Devoured (Devoured, #1)(30)

Drawing back, she squeals. “Dude, I haven’t seen you in—what?—four or five years? What are you now, a teac—?”

“Wardrobe assistant for Echo Falls,” I say before she has the chance to call me a teacher. Self-consciously, I tug at the hem of my flutter sleeve top. Guess it does its job of making me look professional. To the point that my boss wants to spank me with a ruler and an old friend assumes I spend my days drilling addition into first graders’ brains.

Nice.

“No shit,” she says. She drapes the armful of clothes she’s carrying across a mannequin’s arm, despite the nasty look the sales girl working the floor gives her. Jessica rolls her eyes. “I f*cking hate that show.”

“Me too,” I say, and she grins.

“How long you here for?”

Glancing down at a rack, I shrug. “Just another couple weeks. I’m doing a favor for a . . . um . . . friend and helping my grandma with a few things.”

“How’s she doing?” When I tell her that Gram is well, she tilts her head to the side, nodding. “And your mama?”

That familiar buzz of humiliation makes me bow my head a little, but I fight back the urge to flinch. When my mom and her husband had gone down for selling and trafficking prescription drugs, they’d taken Jessica’s uncle with them. Jessica never seemed too hurt about it—and she’s not mentioning it right now—but I hate that she’s asked about my mother.

Trust me, if your mom went to prison for one of the biggest drug busts in state history and snitches on every dealer within 20 miles . . . you’d be afraid and embarrassed when someone asks about her too. “She’s fine,” I say stiffly.

Jessica murmurs something inaudible in a sympathetic voice.

“Your parents still run that bar?” I ask and she rolls her eyes dramatically.

“I thought it would be awesome getting all the free booze, but yeah. My dad’s a f*cking slave driver.” As if on cue, her phone beeps and she drags it out of the pocket of her fuchsia jeans. “And as usual, work calls. I’ve gotta pay for these and run, but if you’re not busy tonight . . .”

She digs in her messenger bag and hands me a red and black flyer. It’s an advertisement for a Your Toxic Sequel cover band performing at her parents’ Broadway bar. I nearly choke on my own saliva.

She squeals, clapping her tattooed hands together. “Ahh, a YTS fan, I see? I adore them. My boyfriend’s in the band and they’re amazeballs—almost better than the real thing. Come out if you can. See you around,” she says, plucking her clothes off the mannequin. “And find me on Facebook if I don’t see you tonight!” she yells as she walks away.

I pay for my own selections soon after. I ball the pink flyer up and throw it in the bottom of the shopping bag.

?



Lucas has that look of worshipped star as I drive him back to the house on Green Hills, so he doesn’t complain about how the ride back is twice as long, or how I nearly run into the back of a minivan that boasts about a hundred of those kid and animal pictures on the very back.

“You’d think they give blow jobs with photo shoots,” I say under my breath.

“What was that?” he asks.

“Nothing at all, Mr. Wolfe.”

Of course he asks to see the clothes that I’ve purchased the moment we enter the house. My head hurts from the long day spent out, so I gesture toward my room, and he follows behind me.

“For someone who plays with clothes all day, you didn’t buy much.”

My face tightens. “I don’t play with clothes all day, Lucas. I . . . work with them.” But my voice falters as if I’m unsure of myself.

He raises his hands up in front of himself defensively. “Hey, I didn’t mean anything by it. I think it’s”—he pauses and bends his knees a little so his face is closer to mine—“are you crying?”

I swallow hard. “No.”

“I huff and puff and yell and you say nothing. I make a joke about your job and you cry?”

Well, at least he acknowledges that he’s a bully. Crossing my arms over my chest, I sit on the arm of the couch that’s at the end of my bed. He doesn’t move from his spot in front of me, tapping his foot as he waits impatiently for a reply.

Sighing, I begin, “I just—”

“Don’t lie to me either,” he says in a stern voice. I glare up at him.

“My mom used to call it playing with clothes. Hell, she probably still calls it that, that’s all.” I say. Shrugging my shoulders, I slide the heel of my foot up and down the side of the couch. “I’ve got a few mommy issues.”

Shaking his head to each side, he says, “I bet.” I furrow my eyebrows, and he adds, “My mom’s never been the biggest fan of what I do. I mean, she jokes about it at Thanksgiving and her friends think me and Kylie are demons, but she’s never made me feel like what I love to do isn’t important. If she did . . . well, I don’t think I’d want much to do with her.”

I want him to elaborate because this is one of the first times he’s given me insight into his life outside of music and fame, but he nods his head down toward the bags strewn out across my temporary bed. “Now, show me what you’ve bought for yourself.” His voice is soft now, encouraging. Just another reminder of just how puzzling Lucas is. His moods switch at the drop of the hat, and it’s suicidal to be attracted to someone I can’t predict.