Kiss of Death Read Online Free

looks down at the fourteen-year-old girls eagerly holding out CDs to him, he has a twinkle in his hazel eyes that makes me warm to him. He looks like an older brother being nice to his younger sister’s friends.
    And then, of course, there’s Callum, sitting in the middle, looking bashful at the attention.
    “He doesn’t look that happy,” Taylor comments.
    “He never looks that happy,” I say. “Or at least, he didn’t when I knew him.”
    “Yeah,” Taylor says. “I only met him once, and it wasn’t exactly …”
    She trails off, but I know precisely what she means. Remembering the circumstances under which Taylor, Callum, and I all found ourselves in a ruined tower on his family’s Scottish estate wouldn’t bring a smile to anyone’s face.
    I feel sad all over again, thinking about what happened. And just at that moment, Callum happens to look my way. Our eyes meet, and I see the shock of recognition in his, followed, almost instantly, by a welter of confused emotions. Surprise, naturally; sadness, just like mine; and something else, too, something that echoes what I’m feeling now as I look into his gray-green eyes. Another memory.
    Because the last time I saw Callum, we kissed.
    But I knew, after Dan’s death and what happened in that tower, that Callum and I could never be a couple. Too much baggage, too much bad, sad history. I thought it was best to close the door and move on quickly, never looking back.
    And there it would have stayed. If it weren’t for this accident of fate that’s brought us together, staring at each other across the foyer of the Edinburgh Arts Center as a pack of fourteen-year-olds bay for his attention like yappy Chihuahuas.
    “Huh,” Taylor says, reaching for a wrap, handing me one. “Here. Eat that. And when you’ve finished, you can fill me in on exactly what happened between you and Callum. I mean, I know you kissed, but from the way you’re looking, it was more like what you’d call”—she pauses, concentrates, and attempts her best British accent—“ a full-on snogfest ,” she concludes triumphantly, sounding so funny that I crack up laughing. Which, mercifully, makes her cross enough to distract her from further speculation about Callum and me …

    “Are you Scarlett?” says a male voice, just as I’m chugging the last drops of my Irn-Bru. I cough, wipe my mouth inelegantly with the back of my hand, and nod in the direction of the guitarist from Mac Attack, the redheaded one with the nice eyes. The teachers supervising the younger teens are rounding them up now, though it’s like herding cats, and the Mac Attack boys have sold every one of their CDs and T-shirts; the table they were sitting at is completely bare.
    The guitarist leans over, partly because he’s a lot taller than me, partly because, from the way he looks quickly from side to side, he has something to say he doesn’t want anyone else to hear.
    “Callum’s in the greenroom,” he says. “He asked me to pop over and see if you’ll come back for a word with him. It’s a madhouse out here.”
    “Um, okay—”
    “Ewan! Will you sign my T-shirt?” a girl asks, tugging at his arm, staring up at him adoringly. “You’re my favorite out of all of them!”
    “Wait here a wee minute,” he says to her, rolling his eyes at me as he turns to shepherd me off. I dart a look back at Taylor as I go: her eyebrows are raised in two straight black lines, and she lifts one hand to her mouth, kissing her palm sexily in a reference to what she knows about me and Callum.
    Thanks, I think sourly. That really helps, Taylor.
    Ewan whips me in double-quick time through the auditorium doors, down the central aisle, and up onto the stage. I’m so busy skipping along to keep up with him, jumping over the wires and white tape on the stage floor and dodging the amps, that I have no time to anticipate what it will be like seeing Callum again; so when we nip down some stairs in the wings and push through a