Lemon Crush Read Online R.G. Alexander

Categories Genre: Alpha Male, Contemporary Tags Authors: R.G. Alexander Advertisement1

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“You will as soon as your wrestler shows up. But I do love it when you pester.”

“Lucky you, since I’m so good at it.”

I ended the call, driving slowly past the small brown ranch house I used to live in and its larger, more attractive neighbor. Wade’s sister Bernie and my pregnant goddaughter Phoebe lived in that one, and I couldn’t take a full breath until I saw that both of their cars were missing from the driveway. Thank God—it would have been hard to sneak by unnoticed in this bright-ass bug.

If I’d come here subconsciously for comfort, I should have known better.

Chick had been my closest friend for over a decade, but that first best friend I mentioned? That was Bernie. Bernadette, if you wanted a black eye and she was in a mood. I still remembered the day I met them like it was yesterday. I was eleven, and Mom had driven us here from New York in a car exactly like Jiminy.

I called shotgun on the last leg of the trip so I could sit beside my mother as we entered the city limits. We were singing all the Texas songs Mom could think of at the top of our lungs—"All My Exes Live in Texas”, “Deep in the Heart of Texas”, “The Yellow Rose of Texas”—while my sixteen-year-old sister pretended to be asleep in the backseat, the orange headphones of her Walkman firmly pressed to her ears so she could ignore us in favor of AC/DC.

This place didn’t look that different from any of the others we’d driven through recently, but Mom kept saying it was. She was making all sorts of plans for trips to Galveston and the Alamo. She said we were close to Lake Conroe, but we’d be taking long drives to spend weekends camping at someplace called New Braunfels. She’d had me look them all up on our road map for fun.

“The state is so huge, they have a little of everything. Which is good, because we’re going to be staying here for a while.”

“Longer than Studio City?”

In California, we’d lived in a tiny apartment—so small she’d slept on the pull-out couch so Morgan and I could each have our own rooms—for a year and a half while she worked on a television series. She’d had an office on the studio lot, where I got to hang out and help after school until my sister got home. I’d missed it since we moved to New York seven months ago.

Her blonde curls whipped around her face as the wind rushed through the open window and she laughed, pushing it out of her eyes. “That’s the plan, pumpkin. High school is very important, and Morgan wants to stay in one place so she can rule the school. That’s why I accepted the job with this casting company. They’re doing more films here, and I’ll be teaching commercial acting classes for them whenever there’s a lull. The best part about it is, I’ll have more time to spend with you. Because you are my sunshine, my only sunshine,” she ended with a song, her hand stretching out to tickle me, as if I were still a kid.

I almost laughed, but my stomach was twisted with worry at the thought of starting at another new school. I’d never ruled any of them. By the time I got there, most of the class had known each other for years and usually thought I was lame.

“Can I tell people you’re famous?” I asked hopefully, thinking of the kids in California who couldn’t stop talking about what their parents did for a living. If it was movie related, they had tons of friends. Mom worked on movie sets all the time, but she had rules about not “telling strangers our business.”

She eyed me reproachfully before turning back to the road. “I’m not famous, August. I sometimes work with people who are famous. And you know bragging isn’t an attractive quality. Actors might have interesting jobs, but who you are is more important than what you do or who you know.”

“I know. But your job is better than acting.”

She pinched my cheek gently. “Buttering me up won’t make me change my mind. Anyway, I don’t know why you’d waste time talking about me when you’re already so incredibly cool.”

I snorted in disbelief.

“You are! Those poems and short stories you write? How kind you are? This is going to be a fresh start for all of us, and this time everyone here is going to love you as much as I do.”

I eyed her cynically as we turned into the cracked driveway of a mud-brown house.

“We’re here,” she said.

Before I could take in our new home, movement in the driveway next door caught my eye.

There was a tall, cute boy around Morgan’s age standing next to a beat-up old car with the hood up. Beside him, tugging on his shirt, was a girl with two dark braids, wearing jeans, a tank top and, unexpectedly, a tutu.


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