Tethered by L. D. Davis Read Free Book Online Page A

below as I tried to eradicate my brain of all of those weird memories and feelings from the night before. I sensed a car coming and automatically moved over to the side of the road and out of the way. I heard a car door slam and then there was a moment of silence. The pavement was all that I saw and I concentrated on the sound my board made over it.
    “Hey,” I heard Emmet say to me.
    I looked up. He was standing at the edge of the driveway with hands in his jacket pockets.
    “Hi,” I said, but didn’t stop.
    “I haven’t skated in a while. I know a pretty cool spot where we can board if you want to go.”
    I thought about this as I slowly rolled by him. “Why?” I asked. I was still mad.
    “I don’t have anything else to do,” he shrugged.
    “That’s a lie,” I said, jumping off of the board. I moved to pop it up and tucked it under my arm. I stood several feet away from him studying him. “You have friends you can hang out with. I thought you jocks always did something after a football game anyway.”
    He shrugged again. “I didn’t feel like sitting in someone’s basement playing video games and eating pizza all day.”
    “Did you win?” I asked, pushing my hair out of my face. It was a little windy. I wished I had a hat to keep my hair out of my face.
    “Yes, we won,” he smiled. “I’m going to go get my board, okay?”
    He started to turn away, but I asked “Why do you want to hang out with me?”
    My goodness was I pissed. And hurt. And if he said something stupid I was going to hurl my board at him. Why did I feel this way?
    Ugh. This is exactly why I wanted to be on my board.
    “Maybe I just want to spend some time with you,” Emmet said, all humor gone from his face. He looked at me hard. “Maybe I saved your ass last night so the least you can do is just skateboard with me for a little bit.”
    I gripped my board in my hands. His eyes flickered down to my board and he raised an eyebrow.
    “You wouldn’t be thinking of throwing that longboard at me, would you, Donya?” he asked, his head tilted to one side. His hair fell into his eyes and I wanted to run over to him and push it off of his forehead. Not because there was anything wrong with it there, but because I liked my hand in his hair.
    “Fine,” I said, dropping the board from one hand. “I’ll go.”
    “Give me a couple of minutes to change and get my board,” he said, walking up the driveway.
    I started grumbling to myself as I hopped back on my board. I looked down the road. I was tempted to skate away.
    “Don’t even think about skating away,” Emmet warned from the door. “I’ll just find you and drag you into the car. I’ll always find you.”
    I rolled my eyes at him, but when the door closed I was even more tempted to skate away. Just to have Emmet put his arms around me to drag me into the car.
    I thumped myself in my head with the palm of my hand.
    *~*~*
    So much for trying to push thoughts out of my head. Boarding with Emmet in an empty parking lot only made me think of Emmet. It wasn’t fair. I was mad. I was hurt. I was a little thrilled and I was crushing a little, and I guess that’s what made me most angry.
    I had taken pride in the fact that my best friend had two older brothers and I had not crushed on them even once, even though they were good looking guys. Other friends drooled all over Emmy’s brothers, but not me. They were my brothers, or so I thought. Emmet apparently was not, but then again, I wasn’t necessarily looking at Emmet as a brother anymore, was I?
    I spared a glance in his general direction only to find his eyes already on me. It threw me. Really. It threw me. My skateboard threw me. I fell backward and tried to brace myself before my head hit the pavement, and it did, but at least it didn’t bounce . That’s the worse.
    “Donya,” Emmet said and I heard his footsteps running to me. I also heard my board rolling away.
    I groaned and tried to sit up as Emmet reached me.
    “Is