Read Online I Run to You by Eve Asbury - Free Book Online

Mom. Madeline meant well,
but Brook was all for looking cool and collected. She said, “Have
you seen Renee?”
    “She ran home to get something.” Madeline’s
eyes were searching.
    “K. I think I’ll go out and find Jason.”
    She tried to relay to Madeline not to hug
her, not to act as if anything was wrong. And Madeline didn’t. She
folded her arms, though, as if she wanted to, even as she stepped
back and smiled, saying, “I think he’s playing his guitar
somewhere.”
    Nodding, Brook went out, ignoring searching
looks and asking someone where Jason was.
    “Out under the oak.”
    “Great.” She smiled and headed down the
steps. Her side vision was fully aware of who stood there— ruffling
his son’s hair, and talking to some of the younger crowd. He had
played pro ball. He was their hero, regardless of her past with
him.
    She found not only Jason, but also Max,
sitting on the picnic table. Max was smoking, so she took the
cigarette from his fingers before going around, sitting on the
other aside, atop the table.
    Jason finished adjusting the clamp on his
guitar and both their eyes said they knew Coy was there, and why
she was sitting there with them—smoking. He reached down, got a
frosty beer from the cooler, and handed it to her.
    Talking around the cigarette in her lips as
she opened it, she joked, “Trying to get me drunk?”
    He winked at Max, saying to her next, “We
didn’t get to be a bad influence on you. So were making up for it.
Although,” He nodded his head toward some people walking a path
toward the horse barn. “We all avoid the weed heads in the family;
they’re the French fried branch.”
    She laughed, coughed around the smoke, and
muttered, “You’re terrible.” before she took a long pull.
    Max, who had laughed, said, “I’m sure she’s
tried it, considering.”
    Brook looked between them and sniffed,
“You’ll get no confessions from me. I know you’re just curious
about it because of my wild vagabond life with the band.”
    “C’mon on, tell us all your secrets.” Jason
teased. “I’ll tell you all of Max’s.”
    Brook took a drag, blew smoke, and shook her
head, grinning. “I’m twenty four. I think that gets me past
confession age. “
    Jason played a melody. His eyes went over
her. She felt Max’s too—because despite background noise, they
could hear a chant going up as some of the young men were
apparently talking Coy into playing some back yard football.
    Brook smiled crookedly, raised her brow, and
then the bottle in salute, taking a drink, and saying afterwards,
“Play that funky music, white boy.”
    Laughing, Jason played, the both of them
singing Big Green Tractor, with more exaggeration than was
required. More twang than either of the half prep school, half-
Coburn (craziness) men spoke with.
    Jason was singing and swaying, wiggling his
brows at her while he twanged, “Take ya for a ride on my big Green
Tractor….”
    She ignored the fact that Coy was somewhere
behind them in the flat back yard playing ball. Brook finished that
beer, the cigarette, loving her half-brother, her brother by
default, Jason, for distracting her the next hour—singing not only
stupid songs, but also making up words that would make Madeline
wash their mouth out with soap, no matter how old they were.
    Some of the lyrics were “dirty”. Some
just…disturbingly hilarious.
    At the end of one, they opened fresh beers,
she took water this time, and a piece of gum Jason offered. They
joked back and forth about some woman, Jason apparently had his eye
on, but Max won the date with. Brook was the one who heard Levi
calling out to get Max’s attention.
    “Levi is hollering for you.” She touched
Max’s arm.
    He hopped down and turned, looking beyond her
as she sat, still with her back to the rear yard and answered,
“Okay, little man. I’m coming.”
    Brook watched Jason stand. He set the guitar
in the case. She offered, “Thanks. For the entertainment.”