Read Online Red Velvet Crush by Christina Meredith - Free Book Online Page B

transformation from little sister to rock star. It never fails to impress me, even under the dull fluorescent tubes of our garage.
    Her five feet two inches stretch, suddenly seeming much bigger than her usual scabbed-up little self. A rasp rattles into her voice, husky and low, summoning up a southern accent that hasn’t existed since the end of the Confederacy. Then a sound, huge, rocks from that tiny body.
    I stare at her in amazement, remembering her dressing Barbie dolls and eating her breakfast cereal with milk that was definitely well past sour but not quite chunky, and I want to hate her, to take my jealousy and bash it over her head like a guitar, Pete Townshend style, because it is so big and violent, but I can’t. I am too busy being proud of my slightly rotten little sister. She blows the boys away.
    Yes, even Ty.
    A faint rush of cold air swirls around my ankles as I lean down into the fridge, trying to find a place to wedge the ketchup bottle. The sticky red ring that it normally lives in has been swallowed up by a shifting load of jars and jellies, all jammed in.
    â€œI think I should have just one name,” I hear Billie say.
    I stand up and rest my arm along the top of the open door.
    My dad glances over his shoulder and then turns back to the sink.
    Billie has pink streaks in her hair and fake tattoos stretched up her arms. She is wearing a wifebeater and booty shorts with her worn-out black leather boots.
    She flexes her biceps. “Like Pink.”
    Dad turns off the tap.
    â€œOr, you know,” she says, dancing around and watching her reflection in the darkened windows above the kitchen table, “like Madonna did.”
    â€œDoes,” Dad says.
    Billie stops dancing. “What?”
    â€œMadonna’s not dead,” Dad says.
    â€œAre you sure?” Billie asks. He nods, and she starts dancing again.
    I finally give up and cram the ketchup bottle in next to Winston’s homemade bitchin’ hot barbecue sauce. (His secret? Lemon pepper.)
    â€œBut you’re my Billie Carter,” Dad says, sounding like his pride is wounded. Dish soap bubbles drip from the ends of his fingers.
    â€œYep,” I say as I swing the fridge door shut, “named after the dishonorable brother of our thirty-ninth president. And a can of beer.”
    I memorized these facts in the third grade, back when I half expected to see my mom on Antique Roadshow , her hair done up, a can of Billy Beer in her hand, waiting in line to learn of her riches from a snobby guy with a bow tie and a Bostonaccent. But it was always just people with crap from basements and attics and the Civil War, nothing good.
    She once brought home a can of Billy Beer from a garage sale—unopened and covered in dust—thinking it would be worth money someday. It sat on a shelf in our garage for years, and I thought she took it with her when she left. Turns out, Winston used it for target practice. Shot a hole in it with his first BB gun.
    These days the beer story is just good ammunition against Billie.
    She likes to pretend she is named after Billie Holiday, but it seems that we all were named after the shit my mom encountered during her daily trips to the convenience store or the flea market: cigarettes or beer cans or cheap nylon lingerie in a plastic bag. Go figure.
    Billie pauses and gives me the finger.
    My dad sighs as she stalks out of the room, the loose sole of her boot flapping along behind her.
    â€œWhat’s going on with you two?” he asks.
    â€œMe and beer can Billie?”
    His brow furrows. He is acting like he has never seen Billie flip me off before.
    I shrug and reach for the dishcloth to wipe the table.
    â€œConsider yourself lucky, Teddy Lee,” he says, leaning back so I can run the cloth under the tap in front of him, “you came close to being called Quinn.”
    I start wiping. “That doesn’t sound so bad to me.”
    Marginally better than being named after