Hush, Hush #1 Read Online Free PDF

move on?”
    “I study her,” Patch said. “I figure out what she’s thinking and feeling.
    She’s not going to come right out and tell me, which is why I have to pay attention. Does she turn her body toward mine? Does she hold my eyes, then look away? Does she bite her lip and play with her hair, the way Nora is doing right now?”
    Laughter rose in the room. I dropped my hands to my lap.
    “She’s game,” said Patch, bumping my leg again. Of all things, I blushed.
    “Very good! Very good!” Coach said, his voice charged, smiling broadly at our attentiveness.
    “The blood vessels in Nora’s face are widening and her skin is warming,” Patch said. “She knows she’s being evaluated. She likes the attention, but she’s not sure how to handle it.”
    “I am not blushing.”
    “She’s nervous,” Patch said. “She’s stroking her arm to draw attention away from her face and down to her figure, or maybe her skin. Both are strong selling points.”
    I nearly choked. He’s joking , I told myself. No, he’s insane. I had no experience dealing with lunatics, and it showed. I felt like I spent most of our time together staring at Patch, mouth agape. If I had any illusions about keeping up with him, I was going to have to figure out a new 39
    approach.
    I placed my hands flat against the table, held my chin high, and tried to look as if I still possessed some dignity. “This is ridiculous.”
    Stretching his arm out to his side with exaggerated slyness, Patch hung it on the back of my chair. I had the strange feeling that this was a threat aimed entirely at me, and that he was unaware and uncaring of how the class received it. They laughed, but he didn’t seem to hear it, holding my eyes so singly with his own that I almost believed he’d carved a small, private world for us that no one else could reach.
    Vulnerable , he mouthed.
    I locked my ankles around the legs of my chair and jerked forward, feeling the weight of his arm drop off the back of the seat. I was not vulnerable.
    “And there you have it!” Coach said. “Biology in motion.”
    “Can we please talk about sex now?” asked Vee.
    “Tomorrow. Read chapter seven and be ready for a discussion first thing.”
    The bell rang, and Patch scraped his chair back. “That was fun. Let’s do it again sometime.” Before I could come up with something more pithy than No, thanks , he edged behind me and disappeared out the door.
    “I’m starting a petition to have Coach fired,” Vee said, coming to my table. “What was up with class today? It was watered-down porn. He practically had you and Patch on top of your lab table, horizontal, minus your clothes, doing the Big Deed—”

    40
    I nailed her with a look that said, Does it look like I want a replay?
    “Yeesh,” Vee said, stepping back.
    “I need to talk to Coach. I’ll meet you at your locker in ten minutes.”
    “Sure thing.”
    I made my way up to Coach’s desk, where he sat hunched over a book of basketball plays. At first glance all the Xs and Os made it look like he’d been playing tic-tac-toe.
    “Hi, Nora,” he said without looking up. “What can I do for you?”
    “I’m here to tell you the new seating chart and lesson plan is making me uncomfortable.”
    Coach kicked back in his chair and folded his hands behind his head. “I like the seating chart. Almost as much as I like this new man-to-man play I’m working on for Saturday’s game.”
    I set a copy of the school code of conduct and student rights down on top of it. “By law, no student should feel threatened on school property.”
    “You feel threatened?”
    “I feel uncomfortable. And I’d like to propose a solution.” When Coach didn’t cut me off, I drew a confident breath. “I will tutor any student from any of your biology classes—if you will seat me beside Vee again.”
    “Patch could use a tutor.”
    I resisted gritting my teeth. “That defeats the point.”

    41
    “Did you see him today? He was