Raven's Rest by Stephen Osborne Read Free Book Online

think?
    “Thought what?”
    I looked around. The lady with the dog had obviously spotted our embrace, and from the look on her face, it soured her disposition. She was several yards from us, on the sidewalk along the park, waiting while the dog found just the right spot to do his business. I figured a driver or two coming along the road had also witnessed our kiss.
    “I just thought if it ever happened, it might be under more romantic circumstances,” I said.
    Still being impish, Trey blew out some smoke and sidled up to me again. He placed a hand on my butt and pulled me to him. We kissed again, longer this time and even more passionately, if such a thing was possible. I almost could feel my heart melt.
    Trey broke off the kiss and looked into my eyes. “Romantic enough for you?”
    “It’ll do for now,” I said.
    The lady with the dog humph ed and moved on. Her reaction seemed to please Trey. “That’s Mrs. Donovan,” he told me. “She used to be the town treasurer years ago, up until they discovered she was using money that wasn’t hers to fund her lavish cocktail parties. So she can disapprove all she wants, fucking hypocrite.”
    Understanding dawned on me. “You kissed me just because she was standing there.”
    Trey seemed to think this over. “Yeah, I guess that was part of it. I did want to kiss you, though. Killed two birds with one stone, as they say.”
    It occurred to me that Trey’s motives hardly mattered. I’d enjoyed the kisses and the sensations that resulted from them. I was still semihard, and if the bulge in his jeans was any indication, so was he.
    For the first time in a very long time, I felt happy.
    I realized I’d hardly thought about Kevin all day. Trey had dominated my thoughts, with his black clothes and his devilish smile and his pale eyes. He tried hard to put across the image that he was the town’s bad boy, but I sensed that deep down he was a passionate, caring soul. At least I hoped he was.
    He certainly wasn’t Kevin. And that was a good thing.
    While we had been washing up the dishes after breakfast, we’d briefly gone over our previous boyfriends. Trey—in his version, at least—had broken the hearts of several guys in Banning. I told him about Kevin but only in general terms. I didn’t tell him that Kevin had been a controlling bastard, a verbally abusive manipulator. That was a tale that would have to wait until we were somewhere private.
    Trey and I continued our walk, leaving the park and taking a bend along Orchard, past a car dealership and a women’s gym. I had no idea where we were now, not that it mattered. I was with Trey, and that was all I cared about. I wasn’t quite sure what about him I found so attractive. He was “pretty” rather than handsome, with his elfin features, and he was sometimes exasperating to talk to as he changed the subject often, then would go back to a previous topic as if we’d never left it. And he still lived with his mother, although he was twenty-three. Granted, it was a big house, and apparently there was a sister and a cousin and an aunt living there as well, one big happy family. Something I’d never had. He put on a show of being lazy and disgruntled, and he bragged a bit about drinking and getting into fights.
    But he wasn’t pushy, the impromptu kiss aside. And he was always asking what I thought, as if my opinion mattered to him. That was something new.
    So far, so good.
    He was wearing a leather jacket, unzipped to look cool despite the chill in the air. And he had a bit of a swagger when he walked. I wondered how much of his attitude was show and how much was real. It would be fun to find out.
    Trey continued to take drags off his cigarette as we strolled along. “So are you going to ask me, or what?”
    “Ask you what?”
    “To come by your room tonight. I want to meet these ghosts of yours.”
    “I thought you didn’t believe in ghosts.”
    “Not sure I do, but you do, so I’ll keep an open mind. I like