Walk (Gentry Boys) by Cora Brent Read Free Book Online Page A

last week.  But if the sky gave me a sign, any sign, I’d be happy to make up for that lost wish right now.     

CHAPTER SIX
    STONE
     
    When I told Bash I was going for a walk he raised an eyebrow but said nothing. 
    It was the middle of the reception and there wasn’t much for us to do but hang around in the shadows and wait for the music to stop.  Bash and the guys were betting small bills over a deck of cards on an unused patio behind the kitchen, far beyond the partying guests.  They weren’t hard gambling.  It was all in good fun, a way to pass the time until we had to dismantle all the party equipment.  They’d invited me to play along but there was a certain restlessness inside of me that wouldn’t let me stay put.  I couldn’t just sit.  I’d sat for years. 
    Once the sun had set the air had cooled quite a bit.  I paused and tasted the night air of late summer, capturing it in my lungs.  I wanted to keep it.  I wanted to collect every breath in the wide open world and store it inside. The feeling was greedy.  A man who had never lost his freedom wouldn’t completely understand it. 
    Only when the blood began pounding like crazy between my ears and my head started feeling light did I let the air out and go back to breathing regularly. I wondered if I would ever get over this, the feeling that every free moment needed to be hoarded.  I wondered if I would ever be careless and normal again.
    The moon was one slice away from being full.  I could make out the rolling hills of the golf course beyond the reception hall.  Nobody would be out there now, at least nobody who had any business being out there.  I was tempted to follow that lonely direction and lose myself in the open solitude but then thought better of it.  I’d have a hard time explaining to any roaming security patrols why I chose to wander around a deserted golf course after dark.  I veered toward the lake instead. 
    It wasn’t a true lake.  None of these sporadic bodies of water in the desert were.  It was an expensive hole filled with water pumped in from somewhere else.  It must have cost the resort a small fortune to keep it looking nice.  Grass lined the banks and the gentle chatter of ducks echoed in the darkness.  The party raged on several hundred yards behind me but I wasn’t alone.  A girl sat beside the water and watched me walk closer. 
    I stopped breathing at the sight of her.  Some part of me doubted she was even real.  She stood out as if she was illuminated from within.  She had long hair that spilled over her shoulders and I felt the oldest urge known to man as I checked out her figure.  She was a siren, a temptress of legend who had somehow risen straight from the brackish water.  My mind was full of all kinds of wild theories until she spoke. 
    “I know you,” she said.  “You’re Briana’s neighbor.”
    Briana.  Loud mouth on a little redhead.  She shared the apartment next door with an even louder roommate who was always wandering the corridors shouting into her phone.  Bash called them Table Tots and I didn’t understand the reference until he explained.  He’d hooked up with that roommate, Darcy, about a year ago.  When he tried to see if it could become something more, she’d laughed and said Bash didn’t ‘bring anything to the table’.  
    “So by Table Tots,” he’d informed me, “I mean girls who are on the prowl for a meal ticket instead of a man.  Beware.” 
    Bash hadn’t quite graduated from high school and he barely scraped by working two jobs.  That Darcy chick wasn’t insulting his character because she didn’t care if he had one or not.  He didn’t have money and that was enough for her.  Bash had a twinkle in his eye when he told the story and I knew he wasn’t losing any sleep over it, but still.  The words had to sting a little.
    The girl sitting beside the lake was patiently waiting for me to respond.  I looked her over more closely and