Haunted by Meg Cabot Read Free Book Online

sounded from the foyer: “Keep your shirt on, I’m here.” Jake knew his father well.
    My mom shot Andy a look over the bowls of shredded lettuce and cheese we were passing around. The look said, See. Told you so .
    “Hey,” Jake said, coming into the dining room at his usual far-less-than-brisk pace. “Sorry I’m late. Got held up at the bookstore. The lines to buy books were unbelievable.”
    My mom’s told-you-so look deepened.
    All Andy did was growl, “You’re lucky. This time. Sit down and eat.” Then, to Brad, he said, “Pass the salsa.”
    Except that Jake didn’t sit down and eat. Instead, he stood there, one hand in the front pocket of his jeans, the other still dangling his car keys.
    “Uh,” he said. “Listen…”
    We all looked up at him, expecting something interesting to happen, like for Jake to say that the pizza place had messed up his schedule again, and that he couldn’t stay for dinner. This generally resulted in some major fireworks from Andy.
    But instead, Jake said, “I brought a friend with me. Hope that’s okay.”
    Since my stepfather would rather have a thousand people crowded around our dinner table than a single one of us missing from it, he said equably, “Fine, fine. Plenty for everyone. Take another place setting from the counter.”
    So Jake went to the counter to grab a plate and knife and fork, while his “friend” came slouching into view, having apparently dawdled in the living room, no doubt taken aback by the plethora of family photos my mother had plastered all over the walls there.
    Sadly, Jake’s friend was not of the feminine variety, so we could not look forward to teasing him about it later. Neil Jankow, as he was introduced, was nevertheless, as David would put it, an interesting specimen. He was well groomed, which set him apart from most of Jake’s surf buddies. His jeans did not sag somewhere midway down his thighs but were actually belted properly around his waist, a fact that also put him a cut above most young men his age.
    This did not mean, however, that he was a hottie. He wasn’t, by any means. He was almost painfully thin, and pasty-skinned as well, and had longish blond hair. Still, I could tell my mother approved of him, since he was excruciatingly polite, calling her ma’am—as in “Thank you very much for letting me stay for dinner, ma’am”—though his implication, that my mother had prepared the meal, was somewhat sexist, since Andy was the one who had done all the cooking.
    Still, nobody seemed to take offense, and room was made for young master Neil at the table. He sat down and, following Jake’s lead, began to eat…not very heartily but with an appreciation that seemed unfeigned. Neil, we soon learned, was in Jake’s Intro to English Literature seminar. Like Jake, Neil was just entering his first year at NoCal—the local slang for Northern California State College. Like Jake, Neil was from the area. His family, in fact, lived in the valley. His father owned a number of restaurants in the area, including one or two at which I had actually eaten. Like Jake, Neil wasn’t so sure what he wanted to major in, but, also like Jake, he expected to enjoy college much more than he had high school, since he’d arranged his schedule so that he didn’t have a single morning class, and so could spend the A . M . hours sleeping in, or, if he happened to wake before eleven, taking advantage of a few waves over at Carmel Beach before his first class.
    By the end of the meal, I had many questions about Neil. I had a big one about one thing in particular. It was something that, I was fairly certain, hadn’t bothered anyone besides me. And yet I really felt that I was owed some sort of explanation, at least. Not that I could have said anything about it. Not with so many people around.
    That was part of the problem. There were too many people around. And not just the people gathered around the dinner table, either. No, there was the guy