Dirty Shame (Bluefield Bad Boys #1) by Tess Oliver Read Free Book Online

mentioned the place in about a hundred emails. Did you ever even read them?”
    “Of course I read them.” Of course, skim would’ve been a more accurate verb in this case. Becky tended to go on about bad hair days and new shoes more than I liked to read about. “I was glad to get them,” I added, in a more ivory version of a white lie because I had actually looked forward to news from town. Becky had always, it seemed, taken the time to filter out stuff I didn’t want to hear about, namely Kellan and his extremely active social life. “The Hole, it’s the place that Scott owns?” My last words turned upward more like a question than a statement.
    “Yep and the place is booming. People up here in snooty snoot land thought Scotty was crazy for opening up a saloon on the other side of the tracks, but turns out he was genius.”
    “I guess things are still going strong between you two?”
    “We’re still together, but things feel slow, like we’re trudging through mud and not finding a way out. I guess maybe we’re just bored of each other. So, what do you say? I’ll pick you up at eight. Can’t wait to see you.”
    “I don’t know, Beck. I just got back. And I’m definitely not ready to talk about Chase yet.”
    “Got it. Chase is a no no on the topic list. Hey, have you talked to ‘you know who’? I was just arguing with Yoli—remember Yolanda from high school? We work at the pharmacy together. She’s friends with Dawson’s sister, Andi, and she insisted that you had not seen or talked to Kellan since graduation night.”
    Just the mention of graduation night sent an ache through my chest. I’d waited like a silly fool, freezing my butt off in a thin, satiny dress for my Romeo to come back with his sweatshirt. But he never returned. I’d gone back downstairs. His truck was still in the parking lot, so I waited for him to come back to the dance. But I never saw him again. I left the dance an hour later, shaking with tears and wondering if something had happened to him. On my way out, Jason Meade stopped to let me know he’d seen Kellan take off with Lilly Upton. Lilly had graduated two years earlier, and she’d always had a thing for Kellan.
    I waited for him to call me and explain what the heck was going on, but he’d never tried to contact me again. I left town with a broken heart and the solid notion that I would never come back to Bluefield or talk to Kellan again.
    “Yoli is right. I haven’t seen or heard from him since then.” There hadn’t been a day that passed when I hadn’t thought about Kellan, but I decided to keep that to myself and not give Yoli and Becky and everyone else fodder for gossip. As much as Kellan and I had tried to keep our relationship secret, there was just no way anyone with any sense could’ve stood in the same room or hallway or lunch quad with both of us and not realized there was a huge connection between us. Sometimes we’d be sitting at opposite sides in the classroom and I would imagine this sheer, glowing cord stretching across the room, tethered between us.
    I rubbed my hand across the familiar quilt on my bed. I’d missed it. “So, do all the miners hang out at The Hole?”
    “Ah ha,” Becky said in a tone that assured me she knew my motive for asking, “and yes, he will probably be there.”
    “Would you stop with the he and the you know who stuff, Becky, you make Kellan sound like some not to be named monster in a book.”
    Her curt laugh shot through the phone. “Kellan Braddock is anything but a monster. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but he’s grown even more gorgeous since high school. And he plows through girls like my chubby cousin, Dave, blows through a bowl of potato chips, indiscriminately and with no end to hunger in sight. I personally think he is just always looking for someone to replace you.”
    It was my turn to laugh. “He split up with me, remember? Although split up is too soft of a term for it.”
    There was an