Brawler by Tracey Ward Read Free Book Online Page A

without it but Mom makes us hide it.”
    She gestured to the wall across from us where a large fireplace made of bright marble squares dominated the space almost as much as the ocean owned the other. Above it was a huge picture frame surrounding a very minimalist black and white painting of Marilyn Monroe. Laney pushed a button on a remote control and the canvas slowly rolled away. Behind it was the matte black screen of a giant television fitted perfectly into the wall.
    “Really?” I asked sarcastically. “That’s it?”
    Laney rolled her eyes. “Please. It’s so big it’s stupid. My mom absolutely hates it.”
    “Why?”
    “Let’s see… It doesn’t fit with the décor. This is a family room, it’s for family time. We’re all going to go blind watching it. It’s rotting our brains. She has a million reasons.” Laney flopped down onto one of the pristine couches, her blond hair tumbling over her shoulders and around her face. She smiled up at me welcomingly. “Sit down. Watch some forbidden TV with me.”
    “Why?” I asked even as I took a seat on the opposite end of the couch from her. “So we can go blind together?”
    Her eyes roamed my face briefly before her smile widened. “Hopefully not.”
    I sipped the soda Jenna gave me as Laney pulled up a screen I didn’t recognize. Some On Demand movie channel, but it wasn’t long before she got Old School up and running. I was relieved it wasn’t a chick flick. I didn’t mind them now and then – they were a hard fact of a man’s life as much as hand, hair, or purse holding – but given the choice, I’d never choose one. The movies or the holdings.
    “Have you seen this before?” Laney asked as the opening credits began to roll.
    “Yeah, a couple times.”
    “Good. So you won’t get pissed at me if I start laughing before stuff actually happens?”
    “Is that something you do?”
    “Constantly,” she admitted, pulling her legs up onto the couch. Her bare feet were nearly touching my thigh. “I can’t help it. I know something funny is going to happen and I just start giggling. The girls on the team are always getting mad at me for it. I ruin movies for them.”
    “What team?”
    “Dance.”
    She looked it. Toned. Lean.
    I settled into the couch, throwing my arm up onto the back. My long fingers could nearly reach into her hair.
    “You play football?” she asked.
    “Yeah.”
    “I love football.”
    I eyed her skeptically. “Really?”
    “Yeah, really,” she laughed. “Cardinals are my jam.”
    I shook my head with disdain. “Stanford fan. That’s certainly a choice.”
    “It’s my dad’s team. He and my mom met at Stanford. I’ll probably go there. Do you like it?”
    “No, I hate Stanford. I’m a UCLA fan.”
    She laughed again. “No, do you like football. Do you like playing it?”
    “Why would I play it if I didn’t like it?”
    “I don’t know,” she replied with a careless shrug. “People do things they don’t want to do sometimes. I didn’t know if football is something you do because you like it or because people expect it of you.”
    “Is that why you’re on the dance team? Because people expect you to be?”
    She snorted. “I’m on the dance team because I’m crazy good at it.”
    I didn’t bother telling her that she hadn’t answered my question.
    After about ten minutes I saw what she meant about laughing before the bomb dropped. If I’d never seen that movie, I would have gotten up and left within the first few minutes. It was that kind of annoying.
    “Did you know this movie is a comedy version of Fight Club ?” I asked her.
    She eyed me dubiously. “That’s not true.”
    I shrugged. “According to the internet it is. Vince Vaughn’s character is Tyler Durden. Luke Wilson is Jack’s Raging Bowel Duct.”
    “Jack’s what?”
    “Have you seen Fight Club before?”
    “No. It’s like the only Brad Pitt movie I haven’t seen.”
    “So you’ve seen World War Z ?”
    “I don’t know