All the Way Read Online Free

mean Jack didn’t use you. And you fell all over yourself to let him. What about after he showed his true colors?”
    “I…I didn’t—”
    “I tried to tell you he was bad news. If we’d spoken more than two words to each other—instead of just fighting—after the night Rob disappeared, I could have told you the truth. But you acted like I was something you’d scrape off your shoe.”
    “If you hadn’t ignored me, left town for some bike rally, then called me like nothing had happened, I wouldn’t have acted like that.” Her shoulder blades bumped the patio enclosure. His hand went up beside her head, as the other curved behind her neck.
    “What if I just took what I wanted, like Jack, and came onto you a year ago the way I did tonight? Maybe it would have been me in your bed. Was he worth it, Layla? Was he good? Did you shake in his arms like you did in mine?”
    Nothing compared to the way Blake made her feel minutes ago. But the force of her attraction to him clashed with his rude innuendo. This war waged every time Blake came near her. She despised this desire, this weakness. “I hate you.”
    His eyes narrowed. “So you say. I’d believe you, except your cheeks are flushed, your pulse is racing, and your lips are parted like you want my taste in your mouth. Is that what you want?” His face dipped.
    Layla shoved against him with her shoulder. “You’ll never find out.”
    Dashing through the gate, Layla heard it bang as she raced toward her car. Coming here had been worse than a mistake. She’d fallen into a nightmare.
    If she never saw Blake the rest of her life, it wouldn’t be long enough.
    Layla wrenched the handle of her Cavalier clunker and slammed the rusted door. She shoved her key in the ignition, turned, and the car gave one long pitiful whine. Then promptly died. No. No way was this happening. “Come on, come on!”
    After a few more cranks, and still nothing, her forehead dropped to the steering wheel. Impossible. Could this night get any worse?

 
     
     
     
     

Chapter 2
     
     
    Layla swallowed back the hot lump of saltwater that rose in her throat. She was already mortified at bursting into tears in front of Blake. She couldn’t lose face again, even to herself. Determination kicked in.
    She got out, slammed the door and started walking.
    Aiming for the gas station she recalled at the end of this dark road, Layla shoved her hands in her coat pockets and for the first fifteen minutes did a good job of ignoring her throbbing toe, the result of a swift kick to her dead car.
    Then both feet began to ache in these awful shoes, but she didn’t dare go barefoot with glass chards and chunks of gravel strewn along the sides of the road, glinting in the moonlight. It was dumb to wear heels, but she’d wanted to blend in, and red high heels were what her mother always wore with this leather jacket. She stopped to empty the pebbles that had slipped inside, and the irony clicked that this is what she and Robby always were to the woman, stones in her shoe. Why else would she up and leave them?
    Though Layla suspected the real reason why she and her brother had been left behind to fend for themselves. The day of the accident twelve years ago, Layla had suffered an emotional breakdown. Her mother had suffered a mental one.
    Sucked into memories, the line between past and present blurred. When she looked up, eight headlights were barreling down the street toward her. The roar of a pack of motorcycles surrounded her. She wanted to turn and race back to the Handle Bar. Instead, she panicked and froze.
    Suddenly the ear-splitting racket resembled sirens more than eight sets of pipes. The white lights turned to red and blue, spinning atop police cars and ambulances. A flashback gripped her. It seemed so real. She replayed the scene that still haunted her, the day her whole world had shattered.
    If only she hadn’t begged Kenny to be at Giovanni’s Pizzeria to celebrate her fifteenth birthday.