Stef Ann Holm, Lucy Back [paper ebook reader .TXT] 📗

was really loud and really long.

Jason and Nutter snickered, then his brother said, “Good one, Mattie!”

It didn’t bug Matt that Jason called him Mattie. Because right now, Jason was like the old Jason. He was goofing around, not trying to impress anyone, just being…Jason.

Nutter ate a bunch of Cheetos out of the bottom of the bag and they passed them around. Then Nutter decided it would be funnier if they switched to farting.

So with hands orange from their chips, lips orange from their pop, the three of them had a contest to see who could fart the worst.

Nutter Lawrence won.

Must be all those nut-balls he’d taken had messed with his plumbing down below. Because he was rank, too.

“Good Lord!” Nutter’s mom hollered as she walked down the steep hill between the trees, rocks sliding beneath her sandals, “I can hear you boys all the way up the embankment. Where are your manners?”

“We don’t got any,” Nutter said.

At that, the three of them cracked up.

Tears practically rolling down his cheeks, Matt didn’t care that Nutter’s mom called them gross. He thought it was funny.

Today was about the best day he’d had since coming to Red Duck. And it wasn’t even over yet.

Journal of Mackenzie Taylor

Brad Smith is the biggest jerk I have ever met! My summer is RUINED thanks to him.

I never cheated on him, not one time! Since he and I hooked up this last semester, I’ve only had my eyes on him.

How could he do this to me?

How could Misty Connors do this to me?

I thought she was my friend! She made out with my boyfriend. And they…did it!

I found out today when we were all at the swimming pond. Misty and Christine were talking by the make out spot. The swamp grass grows thick there and they didn’t see me. I heard every disgusting word.

Misty Connors went all the way with my boyfriend. At first, I thought she was lying. I couldn’t believe Brad would do that to me. So I left and I went to his work and I confronted him.

He was pissed I came to the lumberyard and called him out to talk to me. He walked at me with purpose in his steps, started to tell me I was embarassing embarrassing him, and that’s when I just flat out asked him if he’d slept with Misty.

He didn’t say right out he hadn’t so I knew. He couldn’t deny it.

I hate him!

I hate him!

I hate him!

Liar! He told me he liked me! Maybe I should have done it with him when he was trying. But I said no. And now look what happened. He went to someone else.

I want to cry…

I want to get out of Kissimmee. I hate it here. I want to be anywhere…but here.

I hate my life.

Thirteen

Lucy sucked in her breath when she spotted Raul Nunez by the half basket of honeydew melons. With fierce determination and a heated shove of her grocery cart, she angled straight for him despite the wobbly front wheel. She had to rein in thoughts about knocking him into the banana rack.

She’d been shopping at Sutter’s, roaming the aisles for discounted specials to make budget meals at home, since she had no one to cook for. Tossed in among the food items in her cart was this week’s fat issue of the Mountain Gazette. As soon as she arrived home, she planned on reviewing the want ads.

The racket her cart made from that defective front wheel tipped off Raul. His head shot up from the honeydews, and his hand knocked a few melons to the floor. Lucy almost ran one over as she all but burned rubber and came to a stop. She was not letting him get away, so she pinned his cart to the fruit display.

“Raul,” she ventured, her tone clipped. “I’ve been trying to get hold of you.”

His coffee-bean-brown eyes widened with fright, the black hair on his head shining like a crow’s wing beneath the energy-efficient lighting. “C’hew about gave me a freakin’ heart attack.”

He wore his hair slicked down with some kind of pomade, his complexion olive-toned. He had oversize upper teeth that were on the straight side, while the bottoms buckled. They were the color of white out. Clearly, he bleached.

Raul had a thick accordion folder on the child seat of his cart. It brimmed with food-soiled recipes, handwritten notes and coupons. He hadn’t struck her as the coupon-clipping type.

“How come you haven’t returned my calls?” she asked bluntly, now that she had him captive.

Brown eyes darted to the honeydew melons. “I don’ know what c’hew talking about.”

“Cut the crap, Raul. I’ve been leaving you messages for days and you haven’t picked up.”

“I’ve been bee-zy. I work for a living, c’hew know.”

“Yes. And I’d like to work for mine.” Lucy straightened, her spine stiff and shoulders thrust back. “How do you expect me to get any clients when you keep telling them not to hire me?”

“I did no such ting!”

“Oh, come on! Raul, you own this town. But when we had a latte that day, you said, ‘There’s more work than I can handle, c’hew come right on up and you’ll be bee-zy.’”

Those big teeth looked ready to bite. “C’hew making fun of my English?”

She sighed, frustrated. “You have to help me out, Raul. Quit sabotaging my chances of survival in this town. I have two sons to support. I want to work. I enjoy my job.”

“C’hew can do your job. Jess don’ expect me to loose any of my clients, becuz you can’t cook like the Raul.”

“How would you even know?” she demanded, venting. “I’ll bet you and I could have a cook-off and I’d win.”

His stature seemed to pump up from about five foot eight to six feet. “Don’ tempt me.”

Raul Nunez was a legend in his own mind.

Lucy loosened her grip on the cart’s handle, not realizing she’d been holding it so tightly. She’d once read that frustration and anger had the ability to snap