THIEF: Part 1 Read Online Free PDF

through the old glass, warped with drip marks, just before night fell.
                  Once news got to my boss about my theft charges, I lost my job as the youngest manager in history at Bailey Brothers Furniture.  I lost my sweet paycheck.  I lost my apartment.  And a few weeks later, when I pulled the U-Haul up to my mother’s stoop, I lost my dignity.  The day I moved out—my sixteenth birthday, right as the sun rose—I spit on that very stoop and swore to myself I’d never come back.
                  And yet, almost five years later, here I was.
                  “It was interesting,” I answer, finally.
                  My mother doesn’t possess typical conversation skills; instead of picking up on my word choice and asking a follow-up like, “Interesting, how?” she smiles and says, “I’m glad.  He seems like a nice boy.”
                  “Mm-hmm.”
                  “Where’d you go?” she asks, eyes still on the television.  “Dinner and a movie?”
                  “Wedding expo and a bar.”
                  “Oh,” she says, “that’s interesting.”
                  “Yep.  Told you.”
                  And that’s that.  Mother-daughter bonding at its very finest.
     
     
     

Chapter Six
     
     
                  Making out in a horse stable wasn’t how I planned to spend my morning, but c’est la vie , I suppose.  At least, I tell myself, there’s fresh hay underneath us when Silas ambushes me the next day.
                  Somehow, he manages to surprise me in plain sight.  I hear the gate creak, and when I look up, he's swinging on it like a kid, grinning.
                  “Hey,” I smile, “what—”  But that's as far as I get, because he kicks forward on the gate and kisses me.  My words, or any semblance of language, go up in smoke.
                  “What are you doing?” I ask, when he finally pulls his mouth away from mine.  I’m not outraged or incredulous, or anything I probably should be.  Just curious.  My hand winds into his hair at the base of his neck, and I pull him close again, hungry for more.  I've never understood that—actually hungering for someone.  I figured people were just dressing up the real word for it: horny.  But now, as he climbs the gate and slides down to the ground, his body rubbing against mine, I get it.
                  “I don’t know,” he whispers, and that’s when he guides me, imperceptibly, to the hay I’ve just piled in the corner.  He closes the gate with his foot, a true multi-tasker.  “Last night, after I dropped you off, I just drove around for hours, kicking myself for how things ended.  I thought…well.  Let’s just say I thought the night would have a very different ending.”  Half his words are whispered against my lips, barely audible.
                  I smile, my teeth bumping his.  “A happy ending?”
                  He pauses, blushing.  “I’m not usually….”  On my hipbone, I feel his hand fluttering nervously.  “I don’t rush into things with girls.  Abby kind of ruined my ability to trust people.  But with you….”  He shakes his head and kisses me again.  “I don’t know how to explain it.”
                  “That’s how I feel too,” I say, “like I already know you so well.  But I’m not sure how.”
                  Silas nods, his mouth moving to my neck.  I run my hands under the back of his shirt, feeling every muscle working as he keeps himself elevated above me, barely any space between us.
                  I forget where I am, why I’m even here.  I stare into the rafters and try to remember the last time I felt attraction like this, but I can’t.  The closest thing I’ve had to chemistry was not having to ask my