Notorious Read Online Free PDF Page B

verge of breaking her heart.
    Brandon’s calfskin Gucci loafers padded down the path through the woods until Heath and Easy stepped off the stone path and into the brush. Brandon tried not to ruin his shoes as they picked their way through the tall weeds and low branches. The woods opened briefly onto a small clearing filled with large rocks that students had been using as a clandestine party spot for decades—the crater. The sky above was darkening, but it wasn’t yet cold.
    “He said to look for the biggest rock along the edge and then walk into the woods until it gets soppy.” Heath identified the biggest rock and motioned to them like he was flagging in a plane on the runway.
    Brandon frowned at his shoes. The parade of boys crunched the sticks and leaves underfoot, and then suddenly the earth got spongy and damp. “Fuck,” Brandon muttered under his breath.
    “Behold!” Heath crouched at the base of a tree. “Mushrooms!”
    Everyone started to pick them, gathering the dirty caps in their hands. Brandon would have expected them to look a little more exotic. These looked so innocent and, well, culinary, as if they belonged in some kind of Szechuan stir-fry his family’s cook, Greta, might throw together.
    “Hate to break it to you, Ferro.” Ryan nibbled on one of the caps and then sniffed it as though he was a mushroom connoisseur, which, given the rumors about his parents, was possible. “But these aren’t the real thing.”
    “Shit, man,” Heath muttered. “Well, should we chill at the crater or head back?”
    Disappointed votes to chill were murmured, and a few minutes later Brandon felt the cold wetness of the grass soaking through his Dolce & Gabbana jeans as the rest of the guys revisited the topic of Tinsley’s hotness. Brandon closed his eyes and let the sound of the crickets drown out the boys’ voices. He really wasn’t interested in thinking about Tinsley. He loved
Callie
. She’d dumped him for Easy over a year ago, so they’d been broken up for longer than they’d been together, but still Brandon couldn’t get her off his mind. And she wasn’t helping much—last week he’d bumped into her after one of the girls-only welcome-back parties and she’d drunkenly asked him to sleep with her. He’d just wanted to hold her and talk to her until the alcohol wore off. He would have sat up with her all night, but he wasn’t about to take advantage of her when she was clearly an emotional wreck about whatever was going on with that slimeball Easy. Sleazy Easy.
    “The stars are coming out. Chicks love stars,” Heath remarked. “You know who I’d take here?”
    “Tinsley,” a few of the guys said in unison.
    “Good luck with that, Ferro,” Easy drawled. He was lying on the grass, staring at the sky. Callie had named a star for him once through some cheesy Web site, but looking at the sky right now, he couldn’t imagine looking for his star with Callie. The only girl he wanted to look at stars with was Jenny. If only she were here right now.
    “We should head back.” Brandon interrupted Easy’s thoughts, and the boys stumbled awkwardly to their feet, still talking about Tinsley and what it would be like to be with her. Easy
had
been with her, before Callie, when a bunch of them went up to Alaska for spring break. They’d stayed up all night, naked in the hot tub, mostly just talking and looking at the stars. Tinsley was gorgeous, but Easy was pretty sure that the thing that made guys obsess over her was the same thing that made him happy to stay away. She was kind of …
wicked
.
    Then, as they stepped back onto the manicured green of the main campus, Easy saw Tinsley marching toward them across the grass. He watched her approach, wearing a strapless turquoise minidress and black cloth Mary Janes like the kind you buy in tacky Chinese gift shops. Leave it to Tinsley to pair a dress like that with five-dollar shoes.
    “Don’t you all look suspicious, coming out of the woods like