Free A Son of Carver (Carver High #2) by Haven Francis Page A

after he gave me the speech about how I think he has to convince everyone he’s a decent person because he couldn’t possibly be anything but a piece of crap, he had Jolee half-naked and was stalking after her like a starved man. I don’t even want to think about what happened in her room after I left. Maybe we just have different definitions of what, exactly, a piece of crap is.
    But the good news is we’ve spent the beginning of the week in the computer lab working on our photos and there, we were free to sit wherever we wanted. Needless to say, I was nowhere near Nash Carter.
    In fact, sitting next to him now as we watch our classmates present their photos, is the first time I’ve even had to look at his face all week.
    “Nash and Presley,” Mr. Conroy says. We’re up.
    I stand and walk to the front of the room, clipping my three home landscape photos to the wall. I assume I’m going first because I assume Nash has no photos of my life since he took off on me before he had a chance to take any. I’m guessing he was playing online poker or looking at porn all week in the computer lab.
    “Tell us about your photos,” Mr. Conroy says.
    I look at them, proud of their quality. I took advantage of the natural light then enhanced it in Photoshop creating a cohesive, balanced group of photos. I refused to include my extended family but managed to come up with three safe subject matters to present.
    “That’s my mom, that’s the view out my bedroom window and the last one’s me and one of my drawings.” The last one isn’t actually me, it’s just my chucks kicked up on my desk next to my art. I was pretty proud of myself for finding a way out of that one.
    “Do you have anything else to add?” he asks, expectantly.
    “I used lighting and digital techniques to focus on what I thought was important in each photo.”
    “Which is what?”
    I look at him blankly – is it not obvious? “Um… my mom, my house and me.”
    He tilts his head. “We’ll come back to you. Go ahead and present your photos, Nash.”
    I cross my arms, a smirk covering my face as I focus on everything but Nash and his lack of photos. “Okay,” Mr. Conroy says brightly. “Tell us what you saw when you looked at Presley’s home landscape.”
    “Laura, her mom, was talking about their old life… she couldn’t say what she wanted to but her expression pretty much said it all. That’s the bitch she’s stuck living with at the moment.”
    “Mr. Carter,” the teacher says tersely.
    “Sorry. The woman .”
    With a curiosity I can’t deny, I turn my eyes to Nash’s photo of my mom. The composition is off. His choice of doing it in black and white is elementary in every way. But, damn it, it’s kind of good. He captured my mom looking honest and real and the unfocused shape of my aunt in the background creates a nice contrast. Not that he meant to do that. Not that he knows what the hell he’s doing.
    “Okay,” Mr. Conroy forgives him. “What about the next one?”
    “I guess it’s interesting because Presley was doing the same thing – thinking of her real home  where she used to live- and it was the first time I’ve ever see her look like that. You might remember, we weren’t excited about being stuck together, so when I’m around her she usually looks stressed out or pissed off.”
    I look at the portrait of my profile; my eyes closed, my face relaxed, all of it looking a little celestial thanks to the light streaming in from my window. Again, he got damn lucky.
    “Good,” Mr. Conroy says. “And the third one.”
    “It’s a picture of pictures. Presley’s room isn’t really her room; it’s all flowers and pastels and ruffles. But she’s got a couple of shelves that are hers – her books and music and art crap. These are the three photos that are there- one’s face down, the other one’s of a dude she’s not really dating anymore and the one that’s in focus is of her and her friends from Santa Cruz. It’s