The Wright Brother by Marie Hall Read Free Book Online Page A

she wanted to smack her forehead. Even if he couldn’t talk, he could text. God, when had she become such a freaking idiot? What if she’d said that in front of him too? She’d already hurt his feelings once.
    “Hey.” Joey gave her a slight nudge. “You ready to go or what?” He sounded exasperated this time.
    Realizing she couldn’t continue to ignore him, she sighed. “Yeah, but let me see what the boys want to do first.”
    His eyes narrowed and he tapped the table with his finger. Clearly not happy that she continued to insist on including them in their night, but she wasn’t going to just leave without telling them goodbye first, either.
    Getting up from the table, she walked toward Christian and tapped his elbow. “Chris!” she called over the roar of the crowd and music.
    Turning to her with a happy smile on his face, he lifted his brows. “Heya, hottie. Wanna boogie?”
    She snorted. “Not really, you dork. Look, I think I’m gonna go to that after party now. You guys want to come?”
    He bit his lip and glanced over his shoulder at Roman, who was dancing behind a twerking redheaded female, his blue eyes full of mischief and exuberance.
    “I don’t think there’s any way in hell I could drag him away from that, do you?”
    Chuckling and shaking her head, she patted his arm. “Yeah, don’t think so. You guys have my cell, though, just call me when you’re ready to go home and we’ll come and—”
    “We’re good.” He shook his head. “We’ll catch a ride with our boys.”
    Just then a pretty blonde whom she vaguely recognized as being a junior walked up and tugged on Christian’s hand, trying to drag him toward the dance floor.
    “Where’s Julian?” Elisa called as he started following the blonde onto the floor.
    Miming like he was holding a phone, he yelled, “Texted Mom. Think he’s gone.”
    With a sigh and shrug, she turned and walked back to Joey. “All right, I guess we can go. Jules left already and the other two are probably gonna hang out till it ends.”
    Jumping to his feet, Joey fist-bumped his line backer and then hooked his arm through hers.
    “Good, because I’ve been wanting you all to myself tonight.”
    “You’ve had me all to yourself,” she huffed.
    “Oh no.” His dark eyes gleamed under the glare of red lights. “Not really.”
    Ever since elementary school, Elisa had had a serious crush on Joey Crawford. Mainly because he was cute, but she’d learned one glaring fact about the quarterback tonight: the man was as dull as a bag of rocks. If he wasn’t talking about football, or the size of his dick, he was making lewd jokes about girls.
    Which, whatever, guys did that. But it sucked to learn that the guy she’d practically lusted over for most of her life was basically a giant prick. Tonight had sucked the big one.
    On top of that, she hadn’t been able to stop worrying about Julian, no matter how many times she kept reminding herself that he was none of her business.
    It wasn’t that she didn’t feel safe with Joey, she actually did. It was more the fact that she just flat out didn’t want to be around him any longer. If it weren’t for the fact that she wanted to see Chas, she’d have just asked him to take her home instead.
    They’d go to the party, she’d hang for a little, and then she’d go home and try to forget this night had ever happened.
    But when she got into the cab and he got in beside her, Joey had other ideas. Grabbing her face between his meaty palms, he slammed his lips down on hers, thrusting his tongue down her throat and making her gag. She tasted his steak dinner, the sugary punch, and the mint he’d eaten to try to mask it all.
    She was going to throw up in his mouth if he didn’t take his tongue out of her throat soon. Banging on his chest with her fist finally seemed to make him realize she wasn’t kissing him back.
    “Get off me,” she snarled, shoving him back and immediately wiping her mouth off with the back of