Brawler by Tracey Ward Read Free Book Online

supposed to play basketball?”
    “I guess not. What do you play?”
    “Golf,” she replied with clear disgust.
    “Are you any good?”
    “God, Jenna, could you be louder?!” a voice demanded from the hall, interrupting Jenna’s reply.
    A blond bombshell, a perfect knockout from head to toe, stormed into the room.
    I grinned at the girl as I stood from my seat, not really understanding why I’d done it. Some crazy masculine instinct kicked in, demanding I stand up and show her how much larger than her I was. How strong and capable.
    I felt like a damn caveman.
    “Hi,” she said breathily, smiling up at me.
    “Hi.” I offered her my hand. “I’m Kellen.”
    She took my hand slowly, lingering her hold. “I know. I’ve seen you around school. I’m Laney.”
    “You go to Weston?”
    “Yeah. I’m a sophomore. You’re a senior this year, right?”
    “Yeah, but I might graduate a semester early.”
    Get out before they can throw me out.
    She laughed brightly. “God, why?”
    “I’m in an accelerated program.”
    “You’re in Higher Focus? The classes with all the gifted kids?”
    Shit, I hated that word almost as much as I hated being called a fighter. Gifted sounded like what little I had wasn't really mine. Like it was a present that had been given to me rather than anything I'd earned or accomplished on my own.
    “Yeah," I replied evenly. "It’s how I ended up at Weston High. The schools in my neighborhood were too easy. Now I’m just serving my time, waiting to get out.”
    “Like prison?”
    “Let’s hope not,” I joked, but it wasn’t funny. Not to me.
    “But if you get out early you’ll miss out on all of the good stuff.”
    “Like what?”
    “Like Prom and graduating with everyone else. What happens if you graduate early? They hand you your diploma and you go home? No parties? No fun? You like fun, don’t you, Kellen?”
    Jenna groaned, reminding us both that she was there.
    Laney scowled at her. “Don’t you have homework to do?”
    “Yeah, so do you.”
    “I already did mine. I just finished. You better do yours before mom gets home and finds out you’ve been slacking.” Laney smiled at me again. “We should leave her to do it. She gets distracted really easy. Do you want to come wait for my dad in the living room with me? We could watch TV?”
    She left without waiting for me to respond, like she wasn’t worried I wouldn’t follow. And I would, that wasn’t up for debate, but I didn’t like feeling like a forgone conclusion either.
    “Use a coaster,” Jenna warned me glumly. “My mom will go ballistic if she finds water spots. She’s crazy like that.”
    I cast her a grateful smile. “Thanks, Nonpareil.”
    “No problem, Rocky,” she answered dryly.
    I followed Laney down a long hallway, watching her hips swing as she went. She was barefoot in jeans and a tight tank top, and there was a comfortable ease to the way she moved, like she fit so flawlessly into her body that she wasn’t a series of joints and bones uncertainly stacked together like the rest of us. She was planned. Thought out. Orchestrated to the smallest, finest details. She was the absolute sexiest thing I’d seen all year, and she knew it.
    She led me into a large living room with dark wood floors, white walls, and cream colored furniture that looked like it belonged in a showroom. The coffee and end tables were all gleaming bleached wood topped with artfully cut glass in no particular shape, but giving the impression of waves on the ocean. An entire wall of the room was filled with French doors that led onto a patio beside a pool. Beyond its calm, blue waters and the bubbling waterfall tumbling into them, was the frothing, pulsing sea spray of the Pacific Ocean.
    “It’s a nice view, right?” Laney asked with a grin, catching my stare.
    I nodded in undeniable agreement. “I get why you don’t have a TV in here. With that in your backyard, who needs one?”
    “Oh, there’s a TV. Dad would die