Saint and Scholar by Holley Trent Read Free Book Online

dance club near the university in Chapel Hill. It wasn’t Carla’s favorite sort of scene. She hated crowds. She hated being fondled and groped by strangers even more, but before she could form her refusal, a niggling feeling settled in to remind her she hadn’t done anything social beyond seeing her mother for at least two months. She was generally content with her reclusiveness and valued her quiet time, but every so often she wanted to pop her head out of her shell.
    She didn’t live far from the venue, so she went home and put on a clean pair of jeans and teased her straight brown hair a bit at the roots for volume. Her stylist had tried to convince her if she cut off about a foot of hair it might wave and bounce. Carla always refused with the excuse she had to think about it. She’d gotten too used to having what Sharon called “hippie hair.” Cutting her hair would qualify as a Very Big Change. She didn’t handle VBCs with much grace.
    She batted on a bit of mascara, smoothed on a slick layer of pale lip gloss and assessed herself in the mirror. Good enough , she thought. She didn’t like looking like she tried . People might grow to expect it.
    Sharon kissed both of Carla’s cheeks continental style and slid an arm around her waist as soon as she’d paid her way in and had the bouncer check her purse for weapons. “Come on in. Megan’s holding a table for us,” she yelled over the house music.
    “Oh, Meg’s here?”
    Sharon giggled. “I know, right? Her hubby’s out of town. We would never have gotten her out, otherwise. Don’t say anything about her weight, okay?” She said that last part in an almost whisper, bending in close to Carla’s ear and making Carla’s eyes water with the scent of her new perfume. Carla crinkled her nose at the overly floral scent, a far cry from Sharon’s usual fruity mist. She took one more deep inhale just to be sure it was Sharon and not some passerby. The fragrance smelled like something her grandmother would wear. She coughed and straightened up.
    At the bar, she availed herself of a double whiskey sour. The bartender was extra busy, fielding orders while simultaneously trying to maintain polite conversations with some boisterous male patrons on the bar stools. A few lushes at the tables just beyond were shouting out crude comments at the busy employee, but their distance made them easier to ignore. Carla itched to tell them to shut up. Catcalling was one of her biggest pet peeves, but she held her tongue. She didn’t want to start an altercation with a bunch of drunks and end up carted handcuffed into one of the police stations she worked with. It had happened before. She winced, recalling how a woman had made a rude comment about the way her ass looked in her jeans. Carla, drunker than she’d ever been in life, had thrown her drink in her face.
    Carla stood on her toes and looked into the sea of tables to spot the miniscule Meg, and sipped her drink as she thought about how that heckler had ended up a victim of the Gill Right Hook. The members of that particular police department had razzed her about it for six months.
    Ah, there she is .
    “What’s wrong with her weight?” Carla asked while stuffing a five-dollar bill into the bartender’s tip vase and receiving a wink from her in thanks.
    “Well, nothing labor and delivery can’t fix. She’s pregnant, and she thinks it’s a secret. Better not to discuss it.”
    “That’s weird. I mean, the silence part, not the pregnancy part.”
    “I’m sure Spike put her up to it. I don’t see him as the paternal sort. His fans might be turned off by it.”
    Carla shrugged. Sharon was probably right. Spike was the guitarist for an indie rock band that spent a lot of time on the road. Usually Megan, who didn’t work under edict of Spike, tagged along. Sometimes she stayed home to recharge. When she did, Sharon and Carla swooped in to scoop her up. Carla wasn’t a fan of Spike specifically because he was