Know Your Heart: A New Zealand - Tracey Alvarez Page 0,37
that. Glen couldn’t imagine a guitar featuring as a suitable instrument in Jamie’s world view.
“Hey, Tommy,” Glen said as he approached. “Good trip?”
“Awesome.” Tom, as was usual these last couple of years, looked deliriously happy to see his uncle. Not. The boy’s gaze flicked from Glen’s face back to his smartphone. “And it’s Tom, not Tommy. Last time I checked I wasn’t twelve anymore.”
Last time Glen checked, he hadn’t wanted to kick his nephew’s sarcastic, back-talking ass, either. Still, the boy’d had a sucktastic couple of weeks.
“Right. Tom, then.” Glen grabbed the handle of the suitcase, catching Tom’s wince of teenage embarrassment. “Nice suitcase.”
Tom’s pained look implied how much he suffered with his uncle’s delusional wit.
“Your mum’s?” Glen asked.
“Yup.” Tom picked up his guitar case. “It was the flowery one or the pink one. She gave me the look and told me to man up and just pick.”
Dragging the suitcase toward his car, Glen looked over his shoulder at Tom, trudging at least four steps behind. “Tough choice, but you made the right call.”
Glen opened the SUV and hauled the case inside the back, turning with a grin that showed a lot of tooth. “The blue flowers match your eyes.”
With a kill-me-now eye roll, Tom carefully transferred the guitar into the backseat. He slid into the car and kept his hood-covered head pointed out the passenger window.
Glen resisted an eye roll of his own as he started the engine. Yup. His fifteen-year-old nephew was the spitting image of himself at the same age. Forty minutes of fun times ahead on the drive back home.
By the time Glen locked the gate after them on the private road, he’d all but given up making conversation. Tom hadn’t moved from his hunched position in the passenger seat. Every question Glen asked was dutifully answered in a multi-choice of monosyllabic words including: good, yup, nope, okay, maybe, and, it sucks. The longest conversation Tom voluntarily participated in was about his guitar.
“You play the guitar now, Tom?”
“Yup.”
“What kind? Electric? Acoustic? Classical?”
“Acoustic. Some electric.”
“Are you taking lessons at school?”
“Yup.”
“You any good?”
“Hell, yeah.”
Glen grinned as they passed Nate and Lauren’s house, a spiral of smoke coming out of their chimney. He’d let the boy cook up some S’mores tonight in Sav’s fireplace.
“You in a band?” he asked.
This garnered a little more reaction. The boy’s shoulders hunched higher, closer to where Glen imagined Tom’s ears to be beneath the hood.
“Yeah.” A drawn out pause. Tom shifted in his seat to meet Glen’s eyes. “But you can’t tell my dad. He’ll make me quit.”
The hopelessness in his nephew’s tone was a barbed arrow tip to the heart. Glen had only been a little older than Tom when his father crushed his dreams of becoming a writer. Glen shifted down a gear to make the final hill leading to the house.
“He won’t hear it from—”
“Who is that?” Tom’s voice, still in the throes of adolescent breaking, squeaked as loudly as a rusty screen door.
Tom’s black hoodie craned toward the windshield. They’d crested the hill, and there was Savannah, dressed in black running leggings and a loose tank over her skin-tight, boob-enhancing pink sports top. She continued away from them on the side of the road, her butt jiggling prettily as she ran.
“That’s Savannah. The lady whose house I’m renting.”
The lady in question paused and turned toward them, the gusty wind whipping her ponytail around her face.
Tom shoved a hand in the kangaroo pocket of his hoodie and dug around with frantic movements, until at last he yanked out a pair of glasses, jamming them onto his face so fast it was a wonder he didn’t poke out an eye.
“Holy shit,” he breathed. “That’s Savannah Payne!” His bugged eyes behind the lenses made him look all of twelve again. “You’re renting her house? She’s living there with you?”
Glen pulled over and buzzed down his window. “Yes, I’m renting her house. No, she’s not living with me. She’s staying in a caravan on the property. And put your tongue back in your mouth before she sees it falling onto your knees.”
Savannah ducked her head to peer inside the car, giving a little wave. “Hi.”
Even with damp strands of hair clinging to her brow, she made sweaty and disheveled sexy. A generous eyeful of cleavage appeared above the pink top’s neckline, causing moisture to evaporate from Glen’s mouth. He had to swirl his tongue around his mouth twice to gather enough spit to talk without croaking.