Picking up the Pieces by Jessica Prince Read Free Book Online Page A

around sophomore year of high school, he joined forces with Gavin, Brett, and Luke to start a band. After Luke left, the other three kept at it and eventually added Dillon, a guy Jeremy worked with at his body shop. The four have been playing together ever since. They mainly play covers since none of them are any good at song writing, but they still kick ass, and it’s always fun to go to their shows.
    We made our way to the front of the crowd by the stage as the guys started setting up. “Hey, check it,” Stacia said as she pulled open her purse. Looking in her bag, we spotted a pair of zebra print boy short panties with the tags still on them.
    “Um… Stacia, why do you have underwear in your purse? You preparing for a car wreck or something?” I loved all of my friends equally, but Stacia was the girl in the group that always did or said off the wall things. Half the time she didn’t make any damn sense, but we all loved her for it.
    I looked up to see her rolling her eyes at me. “ Noooo ,” she responded like what I’d said was the stupidest thing she’d ever heard. “I bought them to throw on stage to Gavin.
    “Wait…” Savannah interrupted. “You bought new panties to throw at your boyfriend on stage?”
    “Well, yeah. I’m not gonna throw my actual panties up on stage; that doesn’t seem very sanitary. Besides, all my undies are part of a matching set; throw one pair and I can never wear the bra again. That’s just a waste.”
    “God I love you, girl,” Gavin declared from behind Stacia as he wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her neck. The two of them were a ridiculously cute, somewhat idiotic match made in heaven.
    The guys were halfway through their set, and the girls and I were having a great time shaking our asses and screaming out that we were doing different members of the band. I opted to scream out that I was banging the drummer, strictly because out of all my guy friends, Brett was the one that annoyed me the least. This, of course, meant that he farted and burped just a little less than the other guys.
    All a sudden, the air around me felt electric. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the sudden change was due to the fact that Luke was walking through the doors of Colt 45. My body had some sort of physical reaction whenever he was within a few feet of me.
    Damn traitorous body!
    I tried not to show any emotion when his eyes met mine but when I caught a glimpse of that bleach blonde, trailer trash slut, Allison Crabtree on his arm all I saw was red… as in blood… as in I was gonna cut a bitch. I just couldn’t fathom how he could walk into a public place, where he knew I was going to be, with that skank beside him.
    “Oh no, he didn’t just come in here with that walking advertisement for VD!” Savannah hollered above the music. Sensing that things just got nuclear, my girls flanked me, anxiously waiting for shit to go down. Luke must not have been as detached to my moods as I’d assumed because he narrowed his eyes at me, tilted his head and studied my expression, then quickly turned and glanced back at Allison. I could see it in his face the moment he realized his colossal mistake.
    Allison retracted her claws from Luke’s arm long enough to head over to the bar and he took that as his opportunity to approach me and my band of killer Barbies. “I like the shirts,” he said, pointing in the general area of my chest. I wanted to slap him.
    “Yeah, well what can I say? I like to support my true friends whenever I can,” I replied snottily. Seeing Allison set me off, and I wanted to take every opportunity to hit him where it hurt.
    He actually had the nerve to look at me with remorse in his eyes. “Emmy, can we talk?”
    Before I could even get a word out, Allison snaked her arm around Luke’s waist from behind and plastered her fake boobs to his side, wrapping herself around him like a syphilis infested anaconda. “Hey baby, I got somethin’ for you,”