Phase (Phoebe Reede: The Untold Story #1) by Michelle Irwin Read Free Book Online Page A

track. By the time the race ended, I’d fought back from being down a lap to coming third in a pack of twelve cars.
    “I still don’t get it,” Parker complained. To emphasise his point, he crossed his arms over his chest and pouted.
    “Climb over here,” I said, moving my hands so he could sit on my lap. He was barely seven, so was still rather light and compact.
    I held the controller out to him. Once he’d grabbed it, I wrapped my hands around his. For the next fifteen minutes, I guided him through the different turns on the track, telling him the best track position to be in for each one, and showing him the right amount of brake and accelerator.
    “Make sense?” I asked when our combined effort got us to first place.
    “Not re—”
    “You’ll never explain it to him. He’s a thickhead!” Brock said, interrupting him.
    “Brock Curtis Reede, you do not say things like that about people,” I admonished. “Especially not about your brother. Family is important. Without them, you have nothing.”
    I looked away from him to see Mum smiling at me with her nostalgic face on. I wondered if she was reliving the past, a time before she thought she’d ever have more kids. For a long time, she’d expected me to be an only child. It was only during my most selfish moments, when I felt like the whole world was against me, that I ever regretted that I wasn’t. Despite the fact my siblings could drive me crazy in a way no one else could, I loved them all.
    “Listen to your sister, Brockie,” Mum said. “That sort of advice will keep you out of trouble.”
    “Don’t call me Brockie, Mum, it’s a baby name.”
    The statement was so similar to Max’s that a shudder ran through me. Was Brock . . . I decided I didn’t want to know and pushed it far out of my mind.
    “Well, you’re my baby,” Mum said.
    “Nah-uh, Nikki is your baby.”
    “She’s my baby baby. But all of you kids are my babies. You always will be.”
    “Even Pheebs?” Beth asked.
    Mum met my gaze. “Especially Pheebs.”
    While Brock went off on some tangent, Beth slid in beside me and wrapped her arms around my waist. “I missed you, sissy.”
    “Me too, baby girl, me too.” As I rested my cheek on the top of her head, a queasy sensation grew in me. Could I really leave this, my family, behind and go overseas?
    Could I not?
    After all, just two days earlier it had gotten to the point where the arguments, shouting, and constant noise of my siblings had driven me out of my mind. If I ever wanted to work out what I wanted from life, I needed to be away from it all, from every expectation and appointment, to try to figure it out. If I didn’t, if I never worked out who I was and wanted to be, how could I ever be happy?
    We made it through dinner, baths, and bedtime stories. Eventually, between Mum, Dad, and me, we’d wrestled the youngest three into bed. Only Brock was still awake, but he’d disappeared into his room. After the encounter with Max, I didn’t want to know whether he was in there playing with his iPad or something else.
    Mum offered me a mug of warm Milo and led me to the dining table. I sat down at the head of the table, and she and Dad sat side by side along one edge.
    “So Dad says you want to go to the States?”
    Nothing like getting straight into it. “Yeah. Well, maybe. I don’t know. I just want to get away for a while, you know? Find some space and find me.”
    “And you thought disappearing on a bike you’ve been banned from riding to fly to Sydney with a stolen plane ticket was the best way to get us to listen to your request?”
    Dad sat behind her with a smile fixed on his face and one eyebrow raised. Probably happy that he wasn’t the one on the receiving end of Mum’s redressing for once. Over the years, she’d developed a way of quietly asking questions to guilt the other person into confessing everything.
    “No, of course not. I just needed to get away for a bit. It’s suffocating having to be