Gray Back Bad Bear (Gray Back Bears Book 1) by T. S. Joyce Read Free Book Online Page B

money, so when we figured out my vision sucked, my mom bought me some glass frames from one of those old thrift stores and had some lenses put in them, so I was rocking grandma glasses until I was a sophomore. I picked up a job tutoring middle school kids on the weekends just to purchase a snazzier pair. As you can imagine, an updated pair of glasses didn’t really stop the teasing.”
    “Kids can be jerks at that age,” he said in a faraway voice.
    “What about you? Were you the cool kid in school? Wait, wait, wait, let me guess. You were built like an eighteen-wheeler even in high school, so your coach recruited you early and you were star of your football team, taking them all the way to state by your senior year. You spent the entirety of your last year in high school smelling like cheerleader poon and managed to win homecoming and prom king. Am I close?”
    Matt pursed his lips as the smile faded from his eyes. “I didn’t go to school.”
    “You didn’t go to college?”
    “No, I mean, I didn’t go to high school or middle school. I’m self-educated.” He frowned. “Kind of.”
    Willa sat up, shocked to her core. “I don’t understand. So you did homeschool?”
    “No, Willa.” A strange humming growl emanated from his chest. “I mean not everyone gets to go to school. Maybe for humans it’s easier, but for me and the kids I lived with, it wasn’t doable. We lived out in the woods in this shitty RV I found us, and I worked three jobs to keep us fed. There wasn’t a lot of time leftover for school. I was a kid raising kids.”
    “What about your parents?”
    “Stop looking at me like that.”
    “Like what?” Shocked and horrified because the stuff he was telling her pointed to a long life of pain, and fun-loving Matt didn’t fit the bill for a wrecked life.
    “Like you pity me. Fuck.” He shook his head and looked away, but she’d already seen it. His eyes had lightened to that inhuman silver color. “Don’t ask me questions like these anymore. One week, remember? I don’t want to talk about anything—”
    “But maybe you should—”
    “Not with you! I’m not keeping secrets because I’ve had some hard life I can’t come to grips with, Willa. I’ve talked to my friend, Kong. Told him everything. I know the dangers of keeping shit like that inside, and I didn’t do it. But with you… Don’t you get it? I just want to have fun. I don’t want the serious shit I have to deal with when I talk to my crew or my friends. I want things to be light with you. Easy.” Matt slid an angry glare to her. “I want to be someone else with you.”
    Willa bit her lip and nodded until her words found her again. “Okay. Easy. I can do that.”
    “Good.” Matt pushed off the rock and dove under the falls. The sunlight glinted off the silver spider webs of his scarred back as he swam just under the surface of the water and away from her, blurring as he escaped the edge of her good vision.
    She unclenched her hands that she hadn’t realized she’d gripped into fists, and her heart ached. Matt wasn’t interested in her, or even interested in being friends.
    He only wanted to escape himself for a little while with someone who didn’t know him.

Chapter Five
     
    Too far away for Willa’s blurry eyes to see, there was splashing and chaos on the shore where Matt was headed. They weren’t alone in this magic place under the waterfall anymore.
    Confused and a little gut-hurt, Willa slipped off the rock and back under the falls. As she swam closer to the shore and the people there became clearer, her stomach sank with every stroke.
    Brittney’s high-pitched flirty laugh echoed across the water, drawing a wince from Willa. And when she stepped clumsily onto the shore, her tankini clinging to her like an ill-fitting second skin, Brittney was hanging from Matt’s neck, whispering in his ear while he held her elbows and listened with a faraway look in his eyes. Great.
    “Hey again,” Jason said with