Random on Tour: Los Angeles (Random Series #7) Read Online Free PDF

beige, like the shallow part of the ocean. I only know that color from living in Boston for a couple of years. You go to Castle Island a few times for free shore time and you can see it.
    The water. Growing up in St. Louis meant Johnny’d never seen the ocean. I wanted to bring him back with me. He was eighteen now and could do whatever he wanted. Two years ago, when I moved to the east coast, he begged. Pleaded. Bargained and all that shit for a chance to come with me. 
    I couldn’t.
    He hated me for that. Still does. But now he’s eighteen and can do whatever the fuck he wants. 
    That appeared to be drugs . And lots of them. I knew a tweaker when I saw one. So did Johnny.
    All we needed to do was look at our dad.
    “Too late to give Dad a hug and a kiss,” Johnny said. “What the hell do you think, Tyler? He’s gone. Turned himself in.”
    Back in prison.
    “Fuck.”
    “Fuck? That’s it?” He snorted, then shoved his palm up, fast, against his nose. A thin trickle of blood smeared his thumb joint.
    Scabs. Twitching. Bleeding nose. What drug was Johnny not taking?
    “How long?” I asked. My lips began tingling. My scalp felt like bees crawled under it. My fingers wanted to do anything but stay empty. I bent down to grab the handle of my bass case. 
    “How long what ?”
    “How long’s he in for?”
    “Ten months.”
    I made a low whistle and looked around the place. No ceiling lights and half the lamps were out. I knew that meant the light bulbs had burnt and no one had the money to replace them. Overflowing ashtrays dotted the broken coffee table. Burns made the top look like it was a piece of sick art, the surface eroded on purpose by the heat of the cigarette cherries. But there was no purpose. 
    Just Dad’s way.
    No one had vacuumed in months. I was probably the last person who bothered to clean. The apartment had a funk. More than the smell of two men sharing the place. It smelled like decay. Like hopelessness. Like agony.
    Like giving up.
    Johnny’s eyes were so hateful it hurt to look at him. He looked so much like our mom. When he glared at me it was like Mom came back from the grave and shamed me. I tore my eyes from him and took a deep breath. Cut it off right away ’cause the odor burned.
    “Shit, man, what are we gonna do?” I asked him, my fingers going half numb from too many hormones, too little sleep, and the sense that something was deeply wrong in this place. More wrong than usual, and that was saying a lot.
    “We?” He made a nasty sound in the back of his throat. “What the hell you think I’m gonna do, Tyler? Go to my fancy prep school and get a massage? I’ll be fine.” His eyes hardened, like two pieces of tree bark. “I’ve got jobs.”
    Jobs. That meant he was dealing.
    “Huh,” was all I could say. It said everything. It said nothing. Any words I could come up with would be about as useful.
    “What about you?” He smirked. “Made it big yet? Sign a contract for a record deal?” His tone of voice made him sound exactly like Dad.
    Dad wasn’t exactly an optimist.
    “Nah,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “I get by.”
    “We all get by. It’s what we Gilvreys do. We get by.”
    My throat filled with angry, salty outrage. Being lumped in with Dad and Johnny made everything in me go tense. A cold flush covered my body. Words didn’t come. Just feelings. Emotions I was about as good at handling as words. 
    I looked at his greasy hair, the scabs on his body, his crappy shoes and how his bones seemed like someone carved them out of his skin. I hadn’t been home in half a year. How had Johnny changed so much? I was five years older and a million miles away. His life was nothing but street running and drugs.
    “I’ll help.” Those were the only words I could think to say.
    Wrong ones.
    “Help? What the fuck kind of help do you think you can give me, Tyler? Dad’s gone. Gone . No way I can pay the rent here. Hell, I don’t even know how to pay it. Who