Devoured (4 page)

I’m not sure if he’s saying he mistook my being shy and overzealous to do my job as me being easy or submissive. Either way, I know I don’t like what he’s saying. Because there’s a part of me that wonders if he’s right—after all, I had gone home with him after knowing him for less than a week. 

Glancing down at a spot of spot of earth that’s nothing but bright red mud due to the snow, I say, “Isn’t it time for you to leave?”

Lucas takes a few more steps backward, motions his arms out in an overtly grand gesture toward the hill that leads back up to the front of the house. I grit my teeth together, and shake my head. 

“I thought I’d be polite and let you go first, but whatever,” he says. His voice doesn’t sound too polite. It’s rough and hard and dangerous. And just a few moments ago, his voice and words succeeded in completely getting to me. Giving me one last sardonic smile, he turns abruptly and stalks up the hill, tracing his fingers alongside the log siding. 

But halfway to the front of the house, Lucas pauses. He doesn’t turn around to face me when he calls out over his shoulder, “You might think I’m shit, but I’d have never brought anyone up here to upset your grandmother. She’s gone every Tuesday, like clockwork.”

 I’m not positive what’s more unnerving—the fact Lucas knows Gram’s schedule well enough to realize when is the best time to come around the house without disturbing her, or that my grandmother keeps the same schedule every Tuesday.

†

My grandmother always protects me, so if she’s going somewhere I should be concerned about, she would never tell. 

When I was a kid and my mom and dad would argue, I’d go to my grandparents. They had spoiled Seth and me rotten. After my parents divorced when I was twelve and my mother just flat-out disappeared, my brother and I had been given the opportunity to go and live with Dad and his new wife.

It was a shitty opportunity.

Not that there was anything wrong with my dad or Margaret, but they’d moved to Bar Harbor, Maine—over a thousand miles from home. Luckily, even at eight, Seth was bullheaded. My brother told Dad that not only did he hate him and his new wife, but he’d rather be ripped apart by wild dogs than live with them in Maine. That’s when our grandparents, Mom’s parents, stepped in. Dad wanted to be with his new wife. Our grandparents wanted us. And we wanted to stay because it was the only thing we knew. And because we both were hopeful that Mom would come back someday.

It was one of those fairytale moments where everyone was happy, and there was no animosity. 

Three years later, Mom came back to Nashville with her new husband. And I quickly learned how completely stupid I was for hoping for her return.

If Lucas knows so much about Gram, what does he know about my family’s history?

I tighten my grip around the scrubber pad in my hand until the steel prickles painfully into my palm and attack a spot of invisible soap scum on the shower wall. Ever since Lucas left a couple hours ago, I’ve kept myself busy, alternating between cleaning and watching reruns of some mobster show online. Neither has been a very good distraction from thinking of Lucas or where Gram’s weekly Tuesday errands are actually taking her.

Again.

“You rushed me over here with your bags for . . . ?” the sound of a voice behind me just about pulls out of my skin. Splaying my wet palms over my chest because my heart is pounding so hard it aches, I scramble around on my hands and knees to face Seth.

“Don’t you knock? Or ring doorbells?” I cough. “I could’ve—”

“What? Attacked me with household cleaner? The papers would have a shit-fest with that one. ‘Pissy redhead mauls popular Vandy student with the remains of a Brillo-Pad. Charges are pending’.” Seth doesn’t seem daunted by the fact he scared the hell out of me. In fact, he’s smiling like an idiot. Begrudgingly, I take his hand when he reaches it out to me, and he pulls me up to my feet. 

“You wouldn’t press charges against me,” I say.

“Why’s that?”

“I’m a girl. And I’m betting you have some screwed up idea that admitting a girl kicked your ass makes you a lesser man. Am I right?”

Lifting an eyebrow, he laughs. “First time you’ve gotten something right about me in what? Four years?”

