Free The Art of Crash Landing by Melissa DeCarlo

his.
    â€œSuit yourself.” He turns back to the paperwork lying on the counter.
    â€œWhat am I supposed to do?” I ask. “I don’t see a bus stop around here.”
    â€œNot many buses in Gandy. You could rent a car.” He doesn’t look up when he says this, but there’s a little smirk at the corner of his mouth.
    â€œTell me, is there a hyphen between douche and bag ?” That gets rid of the smirk, but doesn’t get me out of this smelly office.
    â€œWell, then I guess I’ll just hang out here with you.” I lean back in my seat beneath Ronald Reagan and cross my legs. “What’s your sign? I’m a Gemini. I bet you’re an Aries, right? All the real jerks I’ve known have been Aries. Or Capricorns . . .”
    After less than five minutes of my sparkling conversation, he gestures for me to follow him. We walk around to the gravel lot behind the building. He opens the passenger-side door of a white Taurus.
    â€œWhere are we going?” I’m thinking that it might just be to a shallow grave in the woods.
    â€œBack to where I found you.”
    â€œWhat about all my stuff?”
    He shrugs. “Not my problem.”
    â€œHold on a minute.” I run to my car and grab my toiletries pillowcase and shove in some clean underwear, my phone charger, Nick’s guitar strap. I also grab my mom’s camera bag.
    I hurry back to the Taurus before the asshole changes his mind. “I’m staying at my grandmother’s house.” I dig in my pocket for the slip of paper with her address. “I’ve got the address—”
    â€œI know where it is. Get in.”
    â€œMaybe I should drive.”
    â€œMaybe you should get in the damn car.”
    I climb in, fastening the seat belt before I shut the door.
    â€œThanks for the ride—”
    â€œYou can thank me by not spewing in this car.”
    â€œWhy are you so mean?” I ask, sounding a little whiny even to my own ears. “I thought you said you knew my mother.”
    â€œI never said I liked her.”
    He pulls out of the lot and heads back the way we came. The chickens are back out in the street and JJ honks at them again. As the car passes the flock, the rooster and I lock eyes. I have a funny feeling that Minnie might just be right this time. Maybe my chicken finally has come home to roast.

CHAPTER 10
    J J slows the car and turns onto a neighborhood street. The homes are older and small, but look well taken care of, their neatly manicured lawns lining up one after the other. A sidewalk runs along each side, clean and straight except for a few buckled spots where tree roots have fought for space and won. We pull into the driveway of a tidy two-story tan-brick house. JJ turns off the car and opens his door the same time I open mine.
    â€œThanks for the ride. I’ve got it from here,” I tell him.
    â€œGot what?”
    I gather up all my crap and climb out of the car. “I can take it from here.”
    â€œTake what?”
    Refusing to try again, I walk toward the house. I don’t notice until I am on the front porch that the numbers hanging next to the door don’t match the house numbers on my little scrap of paper. I turn around to tell JJ that we’re at the wrong house, only to find him standing directly behind me.
    â€œThis isn’t it.”
    He steps around me, swings open the storm door and puts a key in the doorknob, giving it a twist. From inside there’s the sound of dogs barking that grows louder as he pushes the door open and starts edging in.
    â€œThis is your house?”
    â€œYup,” he replies.
    â€œBut I thought you were taking me to my grandmother’s—”
    â€œRight there.” JJ points at the house next door.
    â€œThat’s her house?”
    â€œYup.”
    â€œYou live next door?”
    He nods. “You’d better do something about your lawn, by the way. Your