Devoured (Devoured, #1)(13)

“That’s so wonderful you stopped by for Sienna,” Gram tells Kylie. Then she darts her blue eyes up to me, where I’m still standing on the last step, staring at me questioningly. “Did you want me to cook or—”

A lump forms in my throat. I know I shouldn’t but I’m thinking of the Bowling Green, Kentucky, receipt that I’ve folded until there are hundreds of tiny creases lining it. It’s upstairs, tucked under the magazine on my nightstand. I shouldn’t keep it. I should’ve dropped it where I found it.

Because now I feel like a spy and the only thing I’ll do when I see the slip of paper or Gram mentions cooking for me is wonder whether or not she was actually with my mom this afternoon. It’s going to eat away at me until I have the chance to talk to her about it.

No, I’ll have to confront her in an intervention like scenario because my grandmother always clams up when it comes to talking about Mom.

My mother tends to evoke that type of response from everyone.

“You’ve been busy all day, so you should get some rest,” I say, despite the constriction in my throat. “Plus, Kylie’s got this outrageously unlimited expense account for her job and she’s taking me out to dinner to catch up. Isn’t that right, Ky?”

Biting her lip—either to avoid laughing aloud at the emphasis I placed on the word “unlimited” or to keep from telling me to shut the hell up and that her name’s not “Ky”—Kylie gives us a thumbs up, and replies, “She’s right. My boss lets me be a lush, and I take every advantage of it. And we better get going because I’m starving and we have a reservation.”

Then, Kylie takes Gram’s hands in between her gloved ones and offers her a genuine smile. Once again I’m struck, curious as to why she’s being so nice to the old woman her boss wants to evict. “It was so great to meet you, Ms. Previn, and thanks for letting me borrow Sienna for a while. I promise I’ll take good care of her.”

I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what my ex-boyfriend said when he picked me up for junior prom, the night he talked me into giving me up my virginity.

I fidget with the short hem of my chocolate-colored boatneck dress.

Gram’s nose wrinkles and crosses her arms over her chest as if she’s in deep thought. At long last, she says, “You girls have a good time. And absolutely no drinking and driving!”

It isn’t until I’m buckling my seatbelt in the Escalade, which smells like cigarettes and too much pine-scented air freshener, that I realize why my grandmother had such a strange expression on her face just before Kylie and I walked out the door.

Gram and I have different last names—hers is Previn and mine is Jensen, my dad’s last name and Mom’s former married name. Not once had Gram mentioned what her last name is to Kylie.

?



The Tuesday night crowd at the costly fondue restaurant on 2nd Avenue is scant, and Kylie and I are seated in a dimly lit, horseshoe-shaped booth. She removes her coat, revealing an oversized sweater with glasses-wearing owls covering it and a pair of stretchy pants. I’m not one for bold colors or prints like Kylie—I mean, I’ve played with the idea of dying my hair for years because it’s that red—but the way she dresses suits her.

As she rolls her coat into a tight cylinder shape and places it between us, she asks, “You’re not dissecting my outfit, are you?”

I feel my ears turn red. “Of course not. Why would I do something like that?”

She makes a weird face, curling her lip up so it touches the tip of her nose, and rubs her chin with her index finger and thumb. “Hmmm, I don’t know. Maybe because it’s your job. Hell, I find myself doing my job even when I’m off the clock and critiquing every little piece of music I hear. For example, the music here”—she moves closer, as if she’s about to share an intimate secret, so I do the same—“Is really, really shitty. But just so you know, I don’t mind if you’re taking creepy, wardrobe person notes about my clothes. I happen to like the way I dress.”

I almost want to tell her I’m taking notes on how off-the-wall she is in general, but instead, I take a giant sip of my water to clear my throat before getting directly to the point. “You said you know a way to save my grandmother’s home, Kylie. That’s the only reason I agreed to come out tonight. So . . . what is it?” I drop my voice to a hush, adding, “What do you know about Lucas?”

“You know what I’ve been wondering? Just how in the hell did you manage to keep a body like that growing up in a place with such amazing food?” she says, evading my question. “They deep fry everything. I’ve been here literally a month and had to have Lucas advance me my clothing allowance for next season to buy looser fitting jeans.”

“Where are you from?” I ask.

She grimaces, clenches her hands, before cheerfully saying, “Oh, just Atlanta.”

Atlanta, Georgia. Where butter and bacon and pecans or more of a household necessity than they are here in Tennessee. Now, I’m not exactly buying her comment about the amazing food, even if she has been living in L.A. for a while.

Changing the subject, Kylie asks me about my childhood, about the school I went to, and what I did for fun, and I answer each question politely, taking the utmost care not to mention my mother. I feel myself growing more and more frazzled as each second seems to crawl by at a snail’s pace.