The Art of Crash Landing Read Online Free

nodded, keeping my face turned toward the sea. I didn’t want him to see how the wind was making my eyes water.

CHAPTER 4
    I ’m awake by six fifteen. The light coming in from the edge of the curtains hits me right in the face, and the Herculon upholstery on Queeg’s couch is itchy right through the sheet. There’s no point in trying to fall back asleep. When I step outside, I see a few other residents up and about, but Queeg’s car is gone—either he’s already left to pick up Minnie, or he’s gone to get doughnuts. I hope it’s doughnuts.
    I drag the lawn chair that’s next to his trailer out into the sun and sit down. Then I turn on my phone to see how many missed calls came in last night from Nick.
    There are many.
    I call him, smiling as I listen to his phone ring and ring and ring. I’m waking him up. He hates that.
    He answers with a groan.
    â€œGood morning!” I use my most annoyingly cheerful voice.
    I hear another groan and the rustle of bedsheets. I can imagine him sitting on the edge of the bed, sheet puddled in his lap, the morning light shining on his freshly waxed chest.
    â€œWhere is it?” he asks.
    â€œWhere is what?” I already know but don’t want him to know that I know.
    â€œThe guitar strap.”
    â€œWhich guitar strap?” I know this answer, too. Nick owns two guitar straps, but only one of them would make him call me fourteen times in one night. I’m asking because I want to make him say it.
    Nick makes a soft angry-animal sound and then says, “My collector’s-item-near-mint-condition-brown-leather-guitar-strap-signed-by-Jimmy-Page-and-Jeff-Beck.” As always, he blends the description into one long word.
    He’s extremely annoyed. Excellent.
    â€œOh, that strap. I haven’t seen it in a while.” This is true-ish. I haven’t seen it since I tossed it in my car yesterday afternoon.
    â€œBullshit. I know you have it, and I want it back.”
    â€œWhy would I take that sweaty old thing?”
    â€œBecause it’s worth a bundle.”
    â€œReally?” I took the strap to mess with him, but now I’m wondering how much, exactly, is a bundle?
    â€œI’m gonna call the cops.”
    I laugh. “You’d better hide your bongs and air out that apartment before you let a cop inside.”
    There’s a short pause during which I picture Nick taking an experimental sniff, and then he says, “You’re at your stepfather’s, aren’t you?”
    â€œNope.” Even as I say this, I see Queeg’s white Toyota approaching slowly from the north. He’s not alone in the car.
    â€œI know you are. I’m getting in my car right now.”
    â€œDon’t bother,” I tell him. “I’ll be long gone.” It’s three hours from his bed in Tallahassee to this folding chair in Pensacola.
    He switches tactics. “Don’t be that way, baby. You know you belong here with me. Come home.”
    My throat tightens. There’s comfort to be found in the familiar, even when the familiar isn’t all that great. But the thing is, once you’ve lived with someone, you learn their little tricks. Nick can do a pretty good nice , but it’s not the real deal. His is a thin, watery nice, a niceness-au-jus drizzled over a great big asshole sandwich.
    â€œI don’t think so,” I say.
    He starts some name-calling, but by now Queeg has parked his car, so I end the call before Nick has a chance to get warmed up. I stuff the phone back in my pocket, and my loneliness back wherever it came from.
    Min He is in the car with Queeg. This is going to get interesting.
    M in He and Queeg were an item before he met my mother, so when he broke it off with Min He to date and then marry my mom, Min He, rightly I suppose, thought of my mother as a man-thief. And since I borrowed two hundred dollars from her three years ago and never paid her back, she