Keep You Read Free Page A

seats were taken, and settled cross-legged on the floor.
                  “You’re not staying, are you? Don’t you have homework?” Mike said once he’d taken the chair and realized she didn’t plan on leaving. His voice sounded like having his elementary school baby sister stick around would ruin all his cool fun time with his bros.
                  Which was exactly why she was staying.
                  Jo looked up to the TV, now set on MTV – she recognized the Linkin Park video playing – and she shrugged. “I already finished my homework.”
                  “We’re not watching cartoons, you know.”
                  “I don’t like cartoons,” she lied. She snuck a glance at Jordan and saw that he was pouting over on the loveseat, not happy about the invasion. But because he was a boy, he wasn’t catching any grief from Mike.
                  It wasn’t fair. She liked baseball, she liked good music, she kicked homeruns at kickball and didn’t so much as shed a tear when she skinned her nose; why was she the one Mike picked on so hard?
                  Jo lasted a half hour, but she was too aggravated with Michael to enjoy torturing him, so she retreated to the kitchen, perching on one of the stools so she could watch MTV by herself. When she heard footsteps in the threshold, she assumed it was Jordan coming to join her, and she glanced his way, only to have her breath catch when she realized it was Mike’s dark-haired friend instead.
                  She watched, silent, as he went to the pantry and rummaged around until he came up with a bag of pretzels. Did she speak? Probably not – she was only his friend’s little sister. And her voice might come out all squeaky given the way her throat seemed to be closing up. So, no, she wouldn’t say anything; she’d admire the way the incoming sunlight shone on his hair instead.
                  “What happened to your nose?”
                  Again, she’d been staring at him so stupidly that she’d missed someone addressing her. Only this time, he’d been the one looking at her and asking a question.
                  Jo swallowed the butterflies that were trying to come up her throat and forced her eyes to meet his sparkling blue ones. “W-what?” she asked.
                  The grin that broke sideways across his face was slow, easy, and she suddenly felt like throwing up. Why was this happening to her?! “Your nose.” He nodded toward her.
                  “Oh.” She wet her dry lips. “Oh, um…kickball.”
                  “Guess that makes you Jo: the one who wants to be a boy.”
                  She couldn’t explain the way all the butterflies dissolved in an instant, leaving a hard, ugly lump in the pit of her belly. The one who wants to be a boy . And what had she been thinking? That a thirteen-year-old would look at her and get jittery over her the way she’d done over him? Disappointment had never tasted so bitter.
                  “Yeah,” she said in a flat voice. “That’s me.”
                  He smiled at her again. “I’m Tam.”
    **
                  Through the years, the holidays, the Thanksgiving football games in the front yard, the graduations, recitals, modest vacations, weddings and funerals, among the rotating shifts of friends that entered the lives of the Walker children, Tameron Wales was the constant. Mom said he had “an unfortunate home life,” a phrase Jo’s ten-year-old mind didn’t understand at the time; but because of it, he was always granted a place at their table.
     
     
     
     

 
     
     
     
    3
    Now
     
     
                  The living room of Michael Walker’s bachelor pad was a study in black leather, glass and muted gray fabrics. It was clean, modern and masculine, and