Good Girl, Dead Girl (Valencia Lamb Book 1) by Emily Kazmierski

Good Girl, Dead Girl (Valencia Lamb Book 1) by Emily Kazmierski

Author:Emily Kazmierski [Kazmierski, Emily]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-01-08T16:00:00+00:00


Portia’s car is parked in front of the Court place when I park and hurry up the walk. I knock with a single knuckle.

Mrs. Court’s smile is wan as she welcomes me in with a quick hug. “Thanks for coming. It means a lot to me that you and Portia are such good friends to Destin. He loves you both so much. He’s resting, but Portia’s with him. Go on up.”

Destin is an only child, and Mrs. Court is wildly overprotective. Part of the reason they got Bert was so Destin would never be alone. Luckily for Des, the chonky furball took well to skateboarding and surfing.

Our boy looks stoned when I peek into his room. His eyes are glazed, and there’s a dopey smile twisting his lips.

Bert is in his usual spot: on a bright blue dog pillow right beside the queen-sized bed. The little furball’s eyes are closed and his pink tongue pokes out between pointy teeth. I lean down and give the good dog a pat.

Portia is sprawled out beside Destin on the mattress, propped on her elbow. Her fingers brush through the hair over his forehead. Destin smiles at me through half-lidded eyes, barely awake. He’s got a goose egg on his head the size of a softball.

Spotting me, Portia sits up, a little too quickly. “You’re here.”

Eyeing the bed, I sink onto the edge on Destin’s opposite side. “Yep, I’m here. What happened?”

Des shifts under the blanket, exposing his arm for my examination. There’s a soft cast encasing it from wrist to elbow. “Looks worse than it is,” he rasps. “Just a cracked bone and a bump on the head, but you know my mom. I was working with some younger kids at the skate park. They were scared to drop into the bowl, so I showed them a couple times. On the last one, bam. It would have been so much worse without Bert, but the dog’s a champ. Aren’t you buddy?”

Bert perks up when Destin leans over Portia’s lap to greet him. Bert puts his front paws on the bedframe and lifts enough to run his tongue over his boy’s cheek. Destin gives his doggie companion a couple of love pats before settling back into his pile of pillows.

I pat Destin’s uninjured arm. “Glad you’re okay.”

Destin grins when I pull his favorite Sriracha-flavored chips from below the side of the bed where I hid them. “You rock, Val.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.” Kicking off my shoes, I stretch out, careful not to jostle Destin. Portia snuggles in on his other side, and I’m a little surprised when he puts his uninjured arm around her.

We watch videos of people not recognizing Destin’s favorite pro skateboarder until the guy falls asleep. They’re Destin’s favorite thing to come out of the internet, so I’ve seen pretty much all of them. My friend’s chest rises and falls slowly as he sleeps. I wish, in these quiet moments, that there was more I could do for him, even though he’s told me a bunch of times that simply being here is the absolute best.



Download



Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.