Naked by Kelly Favor Read Free Book Online Page B

sheltered and rich and happy. It’s not really like that.”
    “It’s not?” he smirked.
    “A lot of them are, sure,” she admitted, “but some of them are depressed and miserable. Some of them are mean. Some of them are worse than that.”
    “I guess that makes sense,” Elijah said. “But believe me, you would take the nastiest of your bunch and put them in my neck of the woods—they don’t last twenty-four hours.”
    “Maybe not. But you’re not as bad as you seem to think you are, Elijah.”
    “You don’t know me.”
    “I’m starting to know you.”
    That quieted him. He seemed to be thinking awhile. “I told you I was running away from something too,” he said.
    She nodded. “That person on the phone just now—is that who you’re running away from?”
    “Partly. Let’s just say that I fell in with a bad crowd.” He laughed, like this amused him.
    “What’s so funny?”
    “That’s just total bullshit. I didn’t fall in with them. I grew up with them. They were my best friends. One of them is my kid brother.”
    She could see the hurt in his eyes now. It was obvious that he was struggling with his decision as much as she was struggling with her own. “Maybe you and me aren’t as different as you think,” she said.
    “How so?”
    “Everyone you know thinks you’re being a traitor, right?” she asked him.
    He nodded. “Yeah, pretty much.”
    “Well, that’s what everyone’s going to think about me when they realize that I took off, left college to go to Florida. They’re going to think I’m crazy, ungrateful, entitled, whatever.” She looked at Elijah. “But I had to go. It was either leave Boston and give myself a chance to actually live for myself, or stay and just completely lose myself.”
    “Yeah, I suppose that’s how I felt too,” he said. “You know, I can see why you got into Cambridge,” he said. “That’s pretty damn smart.”
    “Thanks,” she smiled.
    Over the next couple of hours, they mostly listened to music. Elijah seemed to prefer stuff like the Foo Fighters and Death Cab for Cutie, whereas Caelyn was pretty much into Usher and Rihanna and mainstream pop music. Surprisingly, Elijah wasn’t jerky about it like some boys had been in the past.
    He didn’t make fun of her for her musical tastes. In fact, he happily tuned the radio to a hits station for the better part of an hour.
    As evening started to fall, however, and the sky slowly darkened, Elijah was tiring again and this time, even he couldn’t deny it.
    “I’m not going to make it all the way to Florida,” he said softly, after a long period of relative silence.
    “I didn’t expect you to,” she replied.
    “My eyes are burning, my back is killing me. I need to get out of this car and stretch my legs and…”
    “We need to stop at a hotel for the night,” Caelyn said. She was looking forward to it, actually. Sure, it would have been nice to get to Florida in one straight shot, but it wasn’t worth dying to try and make it. They had continued way past what she thought was reasonable, and it was time to accept defeat.
    Besides, she was still wearing the same outfit from the previous night, and her same old caked on makeup and she felt gross. A bath would be very nice, too.
    “All right, let’s pull off at the next exit,” Elijah said. “Sound good?”
    “Sounds amazing.”
    “I’m just going to stop at the first halfway decent place we see,” he said, “since I don’t really know what’s nearby.”
    “I can check my phone,” she offered.
    But minutes later, they were taking the next off ramp and soon off the exit, they spotted a Holiday Inn Express that looked like a beautiful oasis after everything she’d been through recently.
    “Hopefully, they have some rooms open,” Elijah said, as they pulled in. “The lot doesn’t seem too full.”
    “Should I come in with you?” she asked, as he pulled the car over beside the front entrance.
    “No, let me just run in really quick