AllFreeNovel
Share Us
As I slung my duffle over my shoulder and gave Sly a salute, he called after me, "You make the Wombats proud, Rock Stevens!"
"Rock it!" Another of my teammates called from between the lockers a few rows back.
There were a few other hoots and hollers from my teammates, and some more calls to "Rock it" - the standard chant the crowd liked to use whenever I played. It wasn't clever, but I liked it anyway. At least one good thing came from my ridiculous moniker. If you had to be named Rock, you'd better be a hockey player, I figured. Or work in construction, or be part of a motorcycle club. Mom had doomed me with that one, but I'd done the best I could with it.
* * *
The drive to Singletree shouldn't have been long, but as I finally crossed the bridge into Maryland, I remembered that it always was. It was partly thanks to Maryland's unique geography, and partly because the town seemed to exist in a vortex of small-town strange that just couldn't be achieved anywhere else, and it took some effort to navigate into that vortex.
It was dark when I pulled up to the duplex I'd once called home. It was a nice-looking, side-by-side double unit owned by my Aunt Nattie, but I'd stayed here most of my adult life. The rent was cheap, and the place was nice. It faced the Patuxent River on one side, and looked out into the woods across the little road on which it sat on the other.
The place was quiet and remote, and perfect for a little winding down.
I parked out front, grabbed my duffle, and put my key into the lock, gratified to step into the place I'd once called home.
I flipped on the lights in the entry, and a jolt of surprise shot through me. Aunt Nattie had evidently decided to redecorate. There were some feminine touches added here and there—a framed picture on the wall of some seaside scene, a couple candles scattered around. It wasn't a lot, and I guessed it added a nice touch.
Whatever. I wasn't here to stay, just to crash for the week.
I dropped my duffle on the living room floor and made my way to the kitchen. I was pretty sure I'd left some beer in the fridge, and that was exactly what I wanted. To drink a beer and flip on the television, take in the last match between our long-time rivals—the Quill Boars—and their neighboring franchise, the Roosters.
There was a lot of random crap stuffed into the fridge, which made me wonder what the hell Aunt Nattie had been doing with my place in the eight months since I'd left it. I still paid rent every month, so I wasn't crazy about her using it for much of anything, but then again, my rent was a fraction of what it should have been, and it was her house.
I pushed aside the abundance of vegetable matter and non-dairy milk choices—how did one get milk from an oat, I wondered—and let out a sigh of relief to find the six pack I remembered leaving still there, standing at the back of the space, waiting patiently for my return.
“Hello, girls,” I said, pulling one out.
I'd have to talk to my aunt tomorrow to figure out what she'd been up to and see if I needed to offer her more money each month to keep the place the way I liked it. I didn't come back often—there was little reason to besides my aunt and my cousins, who all had lives of their own. But I liked knowing the place was here, that it was still home.
I popped off the lid and took a seat on the couch, letting out a hearty sigh as I brought the television to life, and confirmed that those jerks, the Quill Boars, were suffering a pounding at the hands of the Roosters. All was right in the world.
CHAPTER3
DREA
THERE IS SUCH A THING AS TOO MUCH SLANKET
The funny thing about small towns was that while you always felt like things should be close by, everything took forever to get to down little two-lane country roads. The drunken psychic's place was no different. And despite what Paige said, she was not on the way home.
We trundled along the twisty little roads between Straddler's and the psychic's in the humid darkness of the late-May night, the three of us cool inside the air-conditioned bubble of my car.
"Ooh, there it is!" Paige shouted from the back, leaning forward between the two front seats and pointing at the little cottage tucked away at the side of the road.
"Got it," I said.
"Hard to miss though, really," April noted. She was referring to the enormous neon sign in the adjacent lot that was a likeness of the psychic winking and nodding above an arrow that pointed to her little house and the word PSYCHIC burning a hole in the darkness of the night.
I pulled into the driveway behind a new model Volvo SUV. The psychic was doing okay, I guessed.
"Here goes nothing," I muttered, switching off the engine and opening my door. The outdoor air had me wide awake and somewhat trepidatious. After all, we were bothering an older woman after ten p.m. on a Saturday night. "Are we sure she'll be open at this hour?" I asked.
"The sign is on," April pointed out.
"She would definitely switch it off if she wasn't open," Paige agreed.
That was probably true.
"Come on," April said, approaching the wide steps that led up to the front porch.
