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

the front of it.
    “Tomorrow night,” he told his friends as he staggered away. Where had he left his car?
    “Don’t forget tomorrow is your turn to bring the booze,” Craig called.
    “I’m broke.”
    “Steal it from your old man.”
    “I can’t. He checks the bottles.”
    “Jesus, is he a cop in his spare time?”
    “I’ll see what I can do,” Gavin mumbled as he turned in the general direction of where he’d parked.
    “What if Miss Hotpants comes looking for you?” It was the asshole, calling to him in a singsong voice. His grin was ugly and goading. “What should we tell her? That you had to go home to your daddy?”
    “Get fucked.”
    The obnoxious kid hooted. “Well, it’s for sure you won’t. Not tonight anyway.”
    One of the others muttered, “Shut up, dickhead.”
    “Yeah, give it a rest,” the condom guy said.
    “What? Wha’d I do?”
    Craig spoke softly. “She dumped him.”
    “She did? When?”
    Gavin moved out of earshot, which was just as well. He didn’t want to hear any more.
    He located his car. It wasn’t that difficult to spot among all the others because it was a piece of shit. No badass pickup or sports car for him. Oh, no, nothing like that for Gavin Malloy. And you could forget a motorcycle. That wasn’t going to happen as long as his old man was in charge, and probably not as long as he was drawing breath.
    His car was a snore. It was a sensible, good-mileage means of transportation that would spoil the racy image of a Mormon soccer mom. And he was expected to be grateful for it.
    He’d gotten a lecture when he expressed his low opinion of it. “A car isn’t a toy, Gavin. Or a status symbol. This is a reliable first car. When you’ve proved that you’re responsible enough to take care of it and use it safely, I’ll consider an upgrade. Until then…” Blah-blah-blah.
    The thing was an embarrassment. When the fall semester started at his new school, he would probably be laughed off campus for driving this heap. The dorkiest of the dorks wouldn’t want to be seen with him.
    In his present condition, he had no business driving anything and was just sober enough to realize it. He concentrated hard on keeping the center stripe in focus. But that only seemed to increase his dizziness.
    He was still several blocks from home when he was forced to pull over, get out, and vomit. He spewed a torrent of tequila on some poor sucker’s flower bed that formed a neat circle of color around the mailbox. Someone would have a disgusting surprise when they came out to get the mail tomorrow. To say nothing of the mailman.
    Coordination shot, he climbed back into his car and drove the remainder of the way to the new house his dad had bought for them. It wasn’t bad. In fact, Gavin kinda liked it. Especially the pool. But he didn’t want his dad to know he liked it.
    He was relieved to see that his old man’s car wasn’t in the driveway. But Gavin wouldn’t put it past him to have laid a trap, so he slipped into the house through the back door and paused to listen. His dad would love to catch him sneaking in so he could ground him for longer, take away his cell phone, his computer, his car, and make his life even more miserable than it was.
    That was his parents’ main mission in life—to make him miserable.
    Satisfied that the house was empty, he went to his room. His old man must still be with Liz. Screwing like rabbits, no doubt. They never did it here in his dad’s bed. Did they think he was stupid, that he didn’t know they were having sex when they spent the evening at her place?
    It was easy to imagine Liz in bed. She had a hot body. But his old man? Rutting? No way. Gavin couldn’t imagine anything more gross.
    In his bedroom he turned on his computer even before he switched on the desk lamp. He couldn’t fathom life without a computer. How had people survived before them? If his dad really wanted to punish him, that’s the privilege he would revoke.
    He checked for