Family Ties — читать онлайн бесплатно полностью

“I’m sorry we haven’t had much time together,” I said after a while.

“It’s okay. Everyone’s so busy.”

“Yeah. Only going to get worse until exams are over.”

“Maybe then we can go on a real date.”

“I like hearing it.”

I glanced at the easy chair and was thinking about an impromptu make-out session when the phone rang. I looked at my watch.

“Who’d be calling this late?”

Wren answered it and then shouted from below, “Paul, phone!”

“Paul, phone,” Christy echoed with a grin.

We went downstairs to find Wren in my room at the computer.

out the flowery telephone handset.

“Who is it?” I asked.

“How should I know?” she snapped. “Sorry,” she said immediately. “This dumb computer lost my other paper.”

“It didn’t lose it,” Christy said patiently. “You have to put in the right disk.” She glanced at me. “Why don’t you use the phone in my room.”

I grinned and imagined her mother saying the same thing.

“I got it,” I called when I picked up the extension in her room. I heard a click as Wren hung up.

“Hey,” Sara said. “Did I catch you at a bad time?”

“It’s the last week of the quarter,” I said. “Projects and papers due. A mountain of work. Exams coming up.”

“Oh. Right. Want me to let you go?”

“Nah, screw that stuff. I’d rather talk to you.” I moved clothes from Christy’s bed, including a wine-colored bra and panty set. They were lacy and revealing, and I imagined her wearing them. I chuckled to myself and set them on top of the other clothes, where she’d know I’d seen them.

“How was your Thanksgiving?” Sara asked as I sat down.

I searched for the right word. “Eventful. Some good, some bad, some…

exciting. It’s a really long story, though. Tell me about yours first. How’d it go with the gallery owner?”

“Eventful,” she mimicked.

“Good? Bad? Exciting?”

“All three, I think.”

“Start with the bad. Then the good. End on a positive note with the exciting stuff.”

“I’m glad I called you,” she said with a long-distance smile.

“I’m glad you did too.”

“I really mean it. You make me think everything’s going to be all right in my sometimes-crappy life.”

“Everyone’s life is crappy sometimes. Just find what makes you happy and forget all the other stuff. So… what’s the bad? Let’s get that out of the way.”

“Well, the bad isn’t really all that bad. Just… the same.”

“Yeah. She spent Thanksgiving with her guy.