Notes from Ghost Town Read Online Free PDF

me, of course.” He smiles, reaching for the bottle and tilting a clear stream of vodka back into his mouth. He swallows and then starts coughing, grimacingas he shakes his soft gray (blond) head. “Man. That’s … good.”
    “I’d only steal the
best
for you, Austin Morse,” I say, taking another long swig, listening to the waves play out my mother’s sonatas, the achy piers creaking and moaning. I take one more sip before he reaches for it back. I’m already beginning to feel softer around the edges, warm. It’s working: memories of Mom, of Stern, going fuzzy and distant. Unimportant.
    “I get the feeling you’re being sarcastic, Olivia,” he says, drawing little
x
‘s in the sand with his pinkie finger.
    “We never learned about sarcasm in public school,” I answer sweetly. “That costs extra.”
    “Weren’t you in, like, some art school for awhile?” He takes another swig, lifting the bottom of his shirt to wipe his mouth with, so I can see the tan cut of his stomach, the line of white (blond) hair leading down into his soft gray (khaki?) shorts. I’m surprised he even realized I’d been gone; I didn’t think I was on his radar.
    “Yeah …
was
.” I drop my palms behind me in the sand, recalling my brief stint of freedom, away from here. “And weren’t you at Ransom Everglades,” I ask, “before you got expelled for doing drugs and your Dad got you transferred to Finnegan?”
    “Yeah,
was
,” he answers, smiling like all the shit he gets away with on account of his being the stepson of a bazillionaire is no big deal. When my friend Chris was arrested, during the same bust, he didn’t get to go back toschool. He got a stint at juvie and a job at Taco Bell. “So … how was Michigan?” Austin asks, obviously trying to change the subject.
    “Boring,” I answer, rising back up. “Midwestern. Lots of fat people.”
    “At your school? I thought artists were all supposed to be starving.” He hiccups and makes a face. I laugh, walking my fingers through the sand, back to the Grey Goose. The fact that he has human bodily functions, like hiccupping, is surprising for some reason and makes me weirdly happy.
    “Nope. They just sat around eating Velveeta all day. No one even painted.” I pull my shoes off, leap up from the sand, and start cartwheeling around, warm all over, a wild, reckless feeling soaring through my whole body. Nothing matters right now and I don’t care what Austin Morse or anyone in Miami, or Michigan, or anywhere, thinks of me.
Nothing matters
.
    A few moments of silence, and then: “Bryce told me he hooked up with Raina,” says Austin, hauling himself to his feet, picking a loose shell from the sand and tossing it across one of the piers and into the water.
    “Yeah,” I giggle, finding my own shell and chucking it. “You’d better tell him to wear gloves the next time he hooks up with one of my friends.”
    “Well you’d better tell her to wear a mouth guard.” Ooh.
Burn
.
    I push him a little, playfully. “Whatever. My girl
knows
what she’s doing. Trust me.”
    “In that case,” he says, pushing back, “could you give me her number?”
    I walk further ahead, ignoring his comment—
am I actually
flirting
with Austin Stevenson Morse right now?
—digging my feet into the sand, watching the line of ocean foam slink back from the shore.
    The satisfying thing about talking to Austin Morse is that he’s just sort of easy. He’s filler. Fluff. Eye candy. I’m an alien creature to him—a puzzle to slot together. But there’s something exciting about having power over a person like him. It’s the power that comes from being a girl, from having nothing to lose.
    When I catch him staring at me, something swirls through my chest, sharp and fizzy as champagne.
    “So … what do you think of the new condos?” He stands up and comes toward me, offering me the bottle again. “Sweet, right?”
    I take another long swill and the world begins to spin a little. I