Read Online Poughkeepsie Begins (The Poughkeepsie Brotherhood #0.5) by Debra Anastasia - Free Book Online

all, but she didn’t love Zyler’s tone either. “Yeah, I hate judging people a ton before I know them.”
    “I’m not judging. I’m informing a friend who hasn’t grown up in this town so she doesn’t make mistakes she’ll regret later.” Zyler lifted his chin in greeting to another football team member walking in the opposite direction.
    “Well, can you inform me why you seem so much nicer when no one else is around to see?” Candy liked the Zyler who was just for her much better than the one who paraded down the hall and showed up at the lunch table.
    He stopped walking and tsked her a bit. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Me and my boys like to play around, but it’s just fun, you know?”
    She didn’t add that if they needed him to be an asshole, they weren’t the best of friends to have. Instead she asked another question. “So do you just hate the rumors about Beckett or do you have other reasons?”
    She took her books back from Zyler, and they continued to her class.
    “He started shit with my boys a while ago—took some dirty hits on them in the locker room. We’re here to protect, you know? We’re the football team, but this is our school. And he’s a problem. Came after Dunns in his home with a gun. Screwed and dumped Kain’s sister. We’ve got issues with him. And I’m not afraid of him. He’s just a poser. He’s bad news, Candy. Stick with me instead.” He gave her a kiss on the cheek before promising to call her for a math study date.
    She nodded, puzzling over his words as he walked away.
    Just how dangerous was Beckett? And why did that thought make her hot instead of scared?

    After school Candy made sure to slip into the bathroom to refresh her lip gloss. She also wanted to avoid having Zyler and Beckett come head to head again. When she walked out of the school, the lot had emptied. Beckett leaned against her car.
    “Thought you forgot about me,” he told her as soon as she was close.
    “Surprised you stayed awake this long.” She opened her car with the key and hit the unlock button. “Do you have a car or…?”
    He shook his head. “I come alive at night, baby. And no. I usually get a lift to and from. I can get a car here for us if you want.”
    “No. It’s fine. I’ll drive.” She motioned to her passenger seat.
    “Are you a safe driver, pink princess?” He pulled open the door.
    “You’re worried about safe? Huh.” She started the car, but made no move to drive it anywhere. It needed a good ten minutes to heat up before the power steering fluid was warmed.
    “Are we going to go? Or was this a ploy to get me alone?” Beckett started fidgeting with all the things she had—the cherry air freshener, the fuzzy dice.
    “It has to warm up.” She fought a smile.
    “Got to say, I expected a more impressive ride, judging from all the expensive shit you have.” Beckett turned in his seat to look at her.
    “You like judging a book by its cover there, Taylor?” She tried the steering wheel. Still locked up.
    “Sometimes that’s all you have to go by.”
    He was ready to spar. God, he could fill a damn space. She could hear her heartbeat.
    “Well, I’ve bad luck with cars. This is my third. We keep getting lemons.” She used the windshield wipers and washer fluid to clean up her view.
    “You crashing them?” He was going through her glovebox.
    “No. They just have horrible things wrong with them. The last one wouldn’t go uphill. So I’d drive, like, eighty miles per hour until I hit a hill, and by the time I got to the top I’d be doing five miles per hour with everyone honking behind me.”
    Beckett snickered, and she joined him.
    “And the one before that? If I didn’t run the gas while holding the brake, it would stall out. So at every stop I was revving the engine, and people thought I wanted to race them, which I didn’t.” She pulled on the steering wheel again. It felt a bit more responsive now.
    He slapped the dashboard as he