Falling for Colton (Falling #5) Read Online Free Page A

little shit, all of eleven, almost twelve, black hair cut tight to his scalp. He’d be a good-looking son of a bitch, though, you can already tell.  
    He tugs a stool out from underneath the workbench, turns down my Metallica CD, and kicks his feet. I know he’s there, obviously, but I also know he’s got something to say, and will spit it out when he was ready. He never comes out here to my shop; no one does unless they have to, but Kyle especially. I caught him in here one day when he was nine or ten, messing with my tools, trying to help probably. I don’t know. I do know he’d fucked up a brand new set of spark plugs, though, and I lost my shit, told him I’d kill him in his sleep if I ever found him out here again.  
    A few minutes pass, and Kyle just watches me work, kicking his feet.  
    Finally, I set down my wrench, turn to face him, arms crossed over my chest. “Well? Whaddya want, kiddo?”  
    “Are you leaving?”  
    I shrug, nod. “Yeah.”
    “Why?”
    I sigh. “Hard to explain. Dad wants me to go to college, and I want to work on cars. And Dad said if I don’t go to college, now that I’ve graduated high school, I can’t live here anymore. So I’m leaving.”
    “Where are you gonna go?”
    “Hell if I know, bud.”  
    “When will you be back?”
    I feel that one in the gut; I haven’t been the best big brother to this little squirt, but he’s a good kid. Better than me, that’s for fucking sure. I can only shake my head. “I don’t know. Shitty answer, but it’s the truth.”
    “I heard Mom and Dad arguing about you last night.”  
    I cock an eyebrow at him. “Oh yeah? What’d they say?”
    “Well Mom is mad that Dad’s making you leave, and he was all like ‘he’s made his bed, now he has to lie in it’, whatever that means. And Mom is mad because Dad’s not letting you keep your car, which I think is bullshit.”
    “You’re not old enough to swear yet, kid.” I toss a washer at him, which he catches and throws back, hard. Kid’s got an arm, man.
    “You swear all the time. And besides, it is bullshit. You did all the work on that car. Why can’t you take it?”
    “Because Dad paid for the shell. I built the engine myself, put in the transmission, the exhaust, the stereo, the seats, everything. But he paid for the shell, so he technically owns it. I could take all that stuff out, but then I’d have the parts for the car and nothing to put them in. Doesn’t make any sense to wreck a work of art out of petulance, you know?”
    “So what’s gonna happen to it, then?”
    “You’ll get it.” I shoot him a grin I don’t really feel, but I can’t hold anything against Kyle since he’s innocent in all this.
    “I will? Really?”
    “Well yeah. You’re gonna be sixteen in a few years, and you’ll need a car. This way, they don’t have to buy a new one. Bonus for you is, you’ll have the sweetest ride at the entire school. Bitches are gonna be tripping over themselves to get a ride in it, bro.”  
    Kyle frowns. “You shouldn’t call women bitches, Colt. It’s not nice.”
    I throw a hex nut at his head, not gently this time. “Neither am I, if you hadn’t noticed.”
    Quick hands catch the nut, toss it aside casually. “You could be. You don’t have to be a jerk all the time.”
    I rock back, stunned. “You think I’m a jerk?”
    He shrugs. “Well, not to me, mostly. But then, you barely notice I exist most of the time. But you’re a jerk to Dad.”
    “That’s because he’s a jerk to me. We don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things, Kyle. Hopefully you’ll never have to understand that.”  
    I sigh, tug open the driver’s door, gesture for him to get in. He scrambles off the stool and slides into the driver’s seat, grabs the steering wheel with one hand, the shifter with the other.  
    “Man, this is so cool!” He grins at me. “I can’t believe I’m gonna get to drive this!”  
    “You better take care of it, Kyle. She’s a sweet