Absorbed (Devoured, #1.5)(11)

“Wow,” I finally murmur.

“You sound surprised.”

I drag my brown eyes up to his. The look on his face is familiar. It’s not the cockiness that usually makes me want to knee my older brother in the groin but confidence that I haven’t seen often since he returned from Atlanta without Sienna. No, I’m not surprised.

“I’m impressed,” I tell him.

He grins. “Fan-f*cking-tastic.”

While Lucas gets back to work, he gives me the first bit of work I’ve done in days: verifying the flight and hotel arrangements for an awards show that Your Toxic Sequel is supposed to be presenting at next month. I don’t tell him that I checked up on the details of the event not even a week ago because I don’t want a repeat of any of the bad luck we’ve had this year with traveling.

I’m just about to leave the little office that I use when I come in to help Lucas out when I see the copy of the paperwork from the house Lucas had bought in Nashville. Sienna’s grandmother’s house. The papers are trapped beneath a paperweight shaped like a guitar, and at first, I consider leaving them down here and not even touching them.

But as I open up the office door to go back downstairs, I hear the sound of Lucas’s guitar as it strums through the chords of Sienna’s song once again. I hear hopefulness and need and love. And as my eyes land on the top sheet of the paperwork—the contact sheet—I realize what I need to do.

When I say that I’m leaving for the day and that I’ll come back tomorrow, Lucas is so consumed by his music that he barely acknowledges me. He doesn’t even glance up at me when I come right out and say that I’m going to get Sienna’s address.

So when I call her grandmother as I drive home, I convince myself that I’m making the right decision and that my brother doesn’t mind at all.





Chapter Eight


Lucas Wolfe





By early Thursday afternoon, nearly five weeks after I sent Sienna away, I’m satisfied enough with the song, and lyrics, that I know “Ten Days” will be the first single released on my solo project. It’ll replace “Your Best Disaster”—a song I wrote well over a year ago after getting called that (along with a few other names) by some groupie after a show in North Carolina. It hadn’t been my finest moment—I’d treated her like shit—but then, outside of music, I’ve had very few fine moments over the last several years.

As soon as Kylie comes in with lunch from her favorite fast food place, In-N-Out, I follow her into my kitchen and task her with making some calls to my label about the future of the song I’ve written for Sienna. She acknowledges that she’ll make a few calls as soon as she’s done with lunch, and I add, “It’s got to be the first song, first music video, first everything on that album. You understand?”

She glances up from the pack of fries she just placed on the center island. “This is a first, you know?” She opens her mouth to say something else but immediately shuts it, clacking her teeth together hard in the process. I lean my shoulder up against the fridge behind me and motion my hand for her to continue. She groans, but after downing a couple of ketchup-drenched fries, she lifts her shoulders dramatically and places her elbows on the black countertop. I roll my eyes, waiting for Kylie to start the theatrics. She’s good about that. “You usually like dealing with them yourself. Guess I’m used to just being your laundry bitch.”

“You underestimate yourself,” I say. “You do travel and other shit, too. And you hack my bank accounts—that’s got to count for something.” She’d gotten into my bank accounts shortly after the incident in Atlanta, discovering that I’d sent Sam a large sum of cash. It had been a low point me.

Kylie narrows her dark brown eyes at me and hurls a few French fries across the kitchen, none of which actually make contact, except for the one I reach out and grab. I fling it back in her direction where it catches in her short black and blue hair.

“Your aim is shit,” I say with a grin.

“You played baseball in school, I never claimed that I was an athlete.” She takes her elbows off the island and sits back on the bar stool behind her. “I won’t be here tomorrow afternoon, by the way.” When I lift an eyebrow, she runs her hand through her hair. “I’m bored with my hair color. Thinking about pink or green or something new.”

I’m not sure what I think about something new, but I nod anyway as I turn to leave the room. Pointing at the fries she threw at me a few minutes ago, I glance back over my shoulder. “Make sure you clean that shit up.” I nearly make it out of the kitchen and into the dining room, but of course my sister has something else to say. When the f*ck doesn’t she?

“Are you leaving?”

I face her, all the while continuing to walk backwards in the direction of the front foyer. “I’ve got an appointment.”

“Let me guess, a financial appointment?” Kylie demands, and there’s no way in hell I can miss the sarcasm dripping from her voice. She would automatically assume this is Sam related, and just like always, she’s f*cking right. My ex-wife had called me this morning wanting to talk again, and because it’s been weeks since the bullshit she pulled in Santa Monica—because I still want her to get the hell off of my back so I can move on—I agreed to what she asked of me.