Read Online grl2grl by Julie Anne Peters - Free Book Online Page B

slowly. “Yeah, I get it. I wasn’t coming on to you.” Much.
    Our eyes held. Hers broke off first. She gazed into thedistance and murmured, “He’s always late. I can’t stand when people are late. It’s so rude.” She scuffed the sidewalk with
     her boot.
    “I know. I hate it too. I’m always on time.”
    “Me too. I’m, like, anal about it.”
    I grinned. We had that in common. I took the extended conversation as a truce.
    “How long have you been working here?” she asked.
    “Me?” I said. “’Bout eight months.”
    “Wow.”
    I’m steady, I wanted to say. Reliable.
    “I worked at Kmart for almost a year before they shut the store,” she said.
    “The one in Four Points?”
    “Yeah.”
    “I shopped there all the time,” I said.
    She hugged herself. “You’re the only one.”
    “I need —“ “I want —“ we both began at once. And cracked up.
    “Go ahead,” I told her.
    “I need to work,” she said, “so I can pay for my dance lessons.”
    “You’re a dancer?” I tried not to check out her body, but my eyes had a mind of their own. “You look it,” I said.
    Her eyes fell. “Thanks.” Rubbing her hands together, she added, “I’m not going to stand here all night.” Nevaeh pivotedand hurried down the sidewalk in the direction of the drive-up window.
    “Hey.” I hustled to catch up. “You shouldn’t be out walking alone. Not in this neighborhood.” Impulsively, I reached over
     to touch her. She flinched. I withdrew my hand quick. “It’s dark. The streetlights are all shot out. Can I walk you home?”
    “No!” Her voice softened. “But thanks.”
    A car squealed around the corner and flooded us in headlights. Tires crunched gravel and the fender overshot the curb. Instinct
     made me pull Nevaeh back a foot. Two guys hauled out of the car and swaggered up to us. “Nev, you okay?” One of them clenched
     Nevaeh’s upper arm and jerked her away from me. “This guy bothering you?” he said.
    The other dude, the taller one with a dirty cut on his cheek, checked me out.
    “Yes,” Nevaeh answered.
    What? I think she meant, Yes, she was okay, but the guy misinterpreted. Both dudes did. They were on me before I knew what
     was happening.
    My heel hit the edge of sidewalk and the sticker bush behind me poked into my back. “Hey, it’s cool.” Both guys had a grip
     on my arms. “I wasn’t doing anything. I didn’t touch her.”
    “Eric, come on,” Nevaeh said. “Leave her alone. Let’s go.”
    I assumed Eric was her brother. He positioned me in frontof him, straight on. “Her? Did you say ‘her’?” His eyes stripped me down. They paused at my chest.
    “Fuck,” the other dude said. “Are you a girl?” His lip curled, wrinkling the cut, making it more ominous. Hoisting his hands
     onto his hips, surveying me like a specimen, he added, “You one of them freaks? A crosser? A transvestite?”
    “Everything’s cool,” I said. My voice held firm. I’m not a transvestite. The sticker bush began to prickle through Gramps’s
     pants.
    Someone in the car hollered, “What’s up?”
    Cut-face replied, “Moby. Come check out this freak.” He reached forward and twisted the sleeve of my jacket, pulling me toward
     him. A car door slammed.
    “He’s a she. A she-he.”
    Ze, I thought.
    “No way,” the third guy said. Moby was bigger than the first two, a giant. Like two ninety.
    “There’s only one way to be sure,” Nevaeh’s brother said. He grinned at Cut-face, then me.
    “Man, hey, it’s cool.” I wriggled out of Cut-face’s clutches. And Eric’s. My pulse raced. I fought down the fear. I knew if
     I let them see fear…
    Two of them lunged at me, trapping my arms behind my back. They reeked of beer and weed and cigarettes.
    A sudden chill on my stomach made me gasp. They’d lifted up my shirt. “Oh shit. Look at that.”
    All three gawked. Eric or Moby, one of them, put hisface up to mine and said, “What’s the matter, sweetcakes? You