The Darkest Secret: A New Adult Romance Novel Read Online Free Page B

The Darkest Secret: A New Adult Romance Novel
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the dark depths of her large eyes, but life had dragged down the corners of her lips and scratched worry into her wide brow. Her figure was impressive - a wasp waist in a leather bustier, long legs, torn jeans and a tan, rose tattooed cleavage that jiggled when she moved.
    "You ever think of selling that hair?" she said to me, while I tried on a bandana.
    I laughed and she looked at me like I had no idea, which to be fair, I didn't. I'd never heard of such a thing outside of a novel and never imagined real people could be so desperate as to sell parts of their body. Maybe that was why - when I saw the cardboard sign that said TAROT in magic marker letters - that I asked her about the readings.
    "Sure," she said. "Let me get someone to mind the stall. You sure you wanna know your future?"
    "Why not?" I said, half amused. I didn't believe in any of that stuff anyway. I'd been through the occult phase and out the other side - spooky stories, sleepovers, and seeing how many times you dared say Bloody Mary in front of the mirror.
    "Cut the pack," said Rose-Tattoo. "Tap it three times."
    She drew the first card. "This is you," she said. "Queen of Pentacles. Rich kid - but you knew that, right?"
    "Right," I said, biting my lower lip to hide my smile. This was hardly hardcore voodoo. Anyone could look once at my expensively straightened teeth and my good shoes and know I wasn't exactly trailer park material.
    "Your past," she said. "The Empress. Older woman. Mother?"
    I nodded. She arched an eyebrow.
    "Dead?" she said.
    "Yes."
    "Just like I thought. Your future..." She drew another card. I knew what that meant. The Reaper. Death.
    It was so much like a bad horror movie that I laughed.
    "You've got to be kidding me."
    She looked up from under her long black eyelashes and I saw once again the beauty she must once have been.
    "It's all our futures, sugar," she said, in a smoker's rasp. "Man that is born of woman hath but a short time. In itself this isn't a bad card. People think it's the worst, but it's not. Sometimes it just means change. End of one era, beginning of a new one. You got any big changes coming up in your life?"
    "College," I said. "I want to move out of home."
    "There you go, sweetheart. Death of your childhood. Happens to us all."
    I nodded and gave her some more money, even though it hadn't been much of a fortune telling. I don't think I would have even remembered it if it hadn't been for what happened next.
    We found the bar Everglade saw in the student guide. It was packed to the rafters and I knew right away it would make me nervous - I've never been great at crowds. But we looked through the window and saw some girls drinking pink cocktails with dumb little pipe cleaner flamingos perched on the end of the swizzle sticks; "Self conscious kitsch," said Everglade. "My favorite." And so we went in. Funny to think of life's big decisions riding on something as small as that. I wonder about it sometimes - in another universe is there another me who's doing fine, solely because she didn't go into that bar?
    The cocktail was just known as The Pink Stuff. I'm not sure exactly what was in it but I think I spotted the bartender pouring in vodka and white rum. It was a pretty motley crowd. There were guys with popped collars and girls with too much tan, but then I saw a girl with a shaved head and a t-shirt printed with a René Magritte painting - not the pipe, the other famous one. The one where the guy has an apple where his face should be. Another girl was in intense conversation with a bearded guy whose t-shirt bore a twelve sided D&D dice and the legend 'That's How I Roll, Baby'. Seems like all tribes were well represented.
    I held onto Everglade's hand as we made our way through the crowd, past the pool table and into a back room that was dark but for the bar and a bunch of weird, luminous sculptures hanging from the ceiling. They looked like someone had tried to make rib-cages and other bone structures out of crappy
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