Posey (Low #1.5) Read Online Free Page B

my chin in defiance. I circle my finger around the rim of my mug, working the courage to utter untruths to these hungry people. It’s the same story told anytime I’m asked about the people obligated to raise me: we’re happy.
    “They’re assholes.” A smile spreads across my face, and I laugh loudly—right from the belly. “We totally hate each other.”
    The sound of my laughter echoes off water-damaged walls, but telling the truth chips at hostility, and I feel lighter. Lowen brought me to his house—his run-down, foodless, happy home—without pretenses or indignity. A place with exposed electrical wires and stained carpet, but a place warmer and more sheltering than my house has ever been.
    “My mom watches soap operas all day, and my dad wears loafers. It’s ridiculous,” I say, looking toward Lowen. His smile matches my own.
    “Shit, Poesy,” Patricia says, shaking her head. Her lips curve. “I’ll tell you what, though. Parents really know how to fuck shit up.”
    “Ain’t that the truth,” Gillian mumbles.
     
     
    THE WOMAN O F the house refuses help in the kitchen after we’re done eating, and Gillian closes her school books and drags her feet to bed, finding it impossible to keep her eyes open once the food settles in her stomach and the excitement of the day comes to an end.
    “Which room is yours?” I follow Lowen to the living room, standing a foot shorter than his towering frame.
    Frayed laces drag on the carpet, and grass-stained denim hangs low on his hips. Twirled cowlicks and lengthy around his ears, Low pushes his long fingers through his golden hair. Summer just began to heat things up, but the sun blazed hot enough this week to lighten his ends.
    “You’re in it,” blond boy answers, falling onto the sofa. A white bedsheet covering the couch collapses under his weight.
    “Am I allowed on your bed?” I ask in a light tone, winking.
    “My sister used to sleep with my mom.” He pats the spot beside him, extending his legs and kicking the table back to get comfortable once I sit. “But I gave Gillian the second bedroom a few months ago. She’s too old to crash with her ma, you know. So this is me now.”
    “It’s not bad.” I bounce on the cushion.
    He laughs, and my heart leaps.
    “I’ve slept on worse,” he says.
    The yellow light from the lamp beside the couch throws a shadow across Lowen’s face, exaggerating the hard lines of his nose and chin. A light stubble trails along this boy’s jawline in a hundred different shades of blond. It’s killing me not to reach over and trace the tattoo beneath his left eye at the sharpest point of his cheekbone, but I settle for brushing my fingers over the scars on his knuckles.
    “I don’t live like you do, Poesy.” He looks down where my hands touch his.
    “Tell me how it feels,” I whisper. My thumb sweeps over healed fight marks and slopes between hard bone.
    “To struggle? To not know where your next meal will come from or if you’ll be able to pay the rent? You don’t want to know how that feels.” Lowen suddenly turns his palm, capturing my wrist in his large grasp. He eases when I don’t pull away but doesn’t let me go.
    The passion in his stare, dark blue and cutting, steals the breath from my lungs in one easy pull. Airless, hypnotized, and dissolving under his rough touch, I lean toward my capturer and part my lips in search of something to stop the aching pressure in my chest.
    “No,” I say breathlessly. “Tell me how it feels to live with people who love you.”
    Lowen’s lips collide with mine, forceful and warm, and his palms cradle my face. I close my eyes as the rhythm of my heart drowns out the sound of running water from the kitchen. Gripping on to the front of his shirt, melting into his embrace is thoughtless, and the feel of his tongue touching mine is provoking.
    He’s sincere but commanding, pushing his fingers through my stringy hair and scratching my scalp. I let him lead, at his