Blackout by Chris Myers

eyes. I won’t cry.
    He laughs, a sexy low rumble in his throat. “I have two mean, older brothers, and you looked up to me, even if you constantly begged Sam to talk to you. You did every stupid thing I told you. You were my little helper. Unlike my brothers, I could boss you around, and you took it.”
    I was used? “Screw you, and that doesn’t explain why you keep staring.”
    The memory of O and her lover in the taxi comes to my mind—unbidden. Despite her confusion, her submission and her obsession drive her to obey her lover, to go into the house without him. I’m not her. I’m stronger than her. I have to be.
    Dare laughs again, leans across me so that we’re chest to chest, and opens the door to let me out. I all but faint from the heat of our bodies touching, our sweat mingling like lovers. My face torches. I should stop reading that book, but there’s something I can’t put my finger on—a faint memory. A slight chill forces me to shiver.
    “What’s wrong?” Dare asks, concern mingling on those sensual lips.
    I’ve never seen him like this. When we were kids, I worried about gigging a frog wrong and Sam teasing me. Dare never did. He was patient.
    “It’s nothing.” I slip out of the car. “Well? Are you going to answer me? Why do you look at me…like that?”
    He’s staring at me. His gaze rakes over me, spawning a renewed fever in my blood. “You are no longer a little pest tagging along after me. You’ve grown into one fucking hot woman. Every guy stops to look at you or haven’t you noticed?”
    They could be staring at Kami. “You never used to talk that way, especially to me. I should wipe your mouth out with soap.” My fluster comes out as bitch, and I don’t like it.
    “As long as you were doing it, I’d probably enjoy it.” He slams the door shut behind me and spins out of the sandy driveway and down the road.
    My face feels like it caught fire, and I forgot to ask about his girlfriend and about Lisa. Where is Shannon anyway? And he thinks I’m hot? No boy has ever said that to me.

Chapter 10
    “Where’s the biscuits and gravy?” Lulu balks the next morning, pushing aside her fruit and yogurt for breakfast. “This won’t feed a growing girl like you or me.” She pats the little bulge in her elastic waist shorts that are the color of a ripe plum.
    “This is healthier.” I shove the bowl of Greek yogurt, blueberries, and the glass of fresh squeezed orange juice in front of her.
    She spoons the yogurt and takes a bite then spits it out. “It’s awful. You eat this?”
    I want her to live a long time. I don’t want her to leave me, like Mama did. “Every day.” It’s a lie. When I lived in Paris, my friends and I would head to the nearest café for espresso and crepes.
    “I have to have more than this. I’ll waste away. It’s making me go blind.” She winks at me.
    I laugh. “You have to eat that, and I’ll make you a bagel with cream cheese.”
    “Carbs. I don’t know what you young people have against grains. I grew up on them, and I look great—other than the cataracts—good thing I can’t see them.” She lets out a raucous laugh.
    Using her mottled fingers, she pinches her nose and swallows a bite while I fix her a bagel. Other than her eyes, she’s in good shape for being in her early seventies.
    She reaches for my hand. “I have a great joke for you. A woman walks into a bar, and a guy offers to buy her a drink. The woman tells him that it’s bad for her legs, and he asks how so? It spreads them.” She laughs and slaps her knee.
    A tight smile fixes on my lips. She needs to get out of the house, so she can tell others her dirty jokes instead of me. I push the bagel over to her.
    “What? No strawberry preserves? Girl, who taught you to cook? It certainly wasn’t your mom.”
    I choke on a blueberry. “Did Mama cook?” I have no idea.
    “Heck no. She wouldn’t clean or fix a meal. Always liked being waited on, except when it came to blowing