Read Online Crushed by Laura McNeal - Free Book Online

“He’s still here—can I call you back in a few minutes?”
    After she’d hung up, she turned awkwardly to Wickham. “My friends C.C. and Lea. We always conference-call at nine o’clock.”
    He nodded. “Your good-looking girl chums.”
    â€œHave you met them?”
    He shook his head. “I’ve just seen them with you.”
    That he paid attention to her unobserved was strangely flattering. She said, “Unless the weather’s bad, we eat our lunch on a little knoll above the quad. You could come eat with us tomorrow if you wanted.”
    He took this in. “Tell you what. I’ll come eat with you guys tomorrow if you’ll have something to eat with me at Little Dragon tomorrow night.”
    Easy. It all seemed so easy. “You’re kind of a big dealmaker, aren’t you?”
    He laughed, and in his low drawl said, “All I know is, when I eat Chinese food with you, my headaches go away.”
    He was looking into her eyes again, and she made herself say, “Aren’t you the slightest bit worried that you are so not ready for this quiz thing tomorrow?”
    He shifted and shrugged. “I’ve failed better teachers than Mrs. Leacock,” he said. Then he let his eyes settle into hers and, in a low, sociable voice of complicity, he said, “Besides, I’ll be fine if, while you’re taking the test tomorrow, you just lean a little to the right or to the left.”

Chapter 15
    A Vow
    When his alarm clock sounded the next morning, Clyde Mumsford woke up happy.
    He’d been dreaming of Audrey Reed. This wasn’t the first time he’d dreamed of her, but this one had been the most pleasant. He’d been riding a bicycle along a sunny country road and was weirdly, almost weightlessly happy, but didn’t know why until in his dream he turned around and saw Audrey Reed on her own bike, pedaling behind him. She was wearing shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt, and her long sandy hair streamed back from her face.
I’m gaining on you,
she said, grinning.
    For a few minutes, while he slept, he’d known what it was like to be Audrey Reed’s boyfriend.
    â€œClyde? You up?” His father, from the front room.
    â€œGetting there,” Clyde called back.
    There was a freestanding Everlast punching bag in the middle of the room. Clyde got up and gave it a couple of sharp jabs. So what was he going to do about Audrey Reed? Wait around for the next good dream? Nobody said he had to be rich just to talk to her. Who said he couldn’t just ask her to study with him the next time he ran into her?
Say, hey, I’m
having some trouble with this whole sub-Saharan culture deal and
you seem to have it down pat. Would you mind going over it
with me?
    He could do that. Maybe he could do that. He could tell Audrey Reed was nice, and once he’d been around her awhile, his words wouldn’t come out like croaks anymore. Diminished croakiness would evolve.
    After he’d showered and dressed, Clyde went to the living room, where his father was standing at the big window, staring out. His mother was still sleeping. The TV was tuned to a cooking show, but the sound was off. A tray with yogurt and Cream of Wheat sat next to his mother, untouched.
    â€œGoing now, Dad,” he said on his way out.
    His father turned and nodded. In the five years of his mother’s sickness, his father’s hair had started graying. This morning his skin seemed gray, too.
    From behind them, in a dazed, soft voice, his mother said, “Going where, without . . . ?”
    Clyde turned. “To school, Mom.”
    â€œWithout . . . ?”
    Without kissing me,
Clyde knew, was the whole question.
    He walked over, kissed her on the forehead, and patted her nose. She closed her eyes again and seemed to relax.
    â€œLove you,” she whispered—it was what she always whispered—and he headed for the door.
    Today,
he vowed, and