Reckless Hearts Read Free Page B

new item on his list. “Where is he? He heard me coming and snuck out the back door?”
    â€œHe’s not here,” said Nina.
    â€œOh? We must have run out of food, hey?” Elena’s father shot back.
    And then they were both shouting, rapidly, in Spanish. Elena was caught between the two of them, ducking as their words zipped back and forth above her head. She’d so had enough of this. All they ever did was fight, and always about Matty.
    God, get me out of here , she thought. But where would she go? She couldn’t flee to Jake. It’s not like she could ride her bike all the way across town and show up at Cameron Pendergrass’s estate, begging to be let in. He’d think, Who’s this crazy Cuban girl and why’s she on my lawn?
    Her dad was stalking around the room now, circling Nina. And Nina was wagging her finger all over the place. Elena couldn’t take it anymore.
    â€œEverybody! Shut up for a second!” she said. She leaped to her feet, putting herself physically betweenthem. Turning to them one at a time, she said, “Dad. Matty hasn’t been here all day. I’ve been sitting right here. I would have seen him. And Nina. Dad’s right. You have to get Matty under control. What are you going to do when the baby is born and he disappears for days on end, or shows up drunk in the middle of the night shouting for you to come out and party with him? He’s the father of your child. Tell him to get it together. Jeez.”
    She didn’t usually get involved in their fights like this, and the two of them stared at her in surprise for a beat. Then they turned right back to each other and commenced shouting again.
    â€œYou people are hopeless!” Elena said.
    But neither of them even heard her. They didn’t notice when she slinked out of the room, either. They just kept on yelling. It was almost like they liked the drama.
    She padded down the hall to her room, feeling with each step how wrong it was to head in this direction, farther into the house, when she should have been moving in the other direction, out into the crisp night air, toward Jake’s place next door, where they’d find a way to remind each other that laughing about their troubles always made things better. But she couldn’t do that. For the first time since Jake had driven away with his guitar and the duffel bag of clothes in the backseat of his beat-upold Jeep, which they affectionately called the Rumbler, Elena sadly understood how her life would be different without him living next door.
    Locking the dead bolt she’d placed on her door, she sparked up her computer, put on her headphones, and checked out the new animations her virtual friends had posted on AnAmerica, hoping they’d be distracting enough to drown out the drama on the other side of the door.

3
    Jake had never seen a house quite like this one. It was like something out of a magazine. It had been featured in a magazine, actually. Luxury , it was called. Jake had never heard of it, but the name said everything he needed to know. It was hidden from the street by a solid white gate and the first time Jake had seen the surreally lush lawn he’d wondered how many thousands of dollars Cameron spent every month on landscaping. There were no trees, just this vast flat green space perched above the beach and the house sitting there like a sculpture.
    From the outside it looked like a set of blindingly white boxes, each one set off-center from the ones above and below it, like children’s blocks that had been placedprecariously on top of one another. Inside, it was a cavernous, flowing open space with different platformed levels connected by brushed concrete stairs that seemed to float free in the air.
    The interior was so tasteful that there weren’t any Christmas decorations, not even a wreath. Jake felt like he was in an art gallery, not someplace people lived. But people did live here. He