Not Exactly a Love Story by Audrey Couloumbis Read Free Book Online

I’d failed gym, you should be able to figure out which group I fell into. This was okay, I guess, while he was just my gym teacher. But now I didn’t just have him for Tuesday and Thursday, second period, I had him for breakfast and dinner. Not that I hadn’t come to realize he was a good guy. I knew that about him, I really did. So I guess the trouble with Mr. B as a stepdad was only that he was mine.
    “You said you’d go out for something,” he added.
    “I’m thinking about it,” I said. He gave me the look that meant he was about to assign laps. “I mean, I will! I’m just trying to think of something I’d stick with.”
    “Swimming,” he said.
    “That was sort of a kid thing with me,” I said.
    “Vinnie.” This was Mom. “You and your dad were going to the Y on Saturdays last January.”
    “Yeah. Sort of a Dad thing too.”

SEVENTEEN
    While I was setting the garbage cans on the curb that night, I saw Patsy’s mom heading to her car. I messed around with the cans, hoping to time it so I could get back in the house while she was in the garage. Actually, I saw Patsy’s mom pretty often, usually as we passed each other in the driveway, taking out the garbage. But tonight I didn’t want to face her.
    She looked like she was going somewhere for the evening. Then again, she usually looked like that. I started back up the driveway, keeping in the shadows, as she threw open the garage door.
    As I reached the back door, she looked over the top of her car and called, “Would you set mine out?”
    “Sure!” Sure. All-around nice guy that I am.
    Patsy’s father drove up about three minutes later, just after I’d finished with the garbage cans. He breezed by me atthe curb, and I got a look at him as he stopped under the light at their side door.
    It was the first time I’d seen him, and I can honestly say, if I’d been picking sympathetic ears to listen to my problems, he’d have been my last and most desperate choice. He had a face that looked like it was carved from a cold, hard material.
    As I stepped into the kitchen, I pictured Biff facing the introduction and grinned. I imagined facing it myself and groaned.
    “Did you say something, Vinnie?” Mom was reading her horoscope.
    “Not me, Mom.”
    I wanted to forget the whole business. Just let it go, I said to myself about ten times in the hour before midnight. I couldn’t do it. I pulled a T-shirt out of my top drawer. Even though that hanky business is movie stuff. No way it really disguises a voice.
    Still …
    I stretched the shirt over the mouthpiece.
    Finger poised.
    Midnight. Ringing. I just wanted to hear her say one thing: that she knew all along I didn’t mean it. Well. Not that way.
    I wanted her to know this wasn’t the real me. I was embarrassed, that’s the truth of the matter. Just thinking of how I’d acted made me cringe.
    “Hello.” Sleepy. And on guard.
    “Please let me say this.”
    Silence.
    “I need to tell you—” I stopped, hearing so much unexpected emotion in my voice. I lay back against the two pillows stacked against the headboard, the way I usually talked to Dad. I’d relax a little.
    “What?”
    “That I’m not what you think.”
    “You have a nasty mind, and you’re developing a very nasty habit.”
    “I just didn’t want you to be upset by my phone—”
    Click.
    “—call.”
    I hardly slept all night. She might know my voice when she heard it again. She might already have recognized me. If she did, she’d tell her parents this morning. Her dad could be over here any minute, yelling at my mom.
    Maybe he’d call the police first. After all, it wasn’t like I’d accidentally thrown a baseball through his window, barely a misdemeanor. I’d probably committed a felony.
    I opened my door to hear part of a conversation going on below.
    “—solution is a simple one, Dominic.”
    “If all I wanted was a housekeeper, I’d never have gone looking for a wife.”
    “Are you suggesting