Forbidden Kisses (3:AM Kisses Book 9) Read Online Free PDF Page B

Scarlett’s cheeks heating to match the color of her hair.
    “Maybe he won’t be such a mystery.” I shrug, and Scarlett glares back at me for even bothering to intervene. I look right at her, and something in those glassy jade eyes softens just a bit. As if I tossed out a life preserver to that sinking ship she’s on, and she’s actually made the decision to reach for it. “Maybe you’re looking at him.”
    All three pairs of eyes widen at the same time, Scarlett’s being the most prominent and damning with rage.
    “Come on, Scar Scar.” I tick my head at her. “Let’s let the relationship cat out of the bag. You’re not ashamed of me, are you?”
    Her mouth opens, and an entire series of choking sounds come out—one of my favorite things to induce in a girl, usually in bed and never in front of her sister.
    “See?” I step in close and wrap an arm over her shoulders. “That wasn’t so bad.”
    “Wait a Whitney Briggs’s minute!” Sabrina sings, pointing wildly at the two of us as if she were a conductor. “Does Daddy know about this little indecent arrangement?”
    “No way, no how,” Scarlett grunts it out. Her chest rises and falls as she glares at me a moment. “We’re sort of a new thing—a secret at the moment. We’re only telling the two of you, so if word gets out, we’ll know who to kill.” She gifts them a look that can just as easily slit their throat. There’s the girl I know, right back to her snippy, hostile self. For as much as I can’t stand to be around her, I don’t want to see her beating heart ripped out of her chest by her sister of all people.
    “Oh, honey”—Sabrina skirts her gaze up and down my body twelve times fast as if she might be in the mood to swipe another guy out from under Scarlett’s nose—“our lips are very much sealed.”
    Mom shuttles us over to the living room, giggling like a schoolgirl herself. Just watching her like this, happy to be here, turns my stomach. “How about we watch a movie like one big happy family?” She dots Bradley’s face with a kiss, and a dull collective groan runs through the room. I don’t think a single one of us can ever get used to seeing their geriatric love connection in action.
    Knox and Lawson help narrow down our viewing picks, and while everyone vies for their favorite flick, I pull Mom aside to the hall.
    “What’s with the June Cleaver routine?” I glance down at her flour-stained apron. This reeks Halloween costume more than it ever does happy homemaker, especially with my mother dressed the part.
    “Would you relax?” She strokes my hair for a moment as if I were five. “Can you just once be happy for me?” Her features relax, beckoning me to do the same. My mother has been through a hell of a lot, I’ll give her that, but something about the way this weekend, this relationship of hers with Brad-the-Fad is unfolding has me feeling a little sorry for the guy. “You know I’ve been through a lot. I deserve this”—she scowls at her choice of clothing—“this Happy Suzy Homemaker delusion.”
    “Delusion being the operative word.” The lights dim as Bradley calls us each to take a seat. He pats the space next to him for his Lyn Lyn . God help me or I might actually land my fist through that old coot’s jaw.
    “Enough for now,” she whispers as we head on over. “Just forget about the past, Rex. God knows I have.” She struts off and lands next to Scarlett’s father as if he had been holding that seat for her for the last twenty years.
    But those last few words of hers sting the most. It’s true. My mother has set the past very far behind her.

    * * *
    A fter a droning action comedy that most of us have seen one too many times before, my mother doles out room assignments. Knox and Trixy bunk together. They’re twins, two years my junior, and they’ve spent their whole lives bunking together. Even at their age, they don’t seem to mind. Scarlett and her sister are in the room next to