Never to Sleep Read Free

and I took a critical sideways glance at him. He was beyond gorgeous. But Eastlake High was full of pretty people who acted like total freaks. I blame the local water supply. Which was why I drank bottled water.
    Still, Luca was new, and he was hot, and he was the first guy who’d looked at me with something more interesting than pity in his eyes since my mom died and my boyfriend was committed to a mental institution. If the universe was finally throwing me a bone—and let’s be honest, it owed me the whole damn skeleton , after the year I’d had—I wasn’t going to throw it back without at least taking a good look at the offering.
    We turned the corner, and I glanced up when the voices I’d heard fell into a sudden hush. There were only a few people left in this corridor, and they were all staring at a couple in the middle of the math hall, making out like they were trying to swallow each other whole.
    I didn’t recognize the guy’s pale curls or athletic build, but I would have known her anywhere. Thin, curveless body that she didn’t know how to showcase to its own advantage. Plain, thick brown hair that could be pretty, if she’d use a decent conditioner or let me flatiron it. But she never did, so I’d stopped asking when I was twelve, and I realized it’d be easier to pretend I didn’t know her than to try to explain how she could be so mousy when we sprang from the same genetic line.
    “Who is that?” Luca whispered, and I had to swallow a groan. Of course the first things he’d see at Eastlake were me, flat on my butt with a bruise rising on my forehead— not my finest hour—and Kaylee, starring in yet another public spectacle.
    I shook my head. “I’ve never seen him before, but she’s my cousin. And that is not her boyfriend. I swear, she is such a closet slut.” She’d gotten double detention for public display with Nash two days ago.
    Luca glanced at me with upraised brows. “Looks like the closet’s open.”
    “Great.” The only thing worse than a quiet, crazy cousin was a slutty, skanky cousin with an exhibitionist streak. At least Peyton knew how to keep her secrets secret.
    For the millionth time, I wished my parents had let me change my last name so people would stop mistaking me and Kaylee for sisters. That’s all I’d wanted for my thirteenth birthday, and those little-girl diamond heart earrings were a poor substitute.
    A second later, Nash and his creepy, goth-freak friend stepped around a corner on the other end of the hall and stopped cold, staring just like we were. I couldn’t decide whether to stick around for the fireworks, or run from the drama before I became collateral damage by association. Again.
    “Kaylee?” Nash said, and my cousin and the mystery hottie jumped apart like someone had lit a fire at their feet.
    I ducked into a classroom doorway, behind a row of lockers, and Luca glanced at me in surprise. “ That’s her boyfriend. At the end of the hall, with the scary brunette.”
    Luca stared down the hall again, and when the shouting started, I grabbed his arm and pulled him around the corner with me. “You’re right. Let’s go this way.” I started back the way we’d come and he fell into step beside me, still carrying my box, as the drama behind us grew louder and even more embarrassing.
    “I take it you’re not close to your cousin?” Luca said, watching me with those beautiful eyes.
    “I’m close to never speaking to her again. Does that count?”
    “Why? What’d she do?”
    “You mean other than the Jerry Springer-worthy public display back there? She lived with me until this year—her own dad didn’t even want her around for, like, thirteen years—and she’s been trying to wreck my life since junior high.”
    “With serial public displays of affection?”
    “No, that’s a recent development.” Thank goodness. “Kaylee’s kind of…unbalanced.”
    “Meaning, she falls over a lot?”
    “Ha-ha. She’s nuts. My eighth grade