Stan Read Online Free PDF Page B

he announced with a friendly enough smile, however faked I
knew it was.
    Dad stretched in
his armchair. “Yeah, I think we’ll be right behind you, Stan.”
    I stood lightning
fast, my eyes on Stan who refused to look at me. Everyone said their goodbyes
as Stan made a line toward the front door. I wanted to speak to him, to throw
myself in his way and tell him how sorry I was, but just as quietly as he entered
the room, he left it, without so much as a backwards glance.
    Stan and I had
never been friends. He’d been friends with Grant and Ben, but not me. In fact,
we were closer to sparring partners who knew to keep their distance. He had
gained my respect over the years, simply from his constant commitment to his
parents’ caravan park. But, other than that, we’d had little to do with each
other. Up until now, I’d been thankful for that. Right now, though, I felt
awful. I had never wished for a dirty look so much in my life, and never before
had I deserved one more.

 
     
    Chapter Six
     
    Stan
     
    “Are you
yanking my chain?”
    I did a double
take from reading the label of the peanut butter jar in my hand to Ringer, who
stood next to me in the supermarket aisle, a grave look on his face as he
waited for me to respond. More disturbing than his look, though, was something
else entirely obvious to me.
    “Did you honestly
just say yanking my chain?”
    Ringer just stared
on in stony silence.
    “Seriously, who
says that?” I winced, putting the jar in the hand basket.
    “Oh, I’m sorry.
What I meant to say is … are you fucking with me?”
    “Nope, the weekend’s
off.”
    Ringer muttered
more explicit words under his breath, pretty much the same ones I had repeated
to myself as I kicked a frustrated line home last night.
    “So while your
parents enjoy their piss-up for the weekend, you’re basically a prisoner.”
    “Pretty much.”
    “You’re a fuckin’
slave to that place, mate; it’s not right.”
    Ringer’s
contribution was not making me feel any better about the situation.
    “Yeah, well, it is
what it is.” I shrugged, filling my basket up with the weekend essentials.
Manning the park solo, which seldom happened, made it difficult to leave it
unattended, especially in peak season. People were forever wondering in and out
of the office, the front room of the main house. It was a day and night vigil
which meant I would be crashing in my old room for the weekend. I had gone from
the possibility of weekend escape, only to be downgraded to sleeping in my
teenage bedroom again. It was a none-too-subtle slap of reality, one that
reminded me I was going nowhere fast with my life.
    “Hey, is that
Ellie?” Ringer said.
    I spun around,
following Ringer’s stare. Sure enough, there she was at the opposite end of the
aisle, sunglasses perched on top of her sun-bleached blonde hair. She wore a
yellow singlet top that accentuated her tan, and frayed cut-off jean shorts;
she looked like a model from a Jeans West catalogue.
    Shit.
    I ducked behind
the chip stand.
    Ringer looked at
me like I was an idiot.
    “What are you
doing?”
    “Shut up,” I
whispered as I motioned him to follow me in the opposite direction.
    “Mate, you need to
get over this shit.”
    And by ‘over this
shit’ he meant the painful awkwardness that ensued any time Ellie and I bumped
into each other. It had been well over a year since we broke up, a mutual
agreement with a life-long pact to be friends. We’d even had less awkward, more
amazing, traditional break-up sex that we promised we would go to our graves
with. And yet still, all the positivity and pacts of staying friends never
quite rolled over into reality.
    “Well, I never.
Ellie Parker!” Ringer called out, with a huge grin.
    “You’re a fucking
arsehole.”
    Ringer flashed his
biggest, toothy grin as Ellie’s voice closed in down the aisle.
    “There goes the
neighborhood.” She laughed.
    “Oh, it’s worse
than you could ever imagine,” said Ringer.
    I stepped