Consumed (Devoured, #2)(25)

Screw it, there’s no way I’m looking away now.

“I’m sure I’ll be able to handle it on my own from now on, but thanks for the help.” I start to walk off, but I stop, earning a wide grin from Sinjin. “Do you know where Lucas is?”

He moves his head to the left. “In there, but he’s doing an interview. Might as well help yourself to some food while you wait.” He inclines his head to a long table of refreshments and drinks on the other side of the room.

“Thanks,” I say, steering Tori left when she heads toward the food. We find Lucas in a separate lounge area. He’s on a black leather couch with Cilla, sitting entirely too close for my comfort, and talking to a pretty journalist I’d seen on set a few times during my Echo Falls days. On the opposite side of the room, a cameraman is snapping photos rapidly, so I back out of the room.

“Who the hell does she think she is?” Tori hisses, her eyebrows furrowed as she stares at Lucas and Cilla.

“That’s Cilla.” I can’t keep the worry out of my voice, and Tori gives me a sympathetic expression, which I quickly look away from. “I’m hoping that—”

I swallow my words when someone wraps an arm around my shoulder. I immediately recognize the barbed treble and bass clefs on his forearm, so I turn my head, coming eye to eye with Cal. Like Sinjin, he’s lean and pretty close to my height, but Cal is also ripped for a skinny guy.

“Enjoying the circus?” he asks, glancing from side to side at Tori and me, earning nods from both of us. “I’m Cal, by the way,” he tells Tori, as if she doesn’t already know.

Once they’re formally introduced, and she’s told him about her co-workers Calvin Romero cubicle shrine, he turns to me, his lips spreading into an easy smile. “Crazy shit, huh?”

I’m not sure if he’s talking about Tori’s co-worker or this—being backstage at a rock show—but I bob my head. Because seven feet in front of me, Cilla’s palm is still lying on Lucas’s thigh. Her head is tilted back as she laughs at something the journalist is saying, and Lucas is grinning, too. Sinjin is seven feet behind me, and by now, there’s a 50/50 chance he’s talked one of his fangirls (or both) into giving him a blowjob.

My blue eyes never break focus with Cal’s dark brown eyes. “Yeah, crazy.” I start to ask where Wyatt is, but then I shake my head. Right now, I’m not sure I want to know. “Is there—will they always do interviews after the shows like this?”

Looking into the other lounge, he cringes. And to my mortification, gives my shoulder a small, reassuring squeeze. When he answers, he avoids my question, but I can’t blame him. “Got a bottle of Jager and Lucas’s Red Bulls. Shots before fans and press come in?”

Though Tori’s a peppermint schnapps type of girl, she quickly agrees, so I have no other choice but to go along with them. But as Cal guides us away from the doorway of the lounge, I can’t help but take one more glimpse at Cilla and Lucas. I can’t help but see how easily they respond to each other as they discuss the tour. And I can’t help but feel a painful pressure in my ribcage as I force a smile at Sinjin, who joins us once Cal starts doling out the Jager and Red Bull.

The two women who were with him have disappeared, and Sin doesn’t mention them as he sits next to me. “Get used to it,” he whispers into my ear.

I furrow my eyebrows in confusion, but I already know what he’s talking about. I’d be na?ve not to. “What?”

“Don’t play dumb. You’re going to have to suck it the f*ck up if you’re going to get through this tour. Jealous, pissy girlfriends and wives don’t last long. Why do you think Kylie’s not around? And Cal’s last girlfriend only stuck around for a few months?”

He doesn’t mention Lucas or himself, and I don’t think he will, even if I stressed the subject. I paste on a smile that makes my face feel like it’s cracking and grab my drink, holding the highball glass a little too roughly.

“And here I was thinking you were going to be all sweet to me.”

“Not sweet.” He pries the Jagerbomb out of my hand and downs the drink for me, ignoring my protests. “But respectful. Honest. At the end of the day, being around all this shit, honesty is what you’ll want more than anything.”





Sinjin’s words about honesty bother me well after Lucas’s interview is done. For the rest of the night, there’s little contact between us—in fact, I fade into the background to spend time with Tori as he greets the press and his fans. Every few minutes, his hazel eyes lift away from whomever he’s talking with to find me. His gaze is intense—like I’m the only person in this small room full of people who worship him and the rest of the band—but it’s also questioning.

And not even the reassuring smile I manage to muster is enough to change that.

We don’t get back to his house until close to 3 am, and since the buses are rolling out in just a few hours, we immediately climb into bed. He’s silent for a long time—so quiet I begin to think he’s asleep—so I’m startled when he speaks up.

“What’d you think?”

“Your show?” I glance over at him in the dark to see his head bobbing up and down. “Incredible. But why wouldn’t it be?”