Clallam Bay (A Fresh Start #2) by L. C. Morgan Read Free Book Online Page A

tonight.”
    “What?”
    “The bar. He invited us.”
    “Which bar?”
    She shrugged. “He didn’t tell me the name. He just said we’d know it ‘cause it was the only one in town.” Leaning across the table, she stole a piece of my pancake. “So you wanna go?”
    “Why didn’t you make your own pancake? Aren’t you eating?”
    She shook her head. “I don’t eat breakfast. So we’re going, right?”
    “Well, if you don’t eat breakfast then why are you eating mine?”
    “Hailey, focus.” She snapped her fingers in my face. “Are we going to the damn bar or are we not?”
    “We are not.”
    “What? Why?” She drew it out, bouncing in her seat dramatically like a little kid.
    I stabbed another piece of pancake with my fork and pointed it at her. “Just so I could hear you whine like that.”
    Her glare threw daggers at me, and I tried to stab her hand when it attempted to invade my plate again.
    “I’ll make you another pancake.”
    “I don’t need another pancake. I don’t even need this one.” I thought back on all those Doritos I’d readily consumed.
    Huffing, she fell back in her seat. “Well then, what? What do you want? Name it.”
    “Your pink sweater.”
    “The crocheted one that hangs off the shoulder?”
    “That’s the one.”
    “Okay. But just to wear to the bar, right?”
    I shook my head. “No. To keep forever.”
    Amber briefly thought about it. “Okay, deal.”
    “Seriously?”
    “Yeah. Seriously. You need to get out of this house. And it’ll give me a chance to try and work with this tragedy.” Amber patted down the spoiler sticking out of the back of her head, but it just popped right back up again.
    “Hey, I get out of the house.”
    Amber gave me a look.
    “What? I do. Alyssa and I hang out on the porch all the time.” As if she had heard me, there was a knock on the door. “Speak of the devil and she shall appear.”
    “How do you know it’s her?”
    “Her signature knock.” It was as obnoxious as a woodpecker on crack.
    I let Amber answer the door and introduce herself. As predicted, they hit it off immediately.
    “So, you’ve already met the orally-fixated neighbor, huh? Did she tell you about what he did to her finger?”
    While Alyssa filled Amber in, I cleaned up the kitchen, every so often eyeing the crumpled up bag of Doritos. I desperately wanted to stick my head in it and hide from those two. I was also still starving. All that one lousy pancake did was make me hungrier.
    “By the way,” Alyssa said when she walked into the kitchen, “I forgive you for not calling me yesterday like you said you were going to.”
    “I said no such thing.”
    “Okay well, I forgive you for not calling me yesterday like I assumed you were going to. Amber said you two got in pretty late.”
    Stuffing the Doritos in the cupboard, I nodded.
    “She also mentioned a bar. The one Coll invited you to.”
    “Yeah.”
    “So are we going?”
    Amber shouted from the other room. “Yes!” She came into the kitchen holding out her pink sweater. “We absolutely are.”
    By the time we got back from finding Amber something to replace her prized sweater, the time to leave for the bar had rolled around and I was a nervous wreck. My stomach was in knots. Though that could have been low blood sugar from not eating for the rest of the day. I grabbed the Doritos out of the cupboard to munch on, but Amber took them away.
    “We’ll get something more filling at the bar. You need more than crumbs coating your stomach.”
    The cab Amber had called to pick us up turned out to be a minivan. Complete with a car seat and toys covering the floorboard and driven by one of my students’ fathers.
    “Don’t mind the mess, Miss Hailey, Miss Alyssa.” Timmy’s dad nodded to us both in greeting. “Cab’s still in the shop and will be for at least another week.”
    The ride to the bar consisted of low-playing children’s sing-alongs and profuse apologies about the mess. We were on to