He was back, and no matter what her parents said, Emma knew her brother had no intention of moving out again. She heard the door to his room open, and rushed to her own. She barely made it before he tried to turn the knob.
Tracy could actually hear him swallowing when he handed her the ragged scrap of paper. It was just a song. How bad could it be? She looked through quickly, then looked again. She barely felt the pressure of Gene’s bed on her back side as her knees gave. She recognized these words right off. They were her words.
Gene felt like a total idiot sitting there in the back yard with a pencil in his hand and a notebook on his lap. Maybe he should at least get his guitar. But he’d already tried this a dozen times with his guitar and his room was so stuffy. At least it was breezy out here.
“So this is where you’ve been hiding.” Tracy grabbed Lisa’s arm and spun her around right before she and Ben went into the public library. Lisa wasn’t really avoiding Tracy, though she kind of suspected what her cousin wanted to say. She was here because this was where she and Ben were spending most of their summer vacation. Yeah, geek city. It had to do with researching the books they were writings, but you couldn’t get something like that through […]
The old guy was blushing. After all the serious stuff they’d been talking about, Tracy thought Drew blushing was kind of cute. Or maybe just fun. “So this is all just a timing thing.” Drew sat up in that plastic lounge type chair like he though he was going to go somewhere, and covered his face with on hand. He sighed like he was really fed up with everything in the whole world. “Timing?” Gene didn’t sound so sure.
“I don’t even know how I feel,” Gene growled. “But it isn’t good.” “So now you think there’s something wrong with me, right? I’m dirty, or pathetic, or something.” Tracy glared. She sat in one of the upright lawn chairs with her arms crossed. Gene stood over her, looking young and mature by turns. Drew lay in the lounger. He sat up and set his feet in the grass with every intention of slipping out of the backyard with as […]
“What would you do if you found out your girlfriend had been raped?” Gene asked the question out of the blue. “I’d hunt the bast*rd down and kill him.” Drew didn’t consider his answer. It sprang to his lips without volition. Then he realized he probably shouldn’t have said something like that. “Yeah.” Gene actually smiled and nodded. “I’d like to.” He lifted his head from the plastic, chase-style, lawn chair to look where Gene sat on the other side […]
“Tracy was raped in Las Vegas,” Lisa said is if that was the kind of thing she had a right to say. “I was not!” Tracy looked from Lisa to Gene, willing him to ignore Lisa. “How can you say that? It was vicious. You had finger shaped bruises on your neck.”
Lisa had no intentions of doing anything with Tracy today, let alone with Tracy and her band. She was on her way to the library when she happened to see them drive by. Or, more to the point, she saw Bruce trying to drive a van that kept stalling out and gave in to curiosity. She thought the fact she could keep up with them while on foot spoke volumes about Bruce’s driving. Then again, it was only a few […]
“Go, go, go!” Tracy sat in the shotgun seat and leaned way too close while she looked out the driver’s window. “Y-yeah. We… we should g-g-g-go.” Emma sat right behind him. For a moment Bruce couldn’t remember how he’d ended up in the driver’s seat. Technically, he didn’t know how to drive.
The drum kit would be the tricky part. He had hinted to the drummer girl that it would be better to go with something simpler. A hint was the best he could do when Bruce kept jumping down his throat about every little thing, especially in front of the band. Well, now that she saw where they were playing she’d get smart about it. Or not. She was already pulling one of those big drums out of the van like […]
Bruce knew something was wrong as soon as Uncle John arrived. He had that eerie combination of a guarded look in his eye and a big smile that always meant trouble. Still, Bruce didn’t say anything as the band loaded everything into the van. It wasn’t like anyone would listen anyway. They were all too excited about doing another gig. Well, let them see for themselves just how far you could trust Uncle John.
Gene focused on his fingering, but his heart wasn’t in the practice session. “…and I’ll divulge my godless dreams,” Emma sang. “My insignificant, paladin dreams.” She stopped singing and lifted the bottom of her paper bag to look at them from its dark recesses. “Wait. Shouldn’t that be paltry?” “Just go with it,” Kate kept drumming. “Yeah, I kind of like ‘paladin’,” Justin grinned around the array of hanging glass bottles he’d been experimenting with. “We should make it a […]
His mother hadn’t abandoned him. She’d merely been murdered. Gene pulled his guitar onto his lap and strummed a few notes while he considered all the mixed up feelings he had about family and friends now that he knew the truth. Tracy would probably say something like how this would make a good song. Maybe she was right. Maybe he needed to try writing one.
Drew followed Trent out to the front porch with a feeling of impending doom. He had to remind himself this was no crisis. It was simply wishing Trent goodbye. He could hardly even gripe about it. “Well. I guess this is it.” Trent straightened his back and lifted his chin. “Yeah. I guess so.” Drew fought down the urge to say that Trent could at least have invited him to come along. They both knew that would be counter productive.