Boston Avant-Garde 4: Encore Read Online Free

she’d been thinking it’d been over a year since she’d gotten laid, and several years since she’d had a decent experience. Even when she’d been having regular sex, she hadn’t been with men like Dante or Jericho. In fact, she suspected nobody on the planet packed that kind of sensual punch. They were like sex candy, the kind she was hardwired to be addicted to. Just like she’d already become addicted to the orgasms they seemed so willing to give her.
    “You had sex with two near strangers at work. You weren’t even supposed to be there.” She glared at her reflection in the mirror. “Oh, and if that wasn’t bad enough, one of them is your friggin’ boss!”
    Tossing the brush aside, she made a disgusted noise and tried to draw on her eyeliner without making herself look like a clown. Putting on makeup when feeling just generally pissy did not give good results.
    She carefully wiped away a smudge. The poor lighting in the dingy bathroom didn’t help much either. Normally, she’d head for the kitchen where the light was slightly better, but her sister, Kim, and her current asshole boyfriend were camped out on the couch. With only one bedroom in the apartment, Suri had a firm “no assholes in the bedroom” rule. So when Kim wanted to bring her losers home, she had to sleep on the couch. Suri made a mental note to buy a can of disinfectant to spray down the cushions.
    The doorbell rang, more of a thunking noise than a chime, making Suri curse and give up on the makeup. At this rate, she’d never make her first class at the Boston School for the Arts. She’d been teaching there for nearly five years, and in that time, she could count her tardies on one hand.
    Suri grabbed the door and wrenched it open. Two emaciated teenagers waited on the other side. They were dressed in scruffy jeans and holey T-shirts, with cast-off military jackets their only defense against Boston’s frigid fall air.
    “What do you want?” She prayed to God she was wrong about their answer.
    The boy on the right fidgeted from one foot to the other, his gaze darting into the apartment. “Is Frankie here?”
    She hated being right. “Why?”
    “He said we could find him here this morning,” the other kid piped up. “We gotta score. I can’t take another day.”
    It felt as if her heart were locked in a vise. She wanted to help them, but you couldn’t help people who didn’t want it. Not like these anyway. “Go home and ask your parents to send you to rehab. Seriously.”
    The first kid now looked desperate. “C’mon, lady! We need to score some stuff. Where’s Frankie?”
    “Frankie doesn’t live here.” That was true. “And if you don’t get the hell out of here, I’m going to call the cops.” Also true, even if she’d feel bad about doing it.
    It didn’t take any more than that. They bounded back up the steps and hit the sidewalk running. Within seconds, she couldn’t see them anymore through the thick morning fog. Her ancient building was on a narrow side street, squatting between equally ancient neighboring structures. It had once been a single-family home, eventually chopped into six miniscule units. Jen and Kim occupied half of what had once been the basement.
    “Frankie!” She was so done with her sister’s asshole of the month. The wannabe MMA fighter sprawled across the cushions, her petite sister lodged between his bulk and the back of the couch. Suri crossed the short distance from front door to living room and tried again. “Frankie!”
    Taking off her shoe, she whapped him hard across the knees. He roared to life like a diesel engine. “What the fuck!”
    “Yeah, that’s what I want to know! Are you trying to deal drugs out of my apartment?” She hopped a little to put her shoe back on.
    What did her sister see in this guy? Suri had never understood Kim’s sad, sorry taste. Frankie was muscular but had a mean expression permanently pasted on his gorilla face and a personality to match. His