Wild Child by Molly O'Keefe Read Free Book Online Page A

glittering dust motes and the stench of his judgment. They stared at each other, all pretense gone. That zinging awareness from the backyard had turned sour.
    I see you , she thought. All the parts you hide behind that smile. And they aren’t all pretty .
    “I liked you better when you were polite,” she said.
    “I liked you better when you were flirting with me.”
    Like that is ever going to happen again .
    “Goodbye,” she said and passed through that glittering box of sunlight, through his judgment, to the other side and right out the front door.
    Turns out The Big House—and Jackson—were a disappointment, like so many others.

Chapter 4
    Twilight sank over Bishop, and the Big House always got dark the moment the sun slipped behind the oak trees. Jackson pulled his shirt on over his head and walked the shadowed hallways to his sister’s room.
    He knocked lightly on her closed door and since it wasn’t latched, it swung open, revealing his sister on her bed, head bent over a book. Gwen’s natural habitat.
    Bubba, the old mutt, lay curled up at the foot of her bed, despite both of them being told dogs didn’t belong on beds.
    “Hey,” he said, leaning against the doorjamb, keeping the bubble of distance between them.
    The bubble .
    A few months ago, when things got really dicey between them—that was when he noticed the bubble. The distance that lived and breathed between them. If he shifted left, she shifted right. If he walked into a room, she’d walk out. And it had seemed like a new phenomenon. But lately, at night, aware of the silence in the house and its slightly malevolent nature, he wondered if it had been there longer.
    If it wasn’t something he’d created years ago, coming home from law school to take care of his eleven-year-old sister after the accident. He’d been clueless and sad and resentful, and maybe … he created the bubble. Considering the most recent example of his dynamic and powerful people skills with Monica, there was a very, very good chance that the bubble was his fault.
    And now he had no idea what to do about it.
    She just needs to get to college , he thought. Spread her wings . And maybe she was picking up on the fact that he was ready to spread his wings, too.
    The thought—and the guilt that came with it—gave him heartburn.
    “Gwen?”
    She glanced up, her wheat-colored hair slipping down over one eye. One black-rimmed, heavily made-up eye.
    “What … what’s on your face?” he asked.
    She looked back down. “Nothing.”
    “That eye makeup. Were you wearing that at your shift at the hotel?”
    She sighed heavily, the sigh of judgment. Condemnation. Jackson , the sigh said, you’re a total jackass .
    Yeah , he thought, and you look like a freaking owl with that shit around your eyes . But he didn’t say anything. He wasn’t her father, as she so loved to point out.
    “Pick your battles” was more than just a catchy saying. It was going to be his very first tattoo. Words to live by.
    “What are you going to do tonight?” he asked.
    “Hang out.”
    “With anyone, or by yourself?”
    It didn’t occur to him until after he said it how the words might hurt her. At her age, his whole life had revolved around friends, being social. Her aloneness seemed unnatural. And her reluctance to try to socialize was even more troubling.
    She shrugged, and he fought with superhuman effort not to march into the room, pop the bubble, and shake her.
    “You should invite some friends over,” he urged, worried, always worried.
    “I like being by myself.”
    Right . It wasn’t normal, it couldn’t be normal to wantto be alone all the time, but if he pushed, she pulled, and then nothing would get accomplished.
    “I’m going out to The Pour House,” he said. “Text me if you’re going someplace.”
    She hummed in her throat, her eyes still on the book, and he waited another second as if she might look up and smile at him the way she used to. But she didn’t, and he