Praying for Rain (Praying for Rain Trilogy, #1)(31)

I chuckle and twist off the cap, giving her a salute with the neck of the bottle before tipping it back. The vodka goes down smooth, dulling away the hard edges of the day.

I extend the bottle toward Rain but pull it back at the last second. “Just a sip, okay? You’re on that Hydro shit, and the last thing I need is for you to puke or die.”

Rain smiles as she accepts my offering, and something warm spreads inside my chest that has nothing to do with the fire or the alcohol. As I watch her eyelids flutter shut and her pretty pink lips wrap around the frosty glass bottle, I wish like hell that it were me. Any part of me. Every part of me.

“That’s enough,” I bark, snatching it out of her hand.

She laughs and coughs against the back of her wrist. “God, I hate vodka.”

“What else do you hate?” I ask, surprisingly interested in learning more about my newly acquired resource.

I tear open the bag of broccoli and set it on the carpet in front of us. Rain’s hand plunges inside, pulling out a fistful of little green trees.

“I’m fucking starving,” she mumbles, popping one into her mouth.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

She shrugs. “I don’t know … everything?” I watch the joy drain from her face as she stares into the fire. “All of this. This town, the nightmares, what they make people do, just waiting around to die. I hate all of it.”

“You wanna know what I hate?” I ask, nudging her with my elbow. “Actually, it’s more of a who.”

“Who?” she croaks, clearing the emotion from her throat.

“Tom Hanks.”

“Tom Hanks!” Rain squeals and shoves my leg. “Nobody hates Tom Hanks! He’s the nicest guy in America!”

“I call bullshit,” I say, leaning forward to rustle the logs with a fire poker. “It’s all just an act. I’m not falling for it.”

Rain snorts like a pig—again—which makes her laugh even harder, and I realize this is the most fun I’ve had in a long time. I poke one of the biscuits on the hearth and decide that our dinner is warm enough.

Thunder booms off in the distance as I hand the dick-on-a-stick to Rain. She grins and bites the tip off.

“Savage.” I cringe.

We both go quiet as we inhale our meals. As the minutes stretch on, I can almost see our thoughts accumulating on the carpet between us, heavy and dark.

The dirty ones are mine.

I wonder how many little pricks from high school stuck their dick in that perfect mouth. How many of them were invited and how many just took advantage of a pretty little throwaway. I wonder what she would be doing right now if I hadn’t pulled her out of Burger Palace. What she would be doing if the nightmares had never started. I wonder if she’s going to go home again in the middle of the night or if she’ll spend the whole thing here with me.

Rain’s cheeks, full of food, flush pink when she catches me staring. “What?” Her voice is defensive as she brushes invisible crumbs away from her mouth.

“I’m just trying to figure you out.”

“Good luck. I’ve been tryin’ for years.” Rain slides the last bite of corn dog off the stick with her fingers and pops it into her mouth.

“What were you like in high school?”

“I dunno.” She shrugs. “Blonde.”

“Blonde?” I snort.

“That was the only thing I was ever good at. Being blonde. Being pretty. Being a perfect little trophy. I wasn’t real outgoing, so most people just thought I was a stuck-up bitch, but I got good grades. I made my mama proud. I dated the basketball star and went to church every Sunday. You know, small-town shit.”

As she talks, I begin to see glimmers of that girl in the one I’m looking at. The mascara smudged under her eyes. The half-inch of blonde roots I never noticed before. The killer fucking curves she was hiding under all that baggy clothing. Rainbow the bombshell became Rain the badass.

But both of them are just disguises.

I snap my fingers as it hits me. “You’re a chameleon.”

Rain gives me an offended glare. “What, like I’m fake?”

“No. You’re adaptive. You change how you look to suit your environment, to survive, like a chameleon.”

Rain rolls her eyes at me. “And what are you?”

“Me?” I point to myself with the bottle of vodka in my hand. “I’m good at figuring people out.” I give her a wink and take another swig. Wincing from the burn, I twist the cap back on. “Guess it’s a by-product of changing homes every six to twelve months.”

I set the bottle down on the carpet next to me, but when I glance back over at Rain, she’s not looking at me anymore. She’s staring at the corn-dog stick in her hands.

“Wes?” she asks, twirling the wood between her fingers.

“Yeah …”

Rain tosses the stick into the fire. It flickers blue as it catches, probably from all the fucking chemicals and preservatives.

“What happened to your sister?”

Fuck.

I swallow and decide to just rip the Band-Aid off.

“She starved to death.”

There. I said it. Let’s move on.

Rain’s eyes shoot open as she turns to face me. “What?” She shakes her head, confusion rippling her forehead. “How?”