Read Becoming for Free Online Page A

raised
eyebrows, he added, “I know you’d rather be anywhere else. I
thought it’d be nice—”
    “Oh, stop beating yourself up,” she
interrupted, elbowing him in the side. “Geez, you’re such a martyr.
If it wasn’t for you, I’d be a hermit. A happy hermit, maybe, but a
hermit’s just one step away from a Scary Cat Lady. So you’re merely
doing your part to keep me from ending up the subject of a CSI episode where I get eaten by my own pets.”
    He stared at her for a minute. Then he burst
out laughing. And just like that, the tension was gone. Swinging a
companionable arm around her shoulders, he started toward the
house.
    “The Happy Hermit would make a great pub
name,” he said as they followed the sounds of the party,
maneuvering past the other vehicles already in the parking area and
walking around to the back of the house.
    “Hmm. Not bad. Not as good as The Toasted
Ferret, though.”
    Because he held his arm over her shoulders,
he felt the tightness building there as they got closer to the
party. Careful to keep his tone level, he said softly, “You’ll let
me know if you experience anything?”
    Her shoulders somehow tensed up even more.
She nodded. It was the only direct reference he’d made to the surge
she experienced the day before. But he definitely remembered the
incident from three years ago, and he could safely say he wasn’t
looking forward to going through that again. He hoped by being
vigilant that they could avoid it.
    Whatever it was.
    The noise grew much louder as they entered
through the back gate. A number of colorful lounge chairs had been
positioned in the shade of an arbor by the back patio, with at
least twice as many situated around the pool out in the hot
sunshine. Tables for drinks were strategically placed to prevent
spills around the pool deck. Two large propane grills hissed with
the sound of cooking meat, filling the air with mouth-watering
aromas that managed to blend perfectly with the scents of suntan
lotion and freshly-mown grass. It seemed every teenage boy and girl
in Coweta County had put in an appearance, and with loud music
pumping through a fancy sound-system and voices raised to
compensate, even the great outdoors managed to feel like some
energetic teen’s dance club.
    “Hey, Gabriel!”
    Looking to the left, he spotted his friend
Ethan waving at him from a group standing beside a volleyball net.
Ethan was a good guy and fun to hang with. Gabriel gave him a grin
and a wave. His grin faded a bit when he realized that Ethan and
the group around him were now staring at Amber.
    “Come and play a game, man,” Ethan
encouraged.
    Just as he opened his mouth to say he wasn’t
interested, a female voice said, “Yeah, Gabriel. Go play. That way
I can hang out with Amber for a while, just us girls.”
    He glanced next to Amber and caught the
friendly gaze of Alicia Stephens, the sociable cousin of their BJ’s
co-worker and fellow senior, Cornelius Stephens. They had all hung
out as a group a few times over the years. She and Amber got along
relatively well, probably because Alicia liked to talk and Amber
listened to her without comment or complaint.
    “We just got here—” he began.
    “Which means you’ll be here for hours yet,”
she interrupted. “Go on and leave us be.”
    Amber tilted her head to look up at him.
“It’s cool. Go play. I’ll sit with Alicia for a bit.”
    He didn’t even get the chance to ask if she
was sure. Alicia promptly snatched Amber’s arm and pulled her over
to a couple of open lounge chairs by the pool, chattering away the
entire time.
    Unable to stop himself and feeling guilty for
it, he watched the movement of Amber’s hips and backside as she
walked away. Only when he turned back to his friends around the
volleyball net and realized their interested gazes were also on her
did he get irritated. Deciding there was little he could do about
it, he walked over to join the game.
    “So, who’s the chick?” Ethan asked