Saints of Augustine Read Free Page A

slept in his boxer shorts, thankfully, and not in the raw (though he’d thought about it after watching that movie). He shot out his arm like a big hook and dragged her onto the bed. She squealed as he tickled her beneath her arms.
    When she was thoroughly conquered, he let her go and sat back against his headboard. “Why are you wearing that dumbass shirt?”
    â€œYou owe a quarter to the swearing jar,” she toldhim, straightening the cap on her head.
    â€œYeah, I’ll be paying that real soon.”
    Hannah looked down at the shirt and tugged on its hem. “Teddy gave me this.”
    â€œHe gave me one, too. Know what I did with mine? Cut it up into rags.”
    â€œYou’re so weird,” she said. Then she stared at his floor, at the piles of clothes and the scattered CD cases. “You’re a slob. Can we call Dad?”
    â€œWhy, so you can tell him what a slob I am?”
    â€œNo,” she said firmly. “I’m not a narc.”
    She really was a funny little kid, for being a nosy snoop. “We just called him yesterday. He said he was going to call us next time. Friday, I think. Hey, what time is it in London?”
    â€œHow should I know?”
    â€œCome on. What did I teach you?”
    She rolled her eyes. “Some weird science thing.”
    â€œTime zones,” he said. “Remember? How Grand-dad is in Nashville, and he’s an hour behind us?”
    â€œI know ,” she groaned.
    â€œWell, people in London are five hours ahead. We’re here”—he made a fist and pointed to histhumb knuckle—“and Dad is…here.” He pointed to the knuckle of his third finger. “It’s ten o’clock in St. Augustine, so what time is it in London?”
    â€œFifteen o’clock,” she said, screwing her face up like a moron.
    â€œYou’re brilliant,” Sam said. “I’ll bet you’re just oozing brilliance all over the inside of my cap.” He got out of bed, grabbed a T-shirt from the floor, and pulled it on. From another pile, he found a pair of cutoff shorts and climbed into them. “Be right back, Jack.”
    As he crossed the hall to the bathroom, he heard voices coming from the front of the house. More conversation about wall sconces. When he came back into his room, Hannah was lying down flat on her back across the foot of his bed, her head hanging over the side. Looking at him upside down, through his sunglasses, she said, “Dad’s with his friend, isn’t he?”
    â€œYeah.”
    Hannah huffed. She rolled over. “I wish he’d come home.”
    â€œHe’ll be home in, like, three weeks.”
    â€œI mean home ,” she said.
    He knew what she meant, of course. It had been almost a year since their parents had gotten separated. There’d been a lot of arguments leading up to the event, most of them behind closed doors—that awful, muffled sound of angry adults trying not to be heard. Then there were a few very loud arguments, which Sam had drowned out with his headphones. But even though the fighting went on for a few weeks, he was still shocked when his parents sat him and Hannah down and told them the news: Their dad was going to move out of the house. There’d been a thousand questions, most of them from Hannah (“For how long?” and “How come you don’t just stop fighting?” and, over and over and over again, “Why?”), and none of the answers had been very specific. “It’s for the best,” they both said. But how could that make any sense? How was it for the best when their dad was moving up to Ponte Vedra Beach?
    They went to his new house almost every weekend, either dropped off by his mom or picked up by his dad—though they never spent the night. Hisdad’s new house was larger and nicer than theirs. It had a pool, and Sam and Hannah kept swimsuits there so they could go swimming when they