to force a different answer from him without a fight, and she was tired of arguing with him. “You have your phone?”
    “Yes.”
    “Don’t go too far,” she said. “Remember—”
    “Yeah, I know, it feels twice as