After the Rain (The Twisted Fate Series Book 1) Read Free

sandals that seemed too big for the dainty feet they were strapped onto. And to top the whole atrocious ensemble off: a scarf. Pink. Knitted. With yellow pom-poms hanging from it. He physically cringed.
    “Just squeezing through. Cheerio!” Her voice was high-pitched and had a sing-song quality to it.
    It wasn’t only the loud jet of words flying out of her mouth that was responsible for the public disturbance – it was also her bangles. Chunky wooden things and purple plastic junk with pink feathers and large shells dangled from her slender arms and clanked together as she minced. Because she didn’t simply walk – oh no – she sort of flapped about as if she had no control over her limbs. Her arms and legs seemed to veer off in random directions, knocking the odd person as she went. His eyes moved up for the first time, and he felt his mouth pop open in shock as his gaze settled on her face.
    Her hair! It looked like a rainbow had thrown up on her. Pink, blue, orange and purple radiated from her scalp. The colorful strands were braided together into a plait that hung over her shoulder and was fastened at the end by a giant, purple, glittery flower. He’d never seen anyone with rainbow-colored hair before; in fact, he’d never seen anyone so utterly bizarre-looking. And then it dawned on him…
    This must be Stormy- Rain.

Shit. He was going to kill Damien when he saw him.

2
    Whatever floats your duck
    Marcus heaved a resigned sigh as he got up, straightened the cuffs of his crisp Polo shirt, and walked over to her.
    “Stormy-Rain?” He couldn’t believe he was actually calling anyone by that name, let alone saying it out loud for the whole damn world to hear.
    “Marcus!” she exclaimed brightly, as though she were genuinely happy to see him. They’d never even meet. “It’s just Stormy, or Rainy, or Rain, or even Rainbow – that’s what people usually call me, but if you want to call me Stormy-Rain, that’s also okay. Whatever floats your duck.”
    “Boat,” Marcus corrected her instinctively without even thinking.
    “Where?” Stormy asked, swiveling her head around as though she were really looking for a boat.
    What the hell? Had she really just done that? Looked for a boat? Marcus blinked several times as he tried to make sense of what had just happened. In the few short moments since he’d clapped eyes on her, he’d already taken measure of her personality. And she was utterly ridiculous. She obviously had verbal diarrhea. Add that to her overly-saccharine disposition, and an obvious tendency towards confusion – she was just way, way too much.
    “Um… where do you get Rainbow from?” he asked, wanting to change the subject but already grappling to find some common conversational ground between them.
    “They come after the stormy rain!” She swooshed her arms around and swayed from side to side. She was like the Energizer Bunny on speed. And she was so cheerful it almost made him nauseous.
    “Huh?” He felt his brow furrow as he tried to figure out what she was talking about.
    “Rainbows. They come out after the rain…” She stuck out her wrist to show Marcus a garishly-colored rainbow tattoo. “I’ve always loved them.”
    Marcus surreptitiously looked her up and down again, hoping his expression wasn’t betraying how harshly he was judging her. “Mmm, I can see that.”
    “And you’re Marcus. Aries.” Without warning, she grabbed his hand and started shaking it violently. Her bangles knocked about again, making a noise that he imagined must be reminiscent of some kind of tribal drumming circle. Perhaps that was the intention.
    Marcus pulled his hand away as the overly-enthusiastic handshake threatened to turn into a full-blown fist-pumping session. “Not Aries. My surname is Lewis.”
    “No, no,” she giggled, as though he was making a joke. “Your star sign is Aries. I did some research on you, just to check out our compatibility vibey-vibes.”
    Vibey-vibes? Saccharine,