The Thrill of It Read Online Free PDF Page A

little wooden stool into her bathroom and stand on that as we peered in the mirror and put on our faces. It was our ritual, our bond, the way we became sisters, rather than mother and daughter.
Then it was party time. The ratio of men to women always tipped in favor of the Y chromosomes. It wasn’t a party unless the pickings were plentiful. She’d bring me round and introduce me.
“ Here, honey. I have someone I want you to meet,” she’d say and I’d flash my best smile as she continued. “Isn’t she pretty, isn’t she pretty, isn’t she pretty…”
I was good at writing too. Still am. I eat stories for breakfast. I read them, I write them, I plot them, I breathe them. But somehow, I never got the “This is my daughter. She’s good at writing,” introduction.
I was pretty. That was my purpose.
Is it any surprise I became what I am? I was programmed for this.

Chapter Three
Harley
    I thumb through Trey’s drawings in a portfolio at No Regrets, stopping at an image of wings. Feathery, pillowy wings that could whisk you away to a better world. I flash back to the time he created this tattoo image, late one night at his apartment. He drew in his sketchbook and I huddled in the corner of his futon, laptop on my knees, pounding out every word Miranda wanted me to write. Chronicling my lurid stories of the twenty-four men who were my downfall. He stopped sketching, sat next to me, and swiped the tear from my cheek that I barely even realized was there. I don’t think I was even aware of how those tales Miranda demanded would be an excavation, and unearth not only memories of all those men – my mom’s and mine – but the way I felt. I’d never shed those tears when I was younger. Never when any of it was happening. Only when I revisited them, all with my gut twisting, my heart splintering, Trey by my side.
    He knows everything about me.
    He’s the only person I’ve ever let in.
    He learned my wishes and hopes the night I met him, and he learned I had secrets the day I ran into him at SLAA.
    So, really, I am an open book to him, and he to me. Add that to all the reasons we can’t ever be, because no one wants to be with someone they truly know. I glance up from the portfolio and watch him. He looks so sexy in his well-worn jeans, a t-shirt that shows off his strong arms, those tattoos snaking down his carved muscles. Black ink, tribal patterns, lines and shapes, skating over his skin, everything in threes. His shoulder is marked with three suns, his chest with a trio of silhouetted birds. Symbols of the people he never knew, he’s told me.
    That’s all he says about them. He won’t tell me more.
    He locks the drawers where he keeps his equipment, straightens up the portfolios that grace the wooden tables in the entryway, and then closes up.
    I hand him a brownie and he takes a bite.
    “It makes me crazy that your mom is such an awesome baker,” he says.
    “I know. You wish she were all bad.”
    “Sometimes,” he says, and I tuck the tupperware container back in my purse as he finishes the brownie.
    “What did you ink tonight?” I ask as we leave the shop, and my ears are assaulted with the screeches of cabs and cars, my nostrils with a blast of exhaust from a nearby bus turning onto Christopher Street.
    “Some dude came in wanting two arrows on his bicep.”
    “Did it mean something?”
    Trey nods. “He’s in recovery. He used to drink himself stupid. Said it means it’s the pain of the arrow coming out, not the arrow going in. ”
    “I haven’t heard that one. Must not be a regular Joanne mantra.”
    “Yeah, me neither. But do you think it’s true?”
    I shrug as we pass a sleek bar called the Pink Zebra. It’s a magnet for cougars. My chest seizes up and I silently hope that a whole pack of them won’t spill out as we walk by. Trey’s temptation – sexy, thirtysomething women. But I have no such luck. The door opens and two gorgeous, skinny women emerge. One is wearing Jimmy Choos, the