Read THIEF: Part 3 for Free Online

years.
                  I shake my head, sigh, and finish changing, then head for the register.Jane is brandishing her credit card and pushing Fiona’s hand, full of money, away.
                  “Jane, really, I insist—”
                  “Now, Fiona, let me get this one.I’m about to be your step-mama, and this is what stepparents do, isn’t it?Shower their new kids with presents?”She winks at her, hands the saleswoman her card, and says, “Go ahead and set up that registry while you’re at it, Rita—I’ll bring Killian in later this week and we’ll take a look around.Though honestly, I’m not sure we need anything.”             
                  “I’m sure you’ll think of something,” Rita, the saleswoman, smiles.“It’s nice to have new things as a couple—you know, things that are just yours.And some of your wedding guests will just feel more comfortable with the option.”
                  “My thoughts exactly.”Jane smiles at me, then does a double-take.“Erin, you didn’t find a dress you liked?What about your date?”
                  “Oh…”In my background check panic, I completely forgot about finding a dress for my date with Alex.“Um…no, nothing fit right.”
                  “With your tiny figure?”Jane raises an eyebrow.“Well, we’ll find something while we’re out today, don’t you worry.Aunt Jane’s got plastic, and she wants to spend it on her girls.”
                  Fiona and I smile at each other, rolling our eyes.I’ve never had a sister, either, but I imagine it would feel a little like this.
     
     
     

Chapter Six
     
     
    “Law school.”
                  “Ooh, such a creative guess.Nope.”
                  “Film.”
                  “Nuh-uh.”
                  “Art history.”
                  “Nope—can’t pronounce all those French guys’ names.”
                  I laugh, shrugging, as Alex Meegan puts his hand on the small of my back.“I give up,” I tell him, feeling a slight blush in my cheeks from his touch.“What’d you study?”
                  “Anthropology,” he says.
                  “Anthropology.”
                  He nods.
                  “And…what, exactly, does an anthropologist do?”
                  Alex slows down his pace, steering me to a bench at the edge of the pond.After dinner at a new rooftop restaurant downtown, we drove to a park in the historical district to watch the sunset.It’s almost at the tree-line now, the sky bright orange and hazy.It’s been a fun night, and I’m surprised to realize I don’t want it to end.
                  Alex is handsome—that much was obvious from just the pictures on his dad’s desk, if not the many women I’ve caught staring at him tonight—but he’s also funny and interesting, and the way his hand feels on my back, then my knee as we sit down, makes me realize it’s not just Silas’s touch I’ve missed.It’s any touch.
                  “Anthropologists,” he says, “study other cultures, how humans interact with each other—that kind of thing.Some of them focus on more specific things, though, like linguistics or archaeology.”
                  “‘Them,’ meaning…?”
                  Alex sighs, his eyes flickering to his feet.“Meaning, I’m not one of them.”He looks at me.“I got my Bachelors in anthro, but never got around to grad school for the Ph.D.And that’s what makes you an official anthropologist.”
                  “What made you decide not to go?”
                  A slow, amused smile creeps across his face.“You know you’re the first person to phrase it like that?”