Between the Seams Read Online Free Page B

rose in white, craggy limestone formations that still took her breath away.
    As a kid, the lake had been one of her favorite places. After she’d pulled herself away from Chase, she hadn’t visited as much for fear of being around him and causing embarrassment.
    And now here she was, sitting next to her best friend in the back of her former best friend’s boat, speeding across the water to God knows where.
    Nerves jangled in her gut.
    Chase and his friend Owen were at the steering wheel, laughing and talking about something. While Owen had stripped down to nothing more than a pair of flip flops and board shorts, baring an impressive tattooed and freckled chest that complemented his red hair, Chase wore a faded—and very fitted—Longhorns baseball t-shirt and gray swimming trunks.
    Was he still self-conscious about the scars? Curiosity burned in her gut, but she didn’t know how to ask Jenn.
    Chase’s childhood illness, the surgeries and the subsequent scars were a topic that the three of them had rarely broached as they grew older. As children, Jo and Jenn had laughed and teased and joked with Chase in an effort to make him feel better. While he’d never told them as much, as they’d gotten older Jo had realized that the scars made him a bit self-conscious; he never took his shirt off at pool parties or during the numerous pick-up ball games of all sorts that would pop up among the neighborhood kids. As teens, when the other boys would proudly take off their shirts to show off for the girls, Chase kept his on, deflecting the gazes and questions with a joke and a smile.
    She’d seen the scars once, after his very last surgery at the end of their eighth grade year. He had two long scars, slicing from hip to hip just below his belly button, each about an inch apart from the other. One was newer, still pink and tender-looking. There were smaller ones on his back, thin and faded from where the doctors had done all kinds of biopsies.
    He’d been in his backyard, standing at the edge of the swimming pool with water dripping off his hair and his swimming trunks, and she’d come over because she needed to escape the madness that was her own house. Her dad’s nose had once again been stuck in some dusty tome of research, and her mom had gone off with her hair teased and smelling of Opium perfume. She’d needed a sense of normalcy, so she’d gone to Chase’s, where everything always seemed normal and perfect and right.
    He hadn’t seen her at first, as she’d come around the side and through the gate and his back was slightly to her, his attention drawn to something else. Despite the fact that they’d been friends since childhood, Jo had started noticing the changes in Chase—and all the boys in their class—in the sixth grade. As a fourteen-year-old almost ninth grader, her curiosity had grown, and she’d really started noticing the changes in Chase. Playing baseball and football almost year-round had caused him to develop muscles. His voice had deepened. Her best friend was suddenly a boy . A really cute boy.
    A really cute boy who was causing her to feel really confusing things that she had no clue how to handle or interpret.
    And standing there, staring at him that day and seeing the scars that marked his struggle and will to survive, Jolene Sommers had tumbled head first into puppy love with Chase Roberts.
    He never knew—she was too shy and too embarrassed and too confused to even give him a glimpse of what she was feeling. So she’d plastered a smile on her face and continued towards him, the lump in her throat making speech impossible. She finally stopped a couple feet away from him and somehow managed to say—in a pretty normal tone of voice—“Hey, Chase.”
    He’d startled, whipped around towards her. She’d noticed the panic in his eyes, and intuitively knew that if she looked down it would only make him feel even more panicked. So instead, she’d kept her eyes on his face—despite the fact that