Read Online Hanging by a Thread by Karen Templeton - Free Book Online Page A

thunk the foil covered pan onto the counter. I slice brisket as he pours— glug, glug, glug —while Mario boops and beeps from the living room. My grandfather didn’t seem particularly surprised to see Luke, but I’m sure I’ll get the third degree later.
    I steal a glance at Luke as I plop three slices of brisket on a plate. He’s wearing a thermal Henley and snug jeans, wornAdidas, muscles I still can’t quite believe are there (he was pathetically scrawny as a kid). He keeps his dark hair short these days, hugging his scalp. I get the impression he thinks it makes him look tougher. Maybe it does, I don’t know. The planes of his face do seem sharper, though. Although the long, black lashes kinda kill the effect.
    Intense, dark eyes meet mine; one brow lifts. Heat rising in my face, I duck back into the fridge for leftover peas, noodles, thinking I can’t remember the last time I had a man in my kitchen. Had a man standing in my kitchen. That there was a man standing in my…oh, never mind.
    I don’t get out much, can you tell?
    Silence blankets the room, more pungent than the aroma of rewarmed brisket. Luke sips his juice, watching me, as I remove my delayed dinner from the microwave, carry it to the table in the pumpkin-orange kitchen I keep threatening to repaint, one of these days. I hear Luke’s glass clunk onto the counter, our unspoken thoughts stretching between us like tightropes neither of us dares to cross.
    â€œYou’re uncomfortable,” he says softly.
    â€œA little, maybe.”
    â€œMe, too.”
    I carefully cut my meat, fork in a bite, chew, swallow. I’m too hungry to not eat, even though I don’t really want to. This weird, three-way friendship between him and Tina and me is based, if nothing else, on our being able to trust each other implicitly. That confidences are inviolate. We only have one rule—that the only secrets we keep from each other are those that would do more harm than good to reveal.
    A rule I find I like less and less as time goes on.
    â€œSo you’re really not gonna tell me what she said.”
    I get up to get a glass of milk. “I’m really not.”
    â€œOkay, then how’s about I tell you how things look from my perspective, and you can just nod if I’m getting warm.” I return to the table with my milk, which I nearly spill when he says, “She wants out of the marriage, doesn’t she?”
    â€œWhat? No! Ohmigod, Luke—” I crash into my chair. “Where on earth is this coming from—?”
    Leo ambles into the kitchen, gives me a hard look. “You okay? I thought I heard you scream.”
    â€œThat was hardly a scream, Leo, sheesh.” But he’s already spotted the Oxford box. “What’s in there?”
    â€œÃ‰clairs. Take one.”
    He undoes the box, grinning at me and winking at Luke. “Then make myself scarce, right?”
    â€œThat’ll do.”
    Chuckling, he gets a plate down from the cupboard, lifts out one of the éclairs. He nods his head in my direction but says to Luke, “You think she looks run-down?”
    â€œLeo, for God’s sake—”
    â€œYeah,” Luke says, eyeing me. “I do.”
    â€œSee…” My grandfather licks his fingers as he looks at me. “He agrees with me, you’re working too hard.”
    This would be an opportune moment to point out I probably wouldn’t look so run down if everybody would a) give me a chance to get dinner at dinnertime and b) leave me the hell alone and stop looking to me as their own private Ann Landers or whichever one it is that’s still alive. But I’m too damned tired to go there.
    While Pops takes foreeeeever to get a glass of milk, he and Luke talk about his work, local politics, some firehouse that had to be gutted because rats had taken it over, the Knicks. I eat and silently seethe, two things I’m extremely