Love and Learn (Voretti Family Book 2) by Ava Blackstone Read Free Book Online Page A

parents had taken off, leaving him penniless and homeless, his best option to enlist.  
    Ty had joined up too, unwilling to abandon his best friend after he’d already failed him in so many other ways. He’d cut Annabelle loose because it was the right thing to do. He couldn’t ask her to wait for him when he had no idea when he’d been home for good. If he’d be home for good.  
    As the years had passed, that night with Annabelle had seemed like an adolescent fantasy. Nothing was that good.
    But this was real.  
    “I saw your glasses were empty, so I brought another round.” Liv’s amused voice disrupted the fantasy where he and Annabelle were getting much more intimately reacquainted. She set a glass in front of him.  
    Annabelle held up both hands, warding off the second pint glass. “None for me.”
    “You need this.” Liv found her opening and took quick advantage, sliding Annabelle’s beer across the table without spilling a drop. “Drink up! And don’t you dare chicken out!”
    Before Annabelle could reply, Liv’s platform heels clacked away.
    With Annabelle glaring a hole in her sister’s retreating back, it would be smart to change the subject. But Ty had to know. “Chicken out?”  
    “It’s nothing.” Annabelle traced a set of initials someone had carved into the table. “She thinks we’re on a date.”
    “Who cares what she thinks?”
    “It’s not her, so much as all the people she’s going to tell. Last year, when she found out our cousin Claire was pregnant, the news got all the way to Mr. Belvins.”
    “Mr. Belvins our twelfth grade chemistry teacher?”
    “That’s the one.”
    “Even if she tells the whole world we’re dating, all you have to do is say it’s not true. Who’s everyone going to believe—you or Liv?”
    Annabelle tilted her head, and he could practically see the gears turning inside her brain, trying to come up with a statistical equation to calculate the odds.
    “But, hypothetically, if this were a date,” he said, before she could bust out a paper and pencil, “why would your sister think you need liquid courage?”
    “She likes to give me a hard time. You know how sisters are.” Though Annabelle had wiped her hands after she finished her burger, she grabbed a clean napkin and started over.
    There was only one explanation he could come up with, and it made him feel strangely guilty. “So it’s been a while for you?”  
    “No.” She scrubbed harder with the napkin. “Christian and I only broke up a few weeks ago.”
    “Then what is it?” He laid his hand over hers before she could do any more damage.  
    “Nothing.”
    Her pulse throbbed against his thumb and his heart beat faster, syncing with hers. “You’re a liar, sweetheart.”
    She sucked in a breath, but she didn’t try to pull away. “How do you know? Or did they teach you mind reading as soon as they were done with fast roping?”
    “Tell me what’s wrong and I’ll make it better.”
    The sound she made was somewhere between a laugh and a groan. “You have no idea what you’re dealing with.”
    “Let’s make a bet. I solve your problem, you have dinner with me again.”
    “And if you don’t?”
    “Anything you want.” He leaned toward her, still holding her wrist because he couldn’t make himself break contact. “Now out with it.”
    “It’s nothing, really.” She downed half of her beer.  
    “Then it shouldn’t take you long to explain it.”
    “It’s that Human Sexuality class. I’m a little uncomfortable with the material. The other day I made the mistake of asking Liv for advice, and she seemed to think I should…that I needed to…you know. Date.”
    He’d only talked to Liv for a few minutes, but he was pretty sure she wouldn’t have used the D word. “She said you needed to get laid. Didn’t she?”
    “She said it like it’s so easy! Like all I have to do is walk into a bar and pick up some guy. But I can’t.”
    “‘Course not. You don’t