Walk (Gentry Boys) Read Online Free Page A

unhelpfully realistic like, “You’ll probably work at a bookstore or something.” 
    He wasn’t trying to be insulting.  Macon was just a born believer in sensible concepts.  
    When I heard my phone pinging with the onslaught of what were surely various and sundry Happy Birthday wishes I pulled the covers over my head and stared at the sunlight filtering through the paisley fabric. 
    Usually I’d be up by now, coffee in hand, crookedly lining my eyes in the rearview mirror as I played stop-and-go-and-stop-again on the Interstate on my way to work.   But luckily my fabulous boss had awarded me the day off even though I didn’t get around to asking for it until four fifty five p.m. yesterday.  She hadn’t even hesitated. I loved my boss. 
    I’d actually made some plans today but being cocooned in my own bed covers was comforting, kind of like being ensconced in a pastel womb.  It was tempting to just stay here in my warm isolation for the next twelve hours or so and pretend that there was nothing better for me to do.  I flung the covers aside and stared at the ceiling. 
    I was too old for pretending, too jaded for wishes. 
    The next time my phone buzzed I picked it up. 
    “Happy Birthday, Gorgeous!” 
    Kendra.  We’d been friends since freshman year when we both arrived at Arizona State as self-proclaimed ‘serious students’ on a dormitory floor filled with party animals who played beer golf in the hallway and dry humped in the study lounge. 
    “Hey, Ken,” I yawned. 
    “When you didn’t answer I tried to call you at work and that tarpaper-voiced receptionist said you were out today.  Why do you keep yawning?  My god, are you still in bed?” 
    “No.”
    “Liar.”  I could hear her smiling.  “Wait.”  Her voiced became hushed, excited.  “Do you have company?”
    I looked at the empty pillow beside me in a lonely king-sized bed.  “Yes.” 
    Kendra sighed.  “Evie, you never learned how to lie persuasively.  Too bad.  Some overnight company would have been good for you.”  
    “You’re one to talk,” I retorted because she’d hit a nerve without meaning to.   Kendra’s situation was a little different than mine though.  Tall and dazzling, she’d recently started her dream job as co-hostess of Wake Up Phoenix, the most popular early morning talk show in the state.  Kendra was ambitious, brilliant, no-nonsense, and scared the daylights out of most males worth their testosterone. 
    “I know,” she groaned.  “It’s been a long, dry season.  Anyway, what are your plans today?  I can make a call and get us in for lunch at Monte Carlo.  My treat, no arguments.  A girl’s twenty fifth birthday only comes around once.”   
    “That sounds lovely but I made plans.”
    “What plans?” 
    I hesitated.  “Driving down to see Macon.”     
    There was a pause on the other end.  “You sure that’s a good idea, hon?”
    “Of course.  It’s our birthday.  And just because he refuses to see me every single other time I make the trip is no reason to believe he’ll do the same now.” 
    “Evie…” Kendra started to say but her voice trailed off.  She knew better than anyone else how deep the wounds were. Yet even Kendra didn’t know everything. 
    After all, there was no way to adequately explain that when you were lucky enough to enter this world with someone holding your hand you didn’t let him go.  Not even when he was an imprisoned heroin addict whose terrible choices had destroyed your family.  I couldn’t abandon the hope that somewhere behind the haunted eyes of a ruined man was the boy who’d accompanied me on a thousand happy adventures on our parents’ rural estate outside Flagstaff.  Buried in there was the tender child who saved caterpillars from getting squished on sidewalks but had enough fire to break Andy Carpenter’s nose when he called me ‘flat-chested bitch’.  
    Even though everyone from Kendra to my own