Touch & Go by Mira Lyn Kelly Read Free Book Online Page A

she’d made him feel like it was okay for him to have them.
    She’d changed his life.
    She’d
saved
his life.
    If he hadn’t stopped walking that first day, twenty years ago—
Christ,
even now it was tough to think about, but it was there.
    His hands stuffed in the pockets of jeans an inch too short for him.
    One nervous look over his shoulder after another.
    He’d made it past the bridge to the sidewalk that started there, and when he’d looked back before hitting the bend, the dirt path on the other side was still empty behind him. He couldn’t hear his old man bellowing over the sound of the river, but he wasn’t sure his ears were really working right so he’d kept checking. Only then his sneaker caught on a pavement crack, reminding him to keep his eyes on where he was going. Not to keep looking back like there was something he was afraid of. Like there was something he might be trying to get away from. Like there was something someone else might want to give a closer look. Because his mom wasn’t back yet, so he couldn’t let that happen.
    Up ahead, that Meyers kid from the grade above him was sitting with his back against the big maple in their front yard. His little sister was standing in front of him, her dark brown pigtails swinging as she kicked the sole of his shoe. Arms crossed, her face was all screwed up like she’d sucked on a lemon or something. Like she wanted her brother’s attention and he wasn’t even looking up from his video game.
    “Ford…Ford…
Forrrrd.
Ford, Ford, FordFordFordFord,
Ford!
”
    “Knock it off, Ava.”
    “Mom said you have to play with me. She said no more stupid video games.”
    “Mom doesn’t say ‘stupid.’ ”
    “I want to play hide-and-seek. Put your Game Gear down.”
    “Go hide. I’ll find you.”
    Her face lit up and she started to run, only then she must have thought twice because she was storming back to the big tree.
    “You aren’t counting,” she gasped, her fists balling straight down at her sides as she stomped her foot. “That’s a new game!”
    The girl’s—Ava’s—lips started to quiver. Her face getting all splotchy red like she was about to start to wail. And worse, her eyes started filling with tears. Only then she looked up and must have seen him, because she wasn’t ready to cry anymore. “Hey, I know you. You’re Sam Farrow. You’re in second grade with Mrs. Glass. I’m in first with Miss Peters. Where’d you come from? Where’re your parents? We’re going to play hide-and-seek—you want to play?”
    Sam looked around the neat yard and house. The cars on the street. The clean windows and the cut grass. The trash cans up against the side of the house and the man he figured was probably their dad way down at the end of the driveway leaning over a few beams of wood, while a pretty lady who was probably their mom laughed with him.
    He didn’t belong there.
    “Naw, that’s okay,” he said, giving in to another look behind him. Still no one there. But standing around was making him nervous.
    Only then Ava walked up to him and he realized how little she was. He knew he was tall for his age, but if she was only a year younger she must be really small for hers. He wondered if anyone gave her trouble about it.
    “How’d you get that hole in your pants? I got mine when I fell off my bike, but my mom sewed a patch on it,” she said, pointing to the big strawberry on the knee of her white jeans. “I don’t fall a lot anymore. Not much. We moved here in summer but we lived in Iowa before that and then my dad got a promotion, and it was good even though we had to move because now I have a bigger room. You have your own room? Which house is yours?”
    Sam blinked, because no one talked to him that much. Then he realized she was waiting for an answer. His neck got hot and he didn’t know what to say.
    But then the other Meyers kid got up off the ground, his game momentarily forgotten. “You live over here?”
    Sam shoved his