Break It Up by E.M. Tippetts Read Free Book Online Page B

you’re wild and uncontrollable, but I hate to break it to you. You aren’t anymore. You haven’t missed curfew in a year.”
    “I missed it when I spent the night with Zach Wechsler. Hello!”
    “Nah, that was an accident,” says Jen.
    “You even kept curfew after you turned eighteen,” says my father, “when it didn’t apply anymore.”
    “It didn’t? You never told me that.”
    “You didn’t even think to ask,” says Jen. “You didn’t even try to find a loophole.”
    “It’s true.” My father goes to sit down next to his wife. “Sorry, querida , but you’ve turned into the kind of girl you always used to mock. You even pulled straight A’s last year.” His words are all lightness and humor, but his expression is serious, as if he’s telling me I have cancer. “If you have an exclusive job offer in Europe that might expand your horizons beyond washing dishes and waiting tables in New Mexico…” He leans forward and fixes me with a deadpan look. “I’m afraid you leave me with little choice. I’ll support you.”
    This is messed up. I pace our living room, not knowing what to say.
    Jen shakes her head. “I don’t understand. What’s so upsetting about this?”
    “Yes. Come on. We’re saying yes and we’re trying to be funny,” says my father. “Is it my humor?”
    “It could be your sense of humor,” says Jen.
    “Is it that scary?”
    “She’s agitated. Look at her.”
    Boots, the cat, sits on the arm of the couch and watches this exchange like it’s a tennis match, his gaze bobbing back and forth.
    “Kyra?” presses my father.
    “It’s Triple Cross,” I say. “They’re the hottest boy band ever and…”
    “And what?” My father shrugs.
    I shoot Jen a pleading look. She takes the cue and puts her hand over my father’s. “Give us a moment?” she says.
    My father nods and slips out of the room.
    How is it I never noticed that my parents can read me just fine? I spent high school certain that they never knew the first thing about me.
    “What is it?” Jen asks.
    “I have a massive crush on Zach Wechsler.”
    She nods. “I know. So you think that’d be too much for you to take, being near him?”
    “I’m afraid I’ll do something stupid like sleep with him or one of the other band members and end up hating myself.”
    “Kyra…you’re not that person anymore.”
    “I slept with Chase Rollins,” I blurt out. “When Jason was filming The Pact . I totally let him seduce me and take me back to his trailer and—”
    “Mmmm. My shocked face.” She points to her expressionless, deadpan countenance. “Who didn’t sleep with Chase Rollins when they got the chance? He had the worst reputation.”
    “So you can’t trust me.”
    “I couldn’t back then, no. And I can’t trust Chase Rollins, but I knew that. I know the type. And now he’s on a reality TV show that gets some of the lowest ever ratings, and there, sweetie, is your payback. That’s what you get.”
    “Jen, if I’m on tour with three of the hottest guys on the planet, I will screw it up. You know me. I’ll sleep with one or more of them and the media will find out about me and my past and—”
    “Kyra, listen to me. You may be over the whole sleeping around thing, but you’ve still got some confidence issues. You are well qualified for this intern job if you want it.”
    “You can’t let me go.”
    “I can’t make you go. But maybe you should make yourself. Maybe you need to see once and for all that, really, you can handle this. You can make good decisions and do the right thing. You are a good person.”
    I think about Zach and that penetrating stare of his. I think of what it felt like just to be near him and how I can’t help but picture us sleeping beside each other.
    I shake my head. “No way. Things with Zach ended, they were okay. He texts me and is really nice…and if he got to know me, he wouldn’t be that nice.”
    At that, Jen’s expression grows serious. “Any guy who