Unfaithful: An Unlocked Novella Read Online Free Page B

thinking about maybe getting it cut short). I’ve got nice long legs and big boobs, but I think my nose is a bit too big for my face and I get light brown freckles if I’ve been in the sun for more than a second. I ride my bike a lot so my butt is toned but sometimes I think it makes my calves a bit too bulgy.
    I get really jealous of Darci’s body sometimes. She’s going to be a dancer someday, a really famous one. She’s all sleek and slender and when she moves she’s always super graceful. She spends at least an hour every day practicing her moves. When she was little she wanted to be a ballerina, but now she wants to do big stage shows in New York. I’ve promised her I’ll be in the front row of every single one for opening night.
    *
    That night I ordered in a deep-dish barbecue chicken pizza from Papa Julio’s. It’s the local pizza parlor—if you want to the best pizza in town, Papa Julio’s is the place to get it.
    Mark had a job there delivering pizzas—his dad had told him he needed to learn the value of working for a dollar.  It was this old Italian place (in case you couldn’t guess from the name). You know those restaurants with squeaky plastic lining on the tables? And black and white photos of Italian people from the 1920s or something, up on the wall? Dressed like they do in gangster movies?
    The first time I went there to meet Mark the owner’s wife ca me bustling up. She was this Italian lady, Maria, who must have been at least sixty years old. She’s about five feet tall and five feet wide and always dressed in a black skirt and apron with white flour dusted all down her front.
    “You must be Miss Lisa!” she said, and gave me this big hug so hard she nearly lifted me clean off the ground. I got flour all over me. She apologized as soon as she put me down, and tried to brush me off with her towel.
    “Marky, he talks about you all the time!” she said. Then she gave me two free slices of cheese pizza—and she kept doing that every time I came in! I sent her a big bunch of yellow roses when I heard that her dad passed away over in Italy. I knew what it felt like, and she was always such a sweetheart to me.
    I figured if no one else was going to be around while I was house-sitting, I could eat what I wanted. Even if it was summer. I had the cardboard pizza box open before the delivery boy was even all the way back down the driveway. The steam that wafted off it made my mouth water.
    “Pizza,” I said, in my best Italian accent, “I’m gonna make you an offer you can’t refuse.”
    *
    My swim must have taken more out of me than I thought, because as soon as I’d eaten I could feel my eyelids getting heavy. There wasn’t anything good on TV so I cleaned my teeth and headed off to bed in Mark’s bedroom.
    But as soon as my head hit the pillow, I was wide awake again.
    The house was quiet except for Dino snoring in the lounge and I just couldn’t get to sleep. I tossed and turned and after a while I gave up and just lay there, feeling the night air come in and whisper over my skin. I love sleeping naked on summer nights.
    Mark has this photo of his family on his bedside table. It was taken in the boardroom of his dad’s business; it was the one-year anniversary of the company or something. I usually make him lay it face down if we’re doing it because I feel creepy otherwise. But I was bored so I picked it up and looked at it. There was Ed and Mark and Michelle... and a couple of other people there, too.
    And right in th e corner, grinning like he knew a joke no one else did... Mr. Alex Locke himself.
    Alex is really a good-looking guy. Maybe even a little better looking than Mark, if I’m being honest. Mark’s a hot guy —he always gets looks from other girls—but Alex is all that and more. He’s like, the handsome, mature version. That’s it—he’s a man, not a boy. He’s got these cheekbones like Johnny Depp, and a cute grin, and a strong jaw. He could have been a movie