How We Lived (Entangled Embrace) Read Online Free PDF Page B

rest of her life.
    “She’s pretty,” Rosie said.
    I closed my eyes. It was too much. I had to turn around, had to look. They were just leaving when I finally pulled it together enough to actually do it. My gaze landed on her face first, but I couldn’t help myself. I looked down and saw their clasped hands.
    It was like someone kicked me in the balls.
    Cursing, I shoved myself away from the bar and headed straight for the bathroom.
    Why the hell had I looked? To torture myself? The hand in hers should have been mine. I splashed cool water on my face, trying to relieve the itch behind my eyes. I would never get to hold her hand like that. Not after what I did.
    A few minutes later, the bathroom door groaned open and Vito put a hand on my shoulder. “I packed up your dinner. Why don’t you head home? Rosie said she’d drive you.”
    I shook my head. No way was I getting in a car with Rosie. Not after she’d acted flirty. Not after seeing Kelsey with Bear. I would be no one’s idea of good company right now. “I can drive myself.”
    He patted my shoulder and smiled at me through the mirror. “Go easy on my granddaughter when you let her down. I think she might have a thing for your unkempt hair and wrinkled clothes. But I can tell it’s a lost cause.”
    Was it written all over my face? No wonder Bear wanted to kick my ass. “I will. If this hasn’t scared her off, I’ll talk to her.”
    “You’re a good man, son. You do what makes you happy.”
    I nodded once. It was the simplest advice in the world, but sometimes your happiness depended on someone else.

Chapter Three
    -Kelsey-
    Bear helped me into his truck before running around to the other side. “My place? I don’t think your parents will care.”
    Of course they wouldn’t. I was barely a blip on their radar screen.
    I tried the fake smile on him again. “Just for a little while, okay? I’m getting kind of tired.”
    Bear was lucky. His father let him stay in the studio apartment above the family business, Pearse’s Garage, as long as he worked there. He’d moved in sometime after Kyle died. The apartment was pitch black when we came in. Bear strode across the room and turned on a lamp, casting a small glow over everything. His place always smelled the same, a mixture of cheap soap and the deli meats he used in his sandwiches for lunch every day. For a guy, he kept his place relatively neat. I’d helped him decorate when he moved in and ever since, I’d pick up little things I thought he’d like. There was just as much of me in his apartment as there was of him.
    A picture of me, him, and Kyle sat atop the TV stand, and another one of just him and me, with a torn edge, was propped on his dresser. He tore Chase out. Like Chase never existed in the first place. Like he’d never been at the school dance with us, and ganged up with Bear to pick on me so severely about Jeff Clover asking me to dance that Kyle made them both apologize.
    Kyle always put family first. Well, maybe it was just me. He always put me first. Chase and Bear were just a tick behind, but I was his sister. If anyone messed with me, including his best friends, they were going to hear about it. Before he went into the army, there really weren’t many instances where he had to put me first. However, after he left and things started to get bad for him, I was the only one he’d talk to. Chase would come by and ask about him because the emails and phone calls stopped. Kyle just didn’t know how to tell his friends he’d made the wrong choice. He was embarrassed. It wasn’t that he couldn’t take the military, he just hated it.
    Bear stroked my shoulders from behind. “The bed or the couch?”
    I wrapped his arms around me and led him to the couch. It was safer. He didn’t mind. He drew me down to his lap and kissed my forehead.
    Bear hadn’t been my first kiss. Unfortunately, that honor went to Jeff Clover, but Bear had kissed me when I needed it the most. When we were