Sloe Ride Read Online Free PDF Page A

Connie even liked dick. Shit, I’d have tapped that back in high school if I’d thought it was open season.”
    That was a lie. Connor Morgan was so far above his reach in high school Rafe might as well have wanted to have a threesome with Pussy Galore and Godzilla. His running alongside the Morgan boys and their cousin, Sionn, was as close to cool as he was going to get in those days, and even then he’d been the one to steer the four of them right to the edge of gone-too-far.
    It was usually Connor who’d dragged them right back.
    The neighborhood had changed since he’d seen it last. Trendy-looking townhouses lined the street opposite of the Sound’s parking lot, petunias and pansies fighting for space in narrow window boxes hooked over wrought-iron balcony railings. There were a few nods to San Francisco’s pre-earthquake architecture, bits of concrete embellishments meant to age the structure, but its youth peeked out in its fake-tree cell tower poking up out of a stand of pines. The restaurant’s back door on the other end of the parking lot was as grubby and oily as Rafe remembered, and a line of old dumpsters still leaned up against the coffeehouse’s back wall, their lids splattered with seagull shit and food specks. A new coat of paint and a power wash did wonders for the brick building, and at some point, a sturdy gridded metal and wood staircase replaced the rickety wood steps leading up to the crappy studio apartment over the Sound.
    What was missing from the picture was Frank’s old RV, with its concrete blocks and plywood porch and the umbrella, table, and seats he’d liberated from a burrito shop’s trash pile.
    The parking lot seemed odd, echoingly still in Rafe’s mind. He couldn’t remember a time when the Sound’s parking lot hadn’t smelled like patchouli and sweet Thai smoke, and the sleek, polished deep black was at odds with the faded gray memory of patchy asphalt and crooked lines Frank’d painted for parking spaces around his Winnebago palace.
    It was funny what an empty space on a parking lot could do to a person’s insides.
    The inside of Marshall’s Amp was like stepping into a blue police box and coming out in another era. Or a movie set in the ’60s. White tile gleamed, throwing moonlight reflections up of the squishy spaceship chairs and sweeps of tables. If there was music playing, Rafe couldn’t hear it, but he caught snatches of guitar threading through the murmuring crowd noise. The splashes of color around the coffee shop were nearly as loud as the cop chatter filling it, and the smell of brewing roasts and sweet pastries made Rafe’s mouth water.
    “Shit, there’s a lot of cops.” And only a few of them were Morgans.
    He’d been about to search for Connor or Sionn in the sea of Irish and badges when a frill of eye-bleeding red hair appeared at someone’s shoulder, and Rafe stopped dead in his tracks. The exit was cut off from him. He’d gone too far into the shop and was too tangled in its crowd to beat a hasty retreat. Another flash of crimson, and Rafe’s belly turned to ice, melting slightly when he spotted the face beneath the hair.
    “Fuck, thank God. That’s Kiki.” He exhaled hard, turning back around to grab some coffee, and smacked right into the stuff of nightmares—Brigid Finnegan Morgan.
    Brigid fucking Finnegan Morgan. Bane of his existence and his de facto second mother.
    To the casual observer, Brigid Morgan would appear to be a gloriously adult version of a Disney princess, sans bow and an enormous horse named Angus. Tall heels the height of a cat brought Brigid up to Rafe’s collarbone, and her gamine face was brightened by a brilliant, broad smile. A classic porcelain-skinned Irish beauty, Brigid Morgan looked as if she’d pour sweetness, light, and sugar into the life of someone she loved.
    Fortunately, Rafe knew better, and he certainly wasn’t fooled by the cupcake-offering hellion standing right under his nose.
    “Well, then, it