Read Singe for Free Online Page A

paralegal named Evelyn’s place. It trips him up a little, thinking that this hookup with Addie is going to end like all the others.
    The difference being, of course, that he’ll have to see her constantly.
    Fuck. Maybe he really should have gone on a bender, poured one out for Drew Beecher instead of sticking his dick where it doesn’t belong.
    Addie’s waiting when he skulks back out, a bunch of juice glasses full of water lined up on the table. Eli forgets about his black mood almost immediately. “Okay, we have to chug these,” she announces. Then, off his look, “I’m not kidding, my cousin has me do this every time we go out, and I never get a headache. Afterwards we can have coffee.”
    Eli grins. Since Chelsea left him, he’s gone out and gotten laid all over the place, different positions and apartments and women, listened to a million mellow iPod playlists while he’s stared down at strangers. But Addie has the Food Network on, and she’s going to make him shotgun water to stave off a hangover. It’s refreshing.
    “Thanks,” he says, once he’s downed two of them—he’s thirsty all of a sudden, a combination of the booze and the heat and the sex.
    Addie’s keeping up with him gulp for gulp. She’s leaning against the counter with her bare ankles crossed, T-shirt so old and worn Eli can see the outline of her nipples right through it, just below the cracked lettering reading Saint Bonaventure’s 18th Annual Italian Festival, July 7-14, 2005 . The neck’s stretched out across her collarbones, oddly elegant. Everything about her body makes Eli want to bite and suck.
    “Was that a particularly good year for the Italian Festival?” he asks when she catches him staring, taking a long gulp from his third glass of water. It tastes faintly metallic, like maybe the plumbing in this apartment is not to be trusted. “2005?”
    Clearly, Addie is not fooled. “It was, as a matter of fact,” she says anyway, ducking away teasingly as he moves to box her in against the counter and heading for the coffeemaker, which is beeping its mechanical readiness. “My dad did the dunk tank, my grandma caught my cousin Jenn making out with a girl behind the life-size Stations of the Cross statues, and I ate a dozen and a half zeppole and yakked.” She stands on her tiptoes to get mugs out of the cupboard, tight calves and that T-shirt riding all the way up; Eli barely catches himself before he reaches out and squeezes one more time. “What do you take in this, anything?”
    “Black’s fine.” Their fingers brush as she passes over the mug. Eli thinks it should feel more awkward than it does. There’re pictures of her family all over the apartment, he notices now that she mentions them, Christmases and vacations and one of those print-your-own calendars on the bulletin board with a bunch of little kids mugging in a swimming pool. It occurs to Eli that there are no photos in his new place at all. “Making out at the Stations of the Cross, huh?” he asks finally.
    Addie shrugs. “Jenn’s not subtle. She was seventeen, she got kicked out and went to live at her girlfriend’s. Which was actually pretty great, because her parents let us drink wine.” She shuffles over to the fridge and loads up her own mug with creamer, right to the top. “She had blue hair,” Addie adds after sipping. “The Stations of the Cross girl. Still my favorite out of Jenn’s girlfriends, not that I’d tell her fiancée.”
    That explains the nonchalance about living above a gay nightclub, Eli guesses. He’s never been entirely sure how Catholic Addie is, that crucifix and her genuflecting at the church earlier today like an old pro, the sign of the cross after every prayer. He supposes he could always ask. “You got a big family?” he opts for instead.
    “Mm-hmm.” Addie finger-combs through her hair, leaning against the counter. “Huge.”
    They finish up the coffee in relative silence, both of them concentrating on