The Art of My Life Read Online Free PDF

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bulkhead and rolled off his bunk. At ten p.m. the grimy blades of
the box fan wheezed heavy, ninety-degree air at him. He’d stripped
down to his gym shorts an hour ago. Tomorrow’s quiz knotted the
muscles at the base of his skull. He needed a break.
    He scooped up the book and smoothed
out the wrinkled page corners. Maybe he’d get fifty bucks for it at
the end of the semester. He rolled his shoulders. One thing he’d
fight to keep—if Cal hadn’t ruined his run at politics—was
government funding for higher education. A good thing about being
dirt poor was bagging Pell Grants that added up to free college.
Maybe the country had problems, but some things America got
right.
    Someday he’d be part of the US
fighting for the people who needed a leg-up. He tossed the book
onto his bunk and headed out to the dock. It had to be cooler
outside.
    He stood on the darkened deck and eyed
Cal’s empty slip for the five-hundreth time since Cal left for dry
dock six weeks ago. No Escape . His gut felt hollowed out,
too. The corner of his eye caught movement on the dock.
    A girl sat on the dock storage box
facing the empty slip, arms wrapped around a pair of shapely legs.
A riot of dark curls cascaded down her back. She wore a tank top
and short shorts, the kind that made guys glad they had eyes. Dock
light rained down on her, leaving her face in shadow.
    Realization dawned—the girl was Cal’s
little sister, Missy.
    She stood and stretched, her face
tilting toward the light.
    His breath stopped. His eyes
galvanized to her mother’s cheek bones and nose, the lush brows and
lashes. Her clothes carelessly hugged the curves of her compact
form, oblivious to the slow burn of a light bulb warming inside
him.
    She checked her watch and sat
down.
    He shook his head, schooling his
thoughts. He’d lived with the Koomers his senior year of high
school, spent every holiday with her family for as long as he could
remember—the one tradition he’d clung to when his folks ripped
themselves and his siblings out of his life. But when had she
turned into the hottie camped on Cal’s dock box? Seeing her in a
new setting flipped some switch inside him. He did the math. Geez,
she must be twenty now.
    He’d always liked her when she was a
kid. Five years younger than he and Cal, she used to follow them
around till Cal would chase her off. And he must have had a hundred
conversations with her, sitting on the Koomers’ back steps, tossing
shell pieces onto the sandy drive while he waited for Cal to finish
his chores or homework or a fight with Starr.
    Now that he thought about it, Missy
had always been a hottie, at least since she hit middle school and
made no secret of the major-league crush she had on him. He’d given
her a wide berth since then. For a minute he was seventeen, slumped
in a chair in the Koomers’ kitchen feeling sorry for himself
because his family was a continent away.
    Twelve-year-old Missy wandered in,
arched her brows at him, and pressed a pointer finger into his side
for a couple heartbeats—something she’d done since she was little
to “poke a hole to let the sad out”—then walked out the back
door.
    He smiled like he had that day,
feeling lighter.
    Well, she wasn’t twelve anymore. He
crossed the gangplank and walked toward her. “Hey, Missy, what
up?”
    She startled. “Where’s
Cal?”
    “ Dry dock.”
    “ Why does no one ever tell
me anything?”
    Fish grinned, enjoying her familiar
huff. “You’re the baby.”
    She rolled wide-set eyes. “I finally
get myself worked up enough to tell Cal what I think about his
going to jail, and I sit here for an hour for nothing.”
    “ Tell me.”
    “ I have my speech all
ready, and I’m not giving it to you, Sean Fisher.”
    “ I’m not asking for your
speech. Just tell me how you feel.”
    Her face swung from the empty slip to
him. Dock light illuminated the hurt in brown eyes the color of a
cowry shell he’d once found. She eyed him,