Saint and Scholar by Holley Trent Read Free Book Online Page A

possessive, but the band as a whole was excellent . Both she and Sharon felt dirty whenever they bought their music or attended their concerts because of the dichotomy.
    Sharon and Carla maneuvered around some very energetic dancers at the periphery of the dance floor and found Megan at a tiny square table sipping lemon-lime soda from a trough-sized cup. Carla smiled at the sight. It was such a familiar one with Meg, whose biggest vice was soda. She kept promising to cut down on her sugar intake because she her family had a history of diabetes, but she couldn’t resist cold soda from the fountain. She claimed soda was why she spent an hour on the treadmill every morning.
    Carla had always felt a bit maternal toward the surly petite redhead since she’d befriended Megan the fall of freshman year. Megan was an out-of-state student and had showed up at the dorms on move-in day all alone towing a small trailer behind her sedan. Carla was on the way back from the student store with her first pile of textbooks and spotted Meg trying to lug her minifridge up onto the curb. Carla made her wait, called Tony, who was at the student rec center playing basketball and had him haul Meg’s heavy items up the four flights of stairs to her room. A few hours later, Sharon arrived. She had the only single room on the floor, but Carla and Meg spent most nights in it that year. Their own roommates were insufferable.
    “Carla!” Megan shrieked, putting down her massive soda and holding her arms out wide for a hug. Carla deposited her drink onto the table and bent down to receive her embrace, unable to ignore the wide elastic waistband of Meg’s stretch jeans. How far along was Meg? When had she seen her last? Had it been that long? It was hard to keep track.
    “Hey, honey.” Sharon and Carla took the seats adjacent to Megan and scooted as close to the table edges as they could to minimize some of the bumping of their chair backs from the people sidling through the club around them.
    Sharon took a medicinal gulp of her Long Island Iced Tea. “Okay, so, we’ll dance two at a time so that there’s always someone at the table,” she reminded them. “I can’t believe how packed this place is tonight. I haven’t seen it this busy since Maracas got shut down by ATF. Did you know I was there when they came in and pepper-sprayed the whole damn building?”
    “No, you never told us that!” Meg said with a huff. “You said you’d never step foot into that club because it was owned by that guy you used to date. You told us if you ever caught us there you’d disown us.”
    Sharon shrugged. “I lied. Sue me. I needed someplace cheap to throw a party and the rates were right. Boy, did that fall through.”
    “I’ll stay,” Carla volunteered, pointing to her unfinished drink. “I’ll dance the next shift.”
    Megan and Sharon didn’t wait around for her to change her mind. They made a beeline for the dance floor and disappeared into the crowd before she could get her cocktail straw back up to her lips.
    She was staring down at the collage of black-and-white photographs under the tabletop’s protective sheet of hard plastic when she heard the scrape of a chair being pulled back from the table. Without even looking up, she hooked her foot into the rung of Sharon’s chair and yanked it back. “Someone’s sitting there,” she snapped into her drink.
    “Yes, I know. I just thought I’d say hello,” Grant said as he let go of the chair back. He smiled down with more pleasantness than she deserved after that rude quip.
    She blushed so hot she could feel the sear in her ear canals, and removed her foot from the chair leg. He looked pretty red himself. “Sorry about that. Please, sit down. People always try to filch the chairs for their own tables as soon as they see people get up to dance. I’ve grown a bit crusty about it over the years.”
    Grant tried the chair for resistance, and finding none, pulled it out to sit. “I didn’t