A Whole New Crowd(10)

CHAPTER THREE

Mandy came in my room Saturday evening to inform me who hooked up with whom, who broke up with whom, who fought, and who barfed. It was an amazing party. She invited me out with them that night. I declined and continued folding my clothes. When she kept quiet, I knew—the rumors had already circulated—someone must’ve seen Tray and me outside the diner.
She didn’t push it. Thank you for small favors. Instead I had to listen to her theory that Devon was cheating on her for the next thirty minutes.
“Are you serious? Devon? We’re talking about Devon?”
“Yeah.” She swung her legs around and sat up, still on my bed. “He was weird last night. I don’t know. Maybe he really did hook up with Stephanie.”
I paused, frowned, and then finished folding my shirt. “Are you going to talk to him tonight? About your hunch?”
“About Stephanie? No, but I am going to ask him if he’s cheating on me.”
“The sooner you talk to him, the sooner you’ll know what’s really going on and be back to being lovebirds again.” The idea of Mandy and Devon not together was funny to me. It wasn’t real. Those two were so lovey-dovey they made me gag the first time I saw it. The idea of Devon cheating was ridiculous. Then I glanced at her and saw the determined set of her shoulders. “Whoa. You’re serious.”
She stood and started to pace. “He’s really off and it’s getting to me, you know? He’s been like this for a while, but last night it creeped me out.”
“What’d he do?”
“He didn’t do anything, just would put his phone away as soon as I came back.” She hesitated. “Other stuff’s happened too. I don’t like it. I can’t not say anything. No way. He’s been like this for seven months. I can’t ignore it anymore.”
“Yeah.” I knew how she felt. Brian had cheated once. I almost killed him afterwards.
She nodded, her jaw hardening. “Yeah.”
“So where are you guys going tonight? Who’s all going?”
“The gang and some others.” That meant the top circle and the crowd beneath them. Stephanie. Ugh. “We’re going to a party at Rickets’ House.”
Another ugh. Rickets’ House was a big white mansion near Pedlam. Parties were thrown there because the house was abandoned, situated deep in the woods. Kids could scatter easily if the cops showed up, and it was notorious for being a mating ground. Brian wouldn’t be there; he hated that place, but there’d definitely be others there from Pedlam.
“I’m in.” I wasn’t doing the job, but I wanted to know why Pedlam had so much security. It was nagging at me, and I knew I could get some answers there.
*

Devon and Jennica arrived a few minutes ago and planned on riding with us. It had been awkward. She gave my outfit a second glance. I couldn’t dress like the new me. Boring, all covered up, and saint-like. I hadn’t dressed like that at Pedlam, and I needed my old intimidation factor at full force to get the answers I wanted. So I dressed how I used to. I wore a leather miniskirt and a lacy black tank top that hugged my curves with a diamond necklace that was looped twice around my neck, resting above my belly-button. Even Mandy had been taken aback, and she’d seen the old me a few times.
She got over my wardrobe when she grew distracted by Devon’s behavior. He’d been standoffish the entire evening. He arrived, gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek, and that had been it. After we traipsed into the car, he’d been silent, just focused on driving. Jennica sat in the back with me, chatting to Mandy, who was glancing at Devon every few seconds, trying to appear nonchalant. I was staring out the window tuning the conversation out.
Until I heard Jennica say, “…he was with Adrian last night. Seriously. Tray pisses me off some times.”
I looked over and caught the heated look Mandy shot Jennica. She flushed when she saw that I had caught her, and I grinned. “What happened?”
Jennica turned to me. “I was telling Mandy that sometimes I’m embarrassed by Tray, especially when he screws girls like Adrian Casners. She’s white trash.”
“That’s probably why he screwed her.”
Jennica and Mandy were both watching me. Even Devon glanced in the rear-view mirror.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing.” Mandy looked away.
Jennica turned to face me. “We heard an interesting tidbit last night, about you and Tray.” She was almost gloating. “Care to elaborate?”
I frowned. I had missed something, then how she said ‘white trash’ came back to me. There’d been an extra emphasis on those words. “Are you insinuating that I’m white trash? Because if you were, you worked too hard for the joke.” I flashed her a grin and asked, “How long till we get there?”