Someone Else's Fairytale Read Online Free Page A

biscotti in two and put one half in front of me. The other he dunked in his drink.
    “So how've you been?” he asked.
    “Fine. How's the film?”
    “Wrapped. Yesterday.”
    “Oh. So you're leaving town soon?”
    “Yeah, in a few hours. I just wanted to track you down and say sorry. I was way too nosy about you and your family and all that.”
    “It's fine. How did you find me?”
    He tugged his phone from his pocket and held it out to me. It was sleek and hi tech and displayed a web page with a picture of me grinning. That, I knew, was on the Flying Star website. I'd been employee of the month last month.
    “Oh,” I said.
    “I love this place,” he said. “It's the old Rainbow Cafe, right? Started over on Juan Tabo?”
    “I don't know.”
    “I'm pretty sure it is. Used to go there when I was a kid.”
    “Did you Google my name?” I asked.
    “Yeah.”
    I frowned. “Anything else come up?”
    “I didn't look, why?”
    “Um... never mind...”
    “I'm really sorry if I dug into your privacy again-”
    “If it's on the internet, it's not private.”
    “Yeah, but sometimes it should be. Believe me, I know.”
    I shrugged. “Um, okay. Things with the Winters got ugly sometimes, so... yeah. Kind of embarrassing what might be still around in old news stories.”
    “Gotcha. Okay.” He put his phone back in his pocket. “So tell me about you?”
    “What do you want to know?”
    “Where'd you grow up?”
    “Near the South Valley .”
    “And now? You at
UNM
?”
    I nodded. “Yeah, I'll be a senior.”
    “What do you study?”
    “Archeology and biology.”
    “Nice.
UNM
's a top archeology school, right? Got a really good department?”
    “Yeah, that's why I majored in it. Figured it'd give me the best shot at a good graduate school.”
    He nodded, munched some more biscotti, and washed it down with coffee. “You going to be an archeologist?”
    “No, forensic science. Which I learned last year requires a hard science bachelors, and not everyone considers archeology a hard science, so that's why I took on the second major.”
    “Oh, so you'll be like Bones – did you ever watch that TV show?”
    “No – yes, I have seen it – but no, she's a forensic anthropologist and I just want to be a forensic scientist. She deals with dead bodies, and I just want to do stuff like fingerprinting, munitions testing,
DNA
evidence. Stuff like that.”
    “Like
CSI
? ”
    “Right. Without as much funding.”
    “You probably think it's stupid that I'm citing television shows to understand what you do.”
    “I dunno. It'd be a little more disturbing if you had real life experience.”
    “Okay, true.” His blue eyes twinkled. I could see why millions of women found him dreamy. I just found him odd. He was too perfect looking. His teeth were pure white and even. His tan was bronze and fake. At least with the baseball cap on, his hair stuck out around the edge like a normal person's. His hands and nails were manicured and flawless.
    As if sensing my scrutiny, he went quiet, as if it mattered to him what I thought.
    I tried to fill the silence. “I guess I don't know much about you. Other than that you went to La Cueva.”
    “I did, for two years. I mean, I graduated from there too, but I had to transfer credits back to do it. Loved that school.”
    “And   my housemate heard in an interview that you do martial arts?”
    He gave a wry smile. “Maybe I said that. I don't know. I don't bother to tell the truth in interviews.”
    “You just lie?”
    With a shrug, he drained his coffee. “People don't watch interviews to get to know me. They don't want to know the real me. They just want to be entertained, and I don't want to share my personal information with a bunch of strangers, so I just make up stories and stuff. I don't think I ever said I knew martial arts, though. I try not to claim to have skills that I don't. I might've made up some story about a karate fight or- yeah. Yeah, I did. Karate fight on set