Pawn (Nightmares Trilogy #1) by Sophie Davis Read Free Book Online Page A

number by heart, which
is more than I could say for just about anyone else’s. I dialed,
cradling the headset between my ear and shoulder and counting the
rings.
    “Eel?” she answered on the fourth
ring.
    “Yup, it’s me,” I replied.
    “What’s up?”
    “Want to come over now? My mom is at
work and…” I let my voice trail off. Devon knew I hated all the
alone time my mother’s extended work hours created. Not that my
mother was great company when she was home anyhow.
    “Sure,” she replied kindly. “You ready
for pizza now?”
    “Nah, we’ll get delivery
later.”
    “Be there soon,” she said into the
phone, but then her voice became muffled. “Rick, stop, I’m trying
to talk to Eel,” she giggled, and I heard a soft thud followed by
Rick’s deep laughter.
    “Are you at Rick’s?” I
asked.
    Rick had an apartment he shared with
his friend Bill Thompson in town. Devon’s parents had practically
forbidden her to go there, but it went in one ear and out the
other, much like with any other rules they imposed.
    “Yup, we were just…watching a movie?”
she said it like it was a question, and I assumed that “watching a
movie” was a euphemism for getting naked between Rick’s
sheets.
    “Oh well, why don’t you finish,
um…watching your movie?” I suggested.
    “Don’t worry, Eel, it’s over,” Rick
yelled over the line, and I wondered if Devon had me on speaker
phone or if the volume on her cell was just up that
high.
    “I’ll be right over, Eel,” Devon said,
and then promptly disconnected.
    “Right over” in Devon time
turned out to be two hours ― her movie must’ve been really good.
When she finally barged through my front door, full of apologies
and carrying an extra-large pizza, I forgave her excuses. Extra
cheese and mushrooms weren’t her only “forgive me” gifts. She also
brought a selection of romantic comedies from the Red
Box.
    In theory, the DVD vending machines
were great inventions. For a dollar you could rent a movie for the
night, which sure beat the $4.99 that on-demand charged. But Devon
and I had a problem with the returning part of the equation. As a
consequence of our inability to do just that, I had an extensive,
and extremely expensive, Blue-Ray collection. To make matters
worse, we rarely watched the movies. Instead, we favored gossiping
through entire films. Devon’s father often marveled at our ability
to spend so much time together and still always have so much to say
to one another.
    That night was no different. While
chowing down on greasy slices of pizza and numerous cans of soda,
we caught each other up on every detail the other had missed in the
rare time we’d spent apart.
    “You should’ve come in the hot tub
last night,” Devon mumbled in between bites of pizza. “Mandy was so
drunk that she let Kevin go to third base IN THE WATER!” she
punctuated each word to drive home her point. Translation: Mandy
was easy.
    Of course, Devon had done much worse
with Greg Crenshaw in that same hot tub after one of Elizabeth’s
parties the year before. She and Rick had been on a “break” after
she’d caught him with an Arby’s drive-through girl. But since she
was my best friend, I didn’t point out the obvious double standard.
Instead, I widened my eyes to mirror her look of horror, like that
was the most shocking news I’d heard all day.
    Gossiping was fun and all, but more
than that I liked how comfortable our conversations had become as
we commented on who hooked up with whom the night
before.
    “I’m pretty sure they went all the
way, although that isn’t exactly something to brag about.” Devon
tapped her pointer finger against her chin, leaving a greasy
fingerprint.
    “Be nice,” I scolded her. “Mandy is
nice and she means well. She just wants people to like her. It
sucks being the new girl. If you hadn’t come to my rescue and
deigned to be my friend, then I would be just like her.” It was
sort of true. If I hadn’t met Devon