Burning Hearts Read Free Page B

sneak up a tree, look
at me in my bedroom, and all you care about is who I sleep with?
Caleb, Caleb, Caleb!” she jokingly admonished.
    “ I tried to get a good look
at you, but that Puritan nightgown covered you from head to
toe.”
    She shrugged. “I’m old-fashioned. What can I
say?” She tugged gently on his earlobe. “Now how’d you manage to
get up a tree?”
    “ Jet pack,” he replied
deadpan.
    “ Ebay?”
    Caleb nodded, continuing the charade.
“Relatively cheap too.”
     

STRANGE HEIRLOOMS
     
     
    Jenna sat next to Pru while Riddick sat
across from them on the bus. Caleb had already been picked up by
his mom, and Kylie’s dad had come for her.
    When Jenna had dated Val, she’d the luxury of
catching rides in his flashy yellow Camaro—but no more. Her parents
could pick her up, but they worked every day at the family
business: Love’s Funeral Home and Crematorium. She didn’t mind
riding the bus as long as Riddick or Pru was with her. They lived
on the same street as Jenna with Kylie and Caleb only a few miles
away in the same suburban neighborhood.
    Before befriending the Misfits, Jenna had no
idea that they lived so close to each other. The Stuck-Ups were
just over Los Muertos Bridge across Rojo River. They didn’t live in
extravagant homes, but they thought that they were better than
everyone because they were the only families living on the “other
side of the bridge.” Jenna was glad they were still there. She
couldn’t stomach having her former life so close.
    Pru tapped Jenna on her arm, and then pointed
with a smile at Riddick. He had his ear buds in, rocking out,
motioning like he was playing the drums. Jenna reached over and
tugged on his black T-shirt.
    He stopped rocking out and turned to her.
“What?!” he yelled over his loud music.
    Jenna motioned for him to unplug his ears. He
did.
    “ What’re you listening to?”
she asked.
    “ Scoot over.”
    Jenna did and Riddick sat beside her and Pru,
all scrunched up. He offered Jenna a bud, and she put it to her
ear—there was a lot of screaming.
    She pulled it away from her ear. “Who is it?”
she asked in a raised voice, still partially deaf.
    “‘ Death is My Friend’ by The
Bloody Knuckles.” He took notice of her furrowed brow. “Heavy
metal,” he clarified.
    “ Too heavy for me. It’s
loud.” She offered the ear bud back to Riddick; he secured it with
its mate. “Shouldn’t you be deaf by now?” she asked
reasonably.
    “ WHAT?!” He smiled, and then
shrugged. “Probably.”
    When the bus stopped in
front of Jenna’s modestly-sized red-brick house with a white picket
fence, Riddick and Pru debarked with her. All three of them had
been cast in Macbeth by their English teacher, Mrs. Willa Thames. Fortunately, they
were playing the parts of the three witches (or weird sisters); it
was always the most popular feature of Shakespeare’s tragedy to
bored high school students.
    Riddick, who seemed antisocial to anyone
other than the Misfits, was actually enthusiastic about being in
the play that was to be shown to the entire school. It all worked
out for Pru, who naturally shy in front of others, got to say her
lines hidden inside a black hood.
    “ When will your parents be
home?” asked Riddick, and then proceeded to plop down on Jenna’s
bed; he grabbed the remote and flipped through her basic cable
package of only forty channels.
    Pru seated herself quietly on a wicker chair
in the corner of the room; it sat against a white wall decorated
with Jenna’s paintings of roses, her favorite flower.
    Jenna slapped Riddick’s dirty black boots
from off her rose-decorated bedspread. “In a few hours. Why every
time you come over, you get on my bed?”
    Jenna noticed Pru’s smile, her cheeks
blushing a bit.
    Riddick shrugged. “Soft mattress. Mine at
home is like prison-issue.” He shut off the TV, evidently not
finding any program of interest. “Where’s your X-Box?”
    “ How many times have I told
you? I