Red Velvet Crush by Christina Meredith Read Free Book Online

hands.
    How I don’t dare sit or hold them in my hands.
    How he isn’t mine . . . yet.

5
    â€œD on’t smoke in here tonight,” Winston announces as he walks into the garage, snapping me awake. I am tired. I stayed up too late last night writing songs about Ty and it’s finally catching up with me.
    A waxy bag of little powdered donuts is crooked in Winston’s left arm. He eats each one in a single bite. No muss, no fuss. They disappear, swallowed whole, in what can only be a wet, sharp death.
    â€œI am afraid the place might blow up.”
    He gestures toward a stack of dented metal cans in the corner, half covered by a dark green tarp, that wasn’t there the night before. I don’t ask where they came from or how big the explosion will be. Sometimes it is better not to know the details.
    I don’t know why he feels the need to announce our new smoke-free environment. He is the only one who smokes. Jay pretends to, and Billie tries once in a while; but she is just an amateur. She mostly carries a pack around so she will have something to fill up her purse. Lord knows there is never any cash in there.
    Knowing his fear of flames is completely justified, I nod at Winston anyway.
    I’ve seen him try to light a cigarette with one of the gas burners in our kitchen and singe off most of his left eyebrow. Billie got him a lighter that Christmas to keep him intact. (Stole him a lighter, I should say.)
    He keeps it crammed in his front pocket, along with this psycho blue rabbit’s foot key chain Mom won for him at the fair. It is so old the rabbit’s foot is almost bald. It is more like a knuckle.
    He started our couch on fire once a few years ago, too. It was a hot summer night, and Billie and I were outside catching fireflies in a Mason jar. Billie liked to crush their bodies and smear the glowing guts across her cheeks like war paint.
    I looked up from her face, glittering in the deep blue dusk, to see a stream of smoke rolling out of our open living room window.
    â€œDad! Dad!” I screamed, and he rushed out of the garage, the side door banging shut behind him.
    I pointed at the gray swirl drifting out of the living roomwindow, and he disappeared in a flash, a string of swearwords trailing behind him into the house. My heart beat like a tom-tom, preparing for homelessness.
    Billie continued to dance around the yard, arms out, the streaks on her cheeks fading as the sun sank behind the trees and our front yard filled with smoke.
    Winston had fallen asleep on the couch, his cigarette blazing a hole beneath him.
    We lived with the big burned smoke hole in the corner of our couch for years. My dad just kept adjusting the cushions and propping a limp pillow into the corner to hide it.
    We finally got a new sofa when my grandma died. It came with the piano. It was still just like new since it had been covered in plastic the entire time she owned it. We pulled that plastic off and Winston carted the old, burned beauty to the dump with a smile, his firebug days safely behind him.
    Jay and Ty were warming up when Winston walked in, and Jay is still playing a note on his bass that bounces enough to make your back teeth rattle.
    Winston sets the bag of donuts onto the closest speaker and wipes his fingers onto his jeans.
    â€œTake the edge off the heavy.” He winces at Jay.
    Jay stops the sharp, grinding note and spins, switching songs on the fly.
    He is so fast. I study his shoes and his fingers, wondering how either one holds up.
    He bobs his head at Ty, and the beat changes behind me, becoming low and deep and addictive. I want to drown in it. Throw my arms open wide and fall back, because I know Ty’s low, solid beat will be there to hold me up.
    He backed me up when everyone else dropped off that first day in the garage. He waited for me later that night at the piano.
    He keeps holding on, as if he knows there is more to see and he is willing to wait for it.