Addison Blakely: Confessions of A PK Read Online Free

he’d been arrested before. Actually, the things I truly knew about Wes could be counted on maybe one and a half hands—and that was if he was telling the truth about the number of his tattoos. I sort of figured he was lying about that one.
    He took a step toward me, his jacket opening slightly at the neck and revealing a hunter-green pullover. “Never what?”
    “Nev–never mind.” I hated that I stuttered. Poodle Girl probably never stuttered. Then again, she might not have all the motor skills I did, so it could be a poor comparison.
    He laughed, the sound husky and warm. “You really think I’ve been to jail? Give me some credit here, PK.”
    I hated that label, but the nickname he’d twisted it into somehow caused more flutters than aggravation. I shrugged. “How was I supposed to know? You’ve only been here a few months.” More like four months and three days, almost to the hour, but who was counting? “Anything is possible.”
    “You’re easy to tease.” He reached and tweaked my hair, and the nerves on the back of my neck tingled as if I’d been electrocuted. “What else do you believe about me?”
    That you’re not anything like what you seem
. But I couldn’t say that out loud, so I rolled my lower lip beneath my teeth and shrugged like I couldn’t care in the least.
    His eyes sparkled beneath the lamplight, and he tilted his head, a strand of dark hair falling across his forehead. “Here’s a secret, Addison. It’s not all true.” He took a step closer.
    I edged backward away from him, my heart screaming at me to go the other way into his arms. Somehow I just knew if I made that first step, they’d open welcomingly, like they did for Poodle Girl.
Stop it, Addison. Wes is trouble. You’re not that girl
. But something in his eyes convinced me I could be.
    “Addison!”
    In the time it took me to look toward my father bellowing from our front door, Wes sidestepped out of the light puddling on the sidewalk and into the shadows.
    “Coming, Dad!” I turned back to Wes to say good-bye, but he was gone. Poof. Only the subtle hint of leather and aftershave teasing the wind convinced me I hadn’t dreamed the entire encounter in the first place. I stood there like an idiot, searching the darkness for proof I wasn’t crazy, until my dad’s persistence beckoned me home.
    I trudged up the front walk with my hands hooked in my jeans pockets, positive Wes’s gaze burned into my back with every step. I refused to reward him with the amusement of a backward glance—wherever he was. It was okay. He’d be back. The thought brought equal parts relief and anxiety.
    Dad held the screen door open for me as I hurried inside. “You shouldn’t mess with strays, Addison. It’s dangerous.”
    Don’t I know it.

Chapter Three
    Y ou’re still going to meet me at the library during study hall, right?” I pinched the bridge of my nose against the headache pounding at my temples as I waited for Claire to finish applying her lip gloss in the bathroom mirror. No amount of caffeine seemed to help me wake up today.
    After my impromptu, clandestine meeting in the street last night, I couldn’t sleep. Thoughts of Wes swirled through my mind, and no matter how many times I tried to count sheep, I ended up counting motorcycles and tattoos. What was wrong with me? Was it possible to have a midlife crisis at sixteen? Guys like Wes had never appealed to me before. They just made me want to hand them a button-down shirt and a bottle of hair gel and tell them to get over themselves and lose the drama.
    But Wes was different. Something about his outer persona and his eyes didn’t match. The difference screamed “faker,” but not in the obnoxious, plastic way of someone trying to be something they weren’t. No, Wes’s image shouted something else, but I couldn’t make out exactly what.
    Not with my legs turning to mush beneath me every time he smiled. Talk about hard to focus.
    “Yes, for the tenth time, I’ll