Read Online Chosen by Chandra Hoffman - Free Book Online
Authors: Chandra Hoffman
Tags: Fiction, General, Suspense, Family Life, Adoption, Social workers, Adopted children, Adoptive parents
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best thing that happened to him. He owes her.
“I’ve fucked up in the past,” he says to Brandi, who flicks her stubby butt into the mud at their feet and scratches at her legs through her pants.
The three biggest mistakes of his life:
The DUI that cost him his trucking license in ’96
Getting mixed up with Des’ree and that crank crowd in Wyoming
Letting Penny take the fall for the check thing in Drain
He does not count the baby in this list.
“But this,” he says, lighting Brandi another smoke; it’s her pack. “I won’t fuck up. Just got to wait, study the pieces, figure how to get me and Penny what we deserve.”
He sees her then, Chloe Pinter, coming from the parking lot across the way.
“Speak of the devil,” he says, rubbing his palms together. Brandi looks down to his bare forearms, where the dragon tattoos twist. He’s going to show her how it’s done.
“Hey!” he yells. Chloe jumps, skitty little thing, drops the folders under her arm into the mud so she has to scramble to pick them up. Jason smiles. But then she looks at him, nods, and disappears into the place across the way. Like she couldn’t be bothered with the likes of him.
Brandi makes a bleating noise beside him, like a question. Stupid bitch, picking at her arms, meth mites no doubt.
“It’s all part of the plan,” he tells her. “Agency bitch in her fancy SUV.”
Behind Chloe it’s the hot blonde from across the way with the kid, and shit, he’d never noticed before under those clothes, but she’s fucking pregnant too. How many of them has Chloe Pinter got out here? Now he sees it: they’re all her ponies, and Felony Flats is her little play stable, she stops by to feed them turkey and stuffing, takesthem out to exercise, to the vet, but in the end, she’ll take the money and run.
Jason jumps up, jerks Brandi with him. She stumbles, laughs like a coyote, high as a ponderosa pine; he knew it.
“Come on.” He lifts her by the arm—she couldn’t weigh a hundred pounds even, but the pain shoots on down his back, his hip, his leg. “I got to use your phone.”
7
After-Dinner Drinks
CHLOE
A t home, Chloe finds the house dark, though Dan’s bike is chained to a peeling post on the front porch. In the spring, she thinks, they should paint, give the house a face-lift from the street, poor old girl. Years of frat-boy abuse had left her damaged, but you could see what a gem she used to be. Chloe had spent every spare moment working on her, scrubbing and retiling the downstairs bathroom (if a little lopsidedly) and painting every room, from their red dining room to the neutral khaki master bedroom. One day, after they’re married, she and Dan will buy the house from the landlord, fix up the little nook at the top of the stairs for their own baby, paint it pale periwinkle, a shade so pale it almost looks white, perfect for a boy or a girl.
The dining room just off the front hall is bright, bloodred, with titanium white high-gloss trim on the windowsills and molding, a perfect contrast to the dark wood table and scuffed hardwood floor. It is Chloe’s favorite room in the house, and she stops here now, admiring a $200 oversize silver mirror she splurged on, dropping her files, purse, and keys on the table. She takes the sunflowers she bought at Strohecker’s, the upscale, overpriced grocery store just around the corner, puts them in a tall blue glass vase, and sits at the table, drinking in the colors.
This is what you have to do in Portland in the winter, she tells her friends who have never been there. You have to fill your inside with color so that the gray, the record-breaking forty-two days of low cloud cover and drizzle, don’t make you want to drive off the edge of the steep, winding road that leads to your perfect little house in Portland Heights. This is what you have to do when you have a sort-of fiancé who huddles in front of ESPN in the dark, who takes his cell phone into the other room when his friends,
“I’ve fucked up in the past,” he says to Brandi, who flicks her stubby butt into the mud at their feet and scratches at her legs through her pants.
The three biggest mistakes of his life:
The DUI that cost him his trucking license in ’96
Getting mixed up with Des’ree and that crank crowd in Wyoming
Letting Penny take the fall for the check thing in Drain
He does not count the baby in this list.
“But this,” he says, lighting Brandi another smoke; it’s her pack. “I won’t fuck up. Just got to wait, study the pieces, figure how to get me and Penny what we deserve.”
He sees her then, Chloe Pinter, coming from the parking lot across the way.
“Speak of the devil,” he says, rubbing his palms together. Brandi looks down to his bare forearms, where the dragon tattoos twist. He’s going to show her how it’s done.
“Hey!” he yells. Chloe jumps, skitty little thing, drops the folders under her arm into the mud so she has to scramble to pick them up. Jason smiles. But then she looks at him, nods, and disappears into the place across the way. Like she couldn’t be bothered with the likes of him.
Brandi makes a bleating noise beside him, like a question. Stupid bitch, picking at her arms, meth mites no doubt.
“It’s all part of the plan,” he tells her. “Agency bitch in her fancy SUV.”
Behind Chloe it’s the hot blonde from across the way with the kid, and shit, he’d never noticed before under those clothes, but she’s fucking pregnant too. How many of them has Chloe Pinter got out here? Now he sees it: they’re all her ponies, and Felony Flats is her little play stable, she stops by to feed them turkey and stuffing, takesthem out to exercise, to the vet, but in the end, she’ll take the money and run.
Jason jumps up, jerks Brandi with him. She stumbles, laughs like a coyote, high as a ponderosa pine; he knew it.
“Come on.” He lifts her by the arm—she couldn’t weigh a hundred pounds even, but the pain shoots on down his back, his hip, his leg. “I got to use your phone.”
7
After-Dinner Drinks
CHLOE
A t home, Chloe finds the house dark, though Dan’s bike is chained to a peeling post on the front porch. In the spring, she thinks, they should paint, give the house a face-lift from the street, poor old girl. Years of frat-boy abuse had left her damaged, but you could see what a gem she used to be. Chloe had spent every spare moment working on her, scrubbing and retiling the downstairs bathroom (if a little lopsidedly) and painting every room, from their red dining room to the neutral khaki master bedroom. One day, after they’re married, she and Dan will buy the house from the landlord, fix up the little nook at the top of the stairs for their own baby, paint it pale periwinkle, a shade so pale it almost looks white, perfect for a boy or a girl.
The dining room just off the front hall is bright, bloodred, with titanium white high-gloss trim on the windowsills and molding, a perfect contrast to the dark wood table and scuffed hardwood floor. It is Chloe’s favorite room in the house, and she stops here now, admiring a $200 oversize silver mirror she splurged on, dropping her files, purse, and keys on the table. She takes the sunflowers she bought at Strohecker’s, the upscale, overpriced grocery store just around the corner, puts them in a tall blue glass vase, and sits at the table, drinking in the colors.
This is what you have to do in Portland in the winter, she tells her friends who have never been there. You have to fill your inside with color so that the gray, the record-breaking forty-two days of low cloud cover and drizzle, don’t make you want to drive off the edge of the steep, winding road that leads to your perfect little house in Portland Heights. This is what you have to do when you have a sort-of fiancé who huddles in front of ESPN in the dark, who takes his cell phone into the other room when his friends,
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