The Boxer and the Spy by Robert B. Parker Read Free Book Online

Abby might happen. That maybe they were happening already. He thought of his jokes as sort of momentary overflow But he knew she knew. Sometimes he thought she knew everything.
    She can’t know everything. She’s fifteen. And I’m fifteen.
    He felt her arm through his and her shoulder against his and now and then their legs would brush as they walked together in the storm.
    The hell with that, he thought. We know what we need to.

CHAPTER 16
    A bby had two classes with Kip Carter All-American.
    She watched him in those classes.
    Terry had one class with Carter.
    He watched him during that class.
    They watched him in the corridors.
    They watched him in the lunchroom.
    They watched him during free periods when they could.
    Sometimes they would be in the coffee shop at the same time.
    They watched him there.
    Sometimes Kip and other football players hung around after school near the football field and strutted, and pushed and shoved each other, and stared at girls. Some of the senior girls stared back. Some of them joined the group. When they did, there was a lot of talk and a lot of hard laughter.
    They watched him flirt and swagger.
    “Pretty raunchy,” Abby said.
    “Kind of gross,” Terry said.
    “It’s not gross,” Abby said. “It’s ...” She gestured with her hands as if she was searching for words. “They’re just learning how to be men and women.”
    “They could do it quieter,” Terry said.
    He didn’t like Abby hearing such talk, but he knew she wouldn’t like it if he said that.
    “Oh most of it is talk,” Abby said. “Only a few of them actually do any of that stuff.”
    “How do you know?” Terry said.
    “Girls talk about things,” Abby said.
    “How do you know they’re learning to be men and women?”
    “I think about stuff,” Abby said.
    “A lot,” Terry said.
    After Carter was through swaggering, and flirting, he walked home.
    They followed him.
    During the time they watched him, he never had any contact with the secretary in the nurse’s office or with the school librarian. They saw him with Mr. Bullard three times.
    “Doesn’t mean there’s anything,” Terry said.
    “But the math is good,” Abby said. “He never saw those other people. He saw Bullard three times.”
    “‘Course maybe Tank told him and won’t admit it,” Terry said.
    Abby bumped her heels against the Wall, where they were sitting.
    “We already said it’s not much of a plan,” she said. “But we also agreed it was the best one we had.”
    Mr. Bullard’s tan Ford Fusion rolled slowly past the Wall and Mr. Bullard craned his thick neck to study the two of them sitting on the Wall. He always drove past the Wall on his way home after school.
    “Gotta make sure nobody’s smoking,” Terry said.
    “Or doing dope,” Abby said.
    “Or making out,” Terry said.
    “Probably hoping,” Abby said.
    “Bullard?”
    “Yes. He’s a pig, like Kip Carter All-American. He always looks at you when you walk past him in the hall. You know? Checks out your chest. Watches you as you walk away, looking at your butt.”
    “Bullard?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “He ever look at you?”
    “Sure,” Abby said. “What? Do you think I’m too homely?”
    “No, no. God no. You’re beautiful,” Terry said.
    Abby smiled.
    “Why thank you, Terry,” she said.
    “But isn’t Bullard married?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “And he’s looking at high school girls?” Terry said.
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Doesn’t seem right,” Terry said.
    “Oh Terry,” Abby said. “Sometimes you’re like five years old.”
    “Well it doesn‘t,” Terry said.
    “It’s just how men are,” Abby said. “Men started staring at me the minute I started wearing a bra.”
    Her mention of her bra made him a little uncomfortable, but he didn’t want her to know that.
    “Grown men?”
    “Sure, any girl knows that. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just how it is.”
    The tan Fusion moved on.
    “Couldn’t catch us doing anything,” Abby