Just You by Rebecca Phillips Read Free Book Online

something.”
    The doorbell started ringing then; parents
arriving to collect their heathens. When they were all gone, save
for my sister and stepbrother, the house felt eerily still.
    “Thank you,” Lynn said, hugging me tight.
She looked wrung-out. “Taylor, you’re off duty now. Your dad
promised he’d clean up the mess when he gets home from his
meeting.”
    I wasn’t about to argue with that. Robin and
I escaped to my room.
    “So,” she said, flopping on my bed and
picking up my stuffed swan. For some strange reason, I’d packed it
into my overnight bag and brought it to Dad’s with me. I couldn’t
bear to throw it away. Despite what had gone down with Brian, I
still loved swans. “I came over because I have something to tell
you.”
    I dropped down next to her. “Yeah?”
    She gripped the swan’s long neck in her fist
and jiggled its head back and forth. “Where did you get this
thing?”
    “Brian,” I said, and she flung it to the
floor. I reached over the edge of the bed, my fingers groping
around until they made contact with fuzzy fur. I snatched up my
swan and stuffed it under my chin. “What did you want to tell
me?”
    She rolled over on her side, facing me.
“Last night? After you left?”
    “Uh huh,” I said slowly. I didn’t like the
way her eyes were twinkling. It made me leery.
    “Michael comes up to me and he goes, ‘So
what’s the story with your friend?’”
    I stared at her, momentarily speechless. She
stared right back to me with this small, satisfied grin on her
lips. “He did not,” I said.
    “He did too.”
    “Michael…the guy you introduced me to last
night.”
    “The very same.”
    A rush of heat hit my face and I knew I
must’ve been as red as that little blond boy. “Liar.”
    “It’s true,” she said. Then, in an annoying
sing-song voice: “He likes you.”
    “Robin. He doesn’t even know me.”
    “You’re blushing,” she sang. “Don’t you want
to know what I told him?”
    I bit my lip. “No.”
    “I told him,” she said, yanking the swan
from my hands and tossing it clear across the room, “that you just
got out of a relationship with some douchebag who didn’t appreciate
you, and that you liked meeting him and wouldn’t mind hanging out
with him again sometime.”
    Now my cheeks were burning for a different
reason. Now I was mad . “Robin, I swear to God, if you really
said that to him I am going to smother you with this pillow.”
    “I didn’t tell him anything that wasn’t
true. You should have seen your face last night, Taylor. You were
practically drooling.”
    I smacked her with the pillow. “How would
you know? You were plastered.”
    “Not at that point. You could feel the electricity between you guys when you met. You’re perfect
together. He just got out of a bad relationship too, by the
way.”
    I sighed. She was such a romantic. “Robin,
I’m not interested in going out with anyone right now. Even if he
did ask me out—which I doubt would ever happen in this lifetime—I
would say no. I’m done with boys. Period.”
    She looked at me like I’d just told her I
was giving up breathing. “Forever?”
    “Until I’m out of high school, anyway.”
Eighteen seemed like a good age to start dating again.
    “Michael’s not just any boy, Taylor.”
    I sat up, folding my legs underneath me.
“Why don’t you go out with him then?”
    My question seemed to fluster her.
“Because…because I knew from the moment I met him that he was meant
for you. Besides, he’s really nice. You know I’m partial to bad
boys who use me and treat me like shit.”
    “You are insane.”
    “And you,” she said, poking me in the
shoulder with one blue-painted nail, “are coming out with me again
tonight. Let’s get you ready.”
     
    ****
     
    “Here.” Robin handed me a stick of gum.
“Chew on this instead of your nails. You look like a deranged
gerbil.”
    “Thanks,” I said, both for insult and the
gum. As I popped it into my mouth, I