Tall Cool One by Zoey Dean Read Free Book Online

about you. A lot. You were right, though. About school. It was a good idea for me to come back. I was all fucked up, I know. Too much pressure, maybe. The whole thing with my dad and all.
    “Anyway, I just wanted to let you know I haven’t forgotten about you. If you come back east, let me know. And if I come home for spring break—I don’t know, I might go skiing at Jackson Hole. Maybe you’d want to come. We could be together away from all the insanity, you know? So . . . that’s it. I’m still thinking about you.”
    His voice still made her heart pound. Maybe she and Ben were star-crossed lovers, like Anna and Vronsky in one of her favorite novels,
Anna Karenina.
That story didn’t end very well—her namesake fell head over heels for the Russian count but was much more in love with him than he was in love with her. In the end, she died under the wheels of a train barreling down the tracks. If that wasn’t a Freudian notion, what was?
    Ben. Their lust on an airplane had quickly turned into . . . so much more. But it couldn’t be love, could it? Wasn’t love something that happened over time when you really got to know the other person? Everything with Ben had been so tumultuous and had happened so quickly. Maybe they were a fire destined to burn each other out, intense lust masquerading as more.
    Honestly, Anna didn’t know.

Ari Something-or-Other
    “W hat is this place?” Cammie asked as Adam led her into the open-air square that was teeming with people. “And what smells so good?”
    “Watch and learn,” Adam told her with a grin. “You wanted to eat, right?”
    “Yeah. But I was thinking the Beverly Hills Hotel.” Cammie looked around the crowded plaza, which Adam had told her was the Buddhist temple complex of North Hollywood. There were many Asians and hippie-looking American kids who probably professed to believe in the principles of the Buddha. But the crowd was by and large eclectic. The plaza had a few redwood and metal tables, but most folks had set up picnic blankets in the shade of the big eucalyptus trees nearby.
    “Think outside the box, Cam,” Adam told her as he led her to a money-changing booth, where people were lined up to exchange their American dollars for the plastic chips that were apparently the sole approved currency at the venue. An old man with craggy skin and an impossibly long last name on his name tag supervised the operation.
    Cammie looked ashen. “Don’t worry,” Adam said, tapping his daypack. “I’m completely prepared. You’ll dine like a princess.”
    A princess who dines at a place like this must have had her kingdom overthrown,
Cammie thought. But she didn’t say it. Because, God help her, she wanted Adam to like her. More than like her.
    When they’d parted the night before, Adam had suggested they meet for Sunday brunch; a good sign. He couldn’t be too upset or embarrassed about their little incident in the sand if he wanted to be with her the very next day, right? Cammie had suggested a couple of possible restaurants, the Beverly Hills Hotel at the top of her list, with Encounter (located in an ultra-modern structure above LAX, it had an amazing view of arriving and departing jetliners) being a close second.
    But Adam had insisted on surprising her, promising that it would be well worth it. So he’d brought her to the Wat Thai Theraveda Buddhist temple in North Hollywood. He explained how, during the week, this temple complex served much of Los Angeles’ sizable Thai community. But on weekends, it was transformed into an oversized outdoor food court, with a good percentage of all sales going to the upkeep of the temple. Adam was no Buddhist, but he’d come here with his parents a few times and loved it.
    Cammie was actually impressed. Not because she was about to dine in some multicultural mosh pit, but because he hadn’t been too embarrassed to admit that he’d eaten here with his parents. She entwined her fingers with his as they waited to