Love Will Read Online Free Page A

plus–I’m not pulling it that hard.
    “Day one, man. Day fucking one, and I can’t make it through a half-hour without wanting the first pretty girl I see. I’m hopeless.” I kick someone’s tire, setting off a car alarm. Peron and I assume the same posture–hands in pockets, ambling casually away from the noise as if we had nothing to do with it. It’s obvious we come from the same side of the tracks and got into our share of mischief growing up. Neither of us were the cause of any trouble; we were both just typically in the wrong place at the wrong time.
    We make it back to the bus, but realize too late that we have no way to get inside.
    “Text Ben,” I tell Peron, once again too busy with my hair to mess with my phone. “Tell him he parked illegally.”
    “Did he?”
    “No, but he won’t come out here if we just tell him we want inside. We’re reneging on our jobs, remember? The boss isn’t gonna like this.”
    “Technically, Damon’s the boss,” Peron reminds me, “and I think he’d understand. He knows what you’re trying to do, and Will?”
    “Did you text him?”
    “I did. Are you listening to me?” He slaps my hands away from my head. “You walked away from her, man. She invited you back to her place, and you said no.”
    “So the fuck what? I never go back to a girl’s place.”
    “Well, I guarantee if you wanted the bus, you could have gotten the keys and had fifteen minutes alone with her. You didn’t do that, either. So what if you wanted her? You didn’t take her. You. Walked. Away.”
    “I should have walked away about ten minutes earlier.”
    “Did the cops come by?” Ben hollers at us. “Who says I parked illegally? I checked for signs.”
    “I saw one on the other side,” I lie to him.
    “Where?”
    “Just let us in the fucking bus already.”
    “Show me the sign!”
    “There’s no sign, Ben. I just need on the bus before I piss off all the women inside that bar.”
    “What’d you do?”
    “He just turned someone down. That’s it,” Peron answers for me.
    Our manager gives me a displeased look. “We’re on a mission of good will, Will. Not… bad -will. You’ve got to turn your… your Will around. I know you have this idea of drastic life changes, but they’re kind of in direct conflict with our mission. Do you see that?”
    “Shut up,” Peron says as I stare blankly at Ben. “He can do both.”
    “Apparently he can’t.”
    “Open the door, Ben,” I say, flexing the muscles in my fingers.
    “You pussies can’t hibernate on this bus while the rest of us bust our asses to bring these people to our shows. That wasn’t the deal,” he says as he unlocks the door and tosses the keys inside.
    “I’m well aware of the deal . Appreciate the empathy,” I say sarcastically, walking back to my bunk and stripping out of my shirt. “You’re a good man.”
    “Fuck you, Will. I’m not your therapist. Grow a pair.”
    “Fuck you !” I yell back, throwing my shirt at him. “I’m trying not to make things worse tonight. That’s all I’m doing.”
    “Yeah, this all feels good to me!” he shouts back. “I’m feeling great about things!” He walks out the door, but immediately bumps into someone before he takes the step to the ground level. “Well, hello there.”
    “Hi!” I hear a woman say. It’s followed by multiple giggles.
    I close my eyes and take a breath, fearing another challenge I’m not prepared to face.
    “So you escaped jail, I guess…” Ben says. “That was quite some indecent exposure, though…” I look out the window next to the TV to see the black limo we’d passed earlier parked next to us.
    “We got off with a warning… not all of the Pennsylvania cops are on the straight and narrow, if you know what I mean.”
    “Good to know,” he says. “How’d you find us?”
    “Big tour bus, right off the highway… hard to miss. So there are seven of us… you said you only needed five, though…” I turn around to look