Read Online Just Jelly Beans and Jealousy by Tammy Falkner - Free Book Online Page A

uses sign language. But after
eight years of silence, he started to talk right before I went to
prison. He signs while he speaks.
    “Somebody scalp you while you were sleeping?”
he asks, pointing to his hair. It’s so strange hearing words come
out of Logan’s mouth. He went so long without speaking. But Emily
brings out the best in him, including his voice. “It looks like you
went three rounds with a weed eater. And lost.”
    Before I can answer, he’s pulling me in for a
hug. Logan’s special. He’s wicked smart, and he’s ultra talented.
Emily’s his and everyone knows it. They’re meant to be together
forever, and no one doubted it from the first night he brought her
home with her ass tossed over his shoulder and her Betty Boop
panties showing.
    Logan lets me go, and I look at Matt. He
looks so healthy he’s glowing. “Speaking of haircuts,” I say,
pulling on a lock of his hair. “When do you think you might get
one?”
    He cuffs me gently on the side of my head and
pulls me into his shoulder. God, I have missed them.
    “We’re going to start calling you
Goldilocks,” I warn. We’re all blond, and some of us are more blond
than others.
    “Try it, asswipe,” he jokes as he punches my
shoulder. “It’s been a long time since we’ve had a good match.”
    Emily wraps her arm around my forearm and
squeezes. “I think you’re bigger than when you went in,” she
says.
    “Not much else to do but work out and read.”
I shrug.
    “I can still take you,” Logan says. He flexes
his muscles. It’s so good to hear him speak.
    Logan was injured in a car accident right
after I went to jail, and he almost died. I wanted to go to him so
badly. But they wouldn’t let me out. “I heard you’re an old man
with a limp now.” I duck when he tries to grab my head for a
noogie, and I dance away from him.
    “Nothing about me is limp,” he says with a
chuckle. “Right, Emily?” he says, grinning. She punches him in the
arm. He bends at the waist and tosses her over his shoulder. She
squeals and beats on his butt, but he pays her no mind. He never
does when they do this. He starts toward the subway so we can go
home. The rest of us follow.
    Emily gives up and dangles there over Logan’s
shoulder. She’s right by my face, so I lean in and kiss her on the
cheek. “You all right?” she asks quietly. It’s fucking ridiculous
the way she’s just bobbing there.
    “It’s good to be going home,” I admit.
“Strange, but good.”
    She wraps her hands around her mouth and
whispers dramatically. “We have beer at the apartment! For your
birthday!”
    I grin. I spent my twenty-first birthday
behind bars. But I had a feeling they wouldn’t let it pass by
without some kind of celebration. “Just beer?” I whisper back
playfully.
    She winks. “There might be some other stuff,
too. Like wine.”
    My brothers don’t do anything more than drink
occasionally. “Is there cake?” I ask.
    She nods. “Sam made it.” Sam’s the baker in
the family. It’s too bad he had to play football to earn his way
into college because he’d make a damn fine baker. And he’d be
happier doing it.
    “So he was home this weekend?” Hearing that
he was home this weekend but he’s not there now is like a knife to
my gut. It fucking hurts. I can’t say I blame him, though.
    She nods, and she does that thing she does
where she doesn’t look me in the face. She’d be terrible at poker
because she can’t lie worth shit.
    “How long do you think he’ll avoid me?” I
ask.
    Matt looks over at me, his face searching
mine, but he doesn’t answer my question either.

Reagan
     
    I sit in my dad’s truck and drum my thumb on
the steering wheel along with the music. I dropped Dad off an hour
ago, and he sent me on an errand because he hates the idea of me
sitting outside a prison by myself. I finished his errand, and now
I’m waiting. He can’t fault me for that, can he?
    I freeze when I see three tatted-up men walk
by where