Call Me Michigan Read Online Free Page B

then she noticed something being off.
    “This jacket smells awfully familiar, and it’s a guy’s jacket,” she pointed out.
    “Mason Stiles drove me home. He found me walking down the street.” Taylor bent to retrieve her bag, careful to avoid her sister’s eyes. “Did you know he and Ash had been a couple?” Tammy must’ve known yet never mentioned it to her. Then again, maybe she just figured Taylor didn’t care anymore. After all, she had walked away. “You know, never mind.” She waved it off, reconsidering the question.
    “Mason, huh? I could’ve picked you up. I just didn’t know when you’d be arriving and –”
    “I wanted to walk, Tam,” Taylor interrupted.
    Her sister just stared at her while Taylor took off the jacket, righting it on the coat rack. She felt the gaze burning on her back, and it made letting go of that tiny piece of Mason almost impossible.
    “You were afraid,” her little sister guessed, and again, Taylor couldn’t get around noticing that her little sister was way too serious for her age.
    “I’m no longer the country bumpkin people remember. Coming back here is like walking into everything I used to be and everything I wanted to leave behind. Besides, you have every right to hate me, and I wasn’t sure you really wanted me back.” She willed herself to stop talking. She wanted Tammy to stop worrying and be the young woman she should be, while Taylor would be the adult this household needed. They weren’t equals when it came to that.
    “I wanted you back every damn day but not like this! Oh, Lori.” Tamara wrapped her arms around Taylor from behind, squeezing her before following her movements with her eyes as Taylor finally let go of the jacket.
    “So Mason, of all people, found you?”
    Taylor faced her sister again, arching a brow at the hidden meaning in Tammy’s tone.
    Her sister grinned guiltily. “You’re town talk. Everyone expected you and him to be a couple, but it didn’t happen. When I’m in town and he’s there, too, everyone goes out of their way to mention how he really had deserved that Collins’ girl to be happy,” Tammy explained.
    “We never were a couple. People don’t know what they’re talking about. Stiles and I were friends, and now, he’s driving around with Ashley’s pictures in his truck. All that aside, I’m not here to rekindle old love interests. I’m here for my family.”
    “And you have Andrew.” It was a statement and not a question, but Taylor felt like answering anyway.
    “Andrew and I are over. Now, Tim, are you still here?” she called, trying to chicken out of the subject.
    “Here, I picked!” their little brother answered. Taylor shrugged at her younger sister, and then she went in search of the starving pizza-boy. She just needed to distract Tammy long enough until said subject was forgotten.

Two weeks. That was how long Taylor managed to avoid errands in Sunburn. Tammy had done the shopping while Taylor had thoroughly cleaned the house – twice. The only room she had left untouched was her parents’ bedroom. Tammy was sure it was where Taylor slept, but Taylor didn’t have the heart to correct her. She knew it was absurd, but she felt as if her own ten-year-old self was back the moment she tried to open the door. Her parents had never allowed them to go inside, and it prompted Taylor to sleep on the living room sofa, taking care that she was up before anyone else in the house woke. Their parents had transformed her bedroom into a cramped study the moment she had turned her back on her hometown.
    “Timothy Collins, get down here!” She stood waiting at the bottom of the stairs. Tammy had left for college the day before. To Taylor’s relief, she hadn’t brought up the topic again, stating without many words how excited she actually had been for college life. Tammy had insisted on coming home on the weekends, but Taylor pointed out that was when the parties were, and she’d move heaven and hell to get