Free Under His Skin by Sidney Bristol Page A

addition.
    She’d said he could call. Had she meant it? Or was she being nice? He couldn’t tell. She’d been mysterious and into him one moment, and making excuses the next. He’d spent long enough wondering about her, he couldn’t pass up this opportunity.
    The phone rang and rang. He traced the P through the laminate.
    “Hey, this is Pandora Hatley—”
    Voicemail.
    He ended the call and let the phone drop to the bed next to him. Staring up at the ceiling, he jumped when the phone rang almost immediately.
    “Hello?”
    “Hey,” Pandora answered, sounding out of breath. “What’s up?”
    “Are you busy?” His excitement dissolved into disappointment.
    “Kind of. I’m setting up for a piercing, and I have a tattoo after that. Something wrong?” He could hear drawers clanging as she moved around, and the distant sounds of music.
    He put his hand over the ship tattoo, feeling the raised lines. It had begun to scab over, entering the worst phase of the whole process, in his opinion. “I didn’t want anything.”
    “Weren’t you flying today?”
    “Yeah, I’m in Boulder.”
    “How’d that go? Hold on a sec.”
    There were muffled voices and snatches of conversation. He didn’t want to hang up, but he had called in the middle of the afternoon when most normal people were working. He’d never had a job before the last month, and he wasn’t yet on an actual schedule.
    “Hey, Brian?”
    “Yeah?”
    “I’m sorry, I have to go. I’ll try to call or text you later, okay?”
    He smiled. “Cool. Talk to you then.”
    Hanging up the phone, he let it lie on his chest. The laminated picture he stared at for a few more minutes. It had been tucked away in his wallet for ages, a kind of good luck charm he’d never been without. Sighing, he slipped it back into his wallet, where it would be safe.
    * * * * *
     
    Pandora set her bag down on the kitchen table in Kellie’s house and listened for the sounds of her grandmother moving around in the living room. Every couple of weeks she took a night and hung out with Grandma Cho Hee Nahm. The house looked exactly as it had when Grandma had lived there with her husband. The curtains, dishes and knickknacks were all the same and showed the age and wear of time.
    Though she couldn’t say for sure, she though Kellie held off making updates to the house in some hope of Grandma’s memory coming back.
    Her phone vibrated in her back pocket. Digging it out, she couldn’t believe that she still got the warm fuzzies from a text message from Brian.
     
    SLC has the best pretzels.
     
    She snorted and shook her head. Half of the texts they traded were either complete gibberish or silly stuff. She tapped out a quick reply and shoved her phone back in her pocket.
    Though the day sitter she had relieved would have given Grandma her meds and dinner, Pandora still wanted to check on her. She grabbed one of the Nahm Gym jackets that probably dated back to the seventies and pulled it on. Grandma’s Alzheimer’s was bad, but it wasn’t so bad that she’d forgotten her husband’s gym.
    Stepping through the doorway, she found Grandma sitting in the middle of the couch. She wore one of her floral-print dresses and house slippers, and peeked at Pandora from behind her spectacles. Her salt-and-pepper hair was pinned up into what she liked to call her geisha bun.
    “Hey, Grandma,” she said.
    Grandma replied, saying something that sounded like, “Batman angel goes green.”
    “Remember, Grandma, I don’t speak Korean.” She crossed to sit next to her on the couch. “Watching Wheel of Fortune , huh?”
    Her pocket vibrated again.
     
    I forgot how nosey G’s parents were. I think they even know my underwear size.
     
    Grandma leaned over and poked at the phone. Pandora laughed and let her tap the buttons, resulting in a message of complete nonsense. Pandora sent it anyways.
    Kellie occasionally commented that she didn’t understand but wouldn’t question Pandora’s