Hello, Darkness by Sandra Brown Read Free Book Online Page A

conceived them. None was workable. She was helpless to do anything but wait for him to come back for more of his sick sex games.
    Jesus, she thought, what have I gotten myself into?
    “I hope you’ve enjoyed this evening of classic love songs. Please join me again tomorrow night. I’ll be looking forward to it. Until then, this is Paris Gibson on FM 101.3. Good night.”
    Great. Now she didn’t even haveParis to keep her company.
    Chapter Five
    G avin Malloy was awfully drunk. The pleasant buzz from the cheap tequila wasn’t quite so pleasant any longer. It was too hot to be drinking tequila shots. He should have stuck to beer. But he had needed something strong and nasty to drown his depression.
    The hell of it was, he was still depressed.
    The evening had been spoiled for him early on. His drinking had accomplished nothing except to make him light-headed, sweaty, and nauseous. Blearily he looked toward a clump of scraggly cedar trees and wondered if he could cover the distance over the rocky ground before he puked. Probably not.
    Besides, he’d seen a couple disappear behind the trees a while ago. If they were still doing what they’d gone there to do, they wouldn’t appreciate him hurling on them. Talk about coitus interruptus.
    He chuckled at the thought.
    “What’re you laughing at?” his new friend asked, nudging him in the gut, which caused the tequila to slosh. The guy’s name was Craig something. If he’d ever heard his last name, he’d forgotten it. Craig drove a Dodge Ram pickup, the biggest one made. Jet black. Fully loaded. It was one badass truck.
    Gavin, Craig, and several others had been hanging out in the bed of the pickup for hours, waiting for something to happen. A group of girls had come by earlier, drunk some of their tequila, showed them just enough skin to get them excited, then wandered away with promises to return. So far they hadn’t.
    “What’s funny?” Craig asked again.
    “Nothing. Just thinking.”
    “’Bout what?”
    What had he been thinking? He couldn’t remember. Must not’ve been very important. “My old man,” he said around a belch. Yeah, his old man had been in the back of his mind all night, bothering him like an itch he couldn’t reach.
    “What about him?”
    “He’s gonna shit ’cause I went out tonight. He grounded me.”
    “That sucks.”
    “You got grounded?” another guy jeered. “What are you, twelve?”
    Gavin didn’t know his name, only that he was an asshole with bad skin and worse breath who thought he was a lot cooler than he was.
    Gavin had moved toAustin fromHouston a week after the spring semester ended. Finding a new crowd during summer break hadn’t been easy, but he had joined this group, who accepted him once they learned he was a guy who liked to party as much as they did.
    “Awww, Gavin’s scared of his daddy,” the jerk taunted.
    “I’m not scared of him. I just dread having my ass chewed again.”
    “Save yourself the hassle.” This from the optimist who’d showed them earlier his inventory of condoms. “Wait till he goes to bed before you sneak out.”
    “I tried that already. He’s a freaking bat. He’s got like built-in radar or something.”
    This conversation was making the lousy evening lousier. Nothing could cheer him up tonight, not more tequila, not even the return of the girls, and chances were excellent that they weren’t going to come back as promised. Why would they waste their time on losers like this bunch, like him?
    He stood up, swaying dangerously. “I’d better split. If I’m lucky, he won’t be home yet. He’s with his girlfriend.”
    He waded through the others, then jumped off the tailgate. But he miscalculated the distance to the ground as well as the weakness in his knees and wound up facedown in the dirt.
    His new buddies howled. Weak with laughter himself, he struggled to get upright. His T-shirt was so wet with sweat that when he tried to dust himself off, he left streaks of mud across