Ignoring the jibe, I follow him down the stairs. I almost expect him to take a ride on the wooden bannister like he did when we were kids, but he jogs instead. The coat rack in the foyer topples over from the motion. 

We squat down at the same time to pick it up. As I pick up the jackets that have fallen to the floor, I decide to confront him about what Lucas pointed out earlier this afternoon. There’s a chance Seth knows something I don’t know, though I’m almost hoping he’s not for the sake of my not getting jealous again. “Where does Gram go every Tuesday?” 

My brother’s light mood seems to change in a matter of seconds. His relaxed smile disappears, suddenly replaced by a tight frown, and his shoulders tighten. He pops to his feet, but this time, he doesn’t help me to mine.

“How do you know she goes somewhere every Tuesday?”

“Sh-she mentioned something about keeping to her usual Tuesday schedule this morning at breakfast,” I lie. Whenever Seth takes on the brooding expression he’s wearing right now, I know he’s only a matter of moments away from going over the edge. I don’t want to pair whatever is bothering him with letting him know Lucas was out here this morning.  

Releasing a growl, Seth drags his hands through his wheat-colored hair and then stalks past me into the dining room. He sits down at the antique table where we used to eat dinner every night and slides out the chair beside of him, motioning for me to sit, too. I scoot it back in and opt for the seat at the other end of the table, directly across from him.

“I take it this isn’t good,” I say at last.

“Do you think it’s possible she’s been going to see Mom?” he asks. 

Of course, but I was hoping Seth would reassure me it isn’t a possibility. Seth is so upset about the prospect, that he’s shaking. Out of the two of us, his bitterness toward our mother is twice as bad. But then again, I wasn’t the kid who Mom had almost convinced to take the fall for her sins.

Yet somehow, I’d found myself smack dab in the middle of it all.

And for the first couple years after everything happened, I was the kid who let Mom bully her around even from inside of a prison cell.

I place my hands together, rubbing them on either side of my nose. I must look like I’m praying to Seth because he rolls his eyes dramatically. “So what do we do?” I ask.

“She’s not a kid, Si. There’s nothing we can do.”

“You’re a pretentious ass—you always know what to do.”

“I’m not going to ask her if she’s visiting Mom because I’ve got no proof. If you want to, you can, but I’m sure you won’t.” 

“Why’s that?”

“Come on, Si. You’re scared of your own shadow. Gram didn’t want to tell you about the goddamn foreclosure because she thought it would just upset you. Do you remember how you were in court during Mom’s trial? All nervous and nodding and staring down at your lap and—”

“Thanks but I don’t need a character evaluation. And I’m stronger than you think.” But when I touch my hands to my cheeks, they feel flushed. This is the second time today someone’s blatantly pointed out negative traits about me. 

The corner of Seth’s mouth quirks up, he starts to say something, but then thinks better of it. Shrugging his broad shoulders nonchalantly, he rises to his feet. He can try and pretend like he’s not upset all he wants, but I know different. His hands are clenched. As soon as he leaves here, he’ll head straight to the gym to blow off some steam.

It’s better than blowing up and punching in someone’s face like he was notorious for after Mom was sentenced. It’s a wonder he isn’t locked up in a juvenile detention center somewhere.

“I left your bags in the living room,” he tells me, sliding the dining chairs back where they belong. He doesn’t look up at me, when he says, “Hey, do me a favor—when Grandma gets in, can you tell her to call me.”

Realizing that our heart to heart has come to a definite close, I nod my head. “I will. You drive safe, okay.”

He rolls his eyes and mutters something under his breath where I only make out the words
fucking
and
mom
, then says, “I’m going to start looking around for places for . . .” his voice dies away, and once again, I bob my head up and down. 

Like a broken little bobble-head doll. 

Seth leaves without a proper goodbye. When I hear him start the engine to his truck, I go back upstairs. I clean up the mess in the bathroom, throwing the used scrubbing pads in the wastebasket and running the shower to wash away the neon blue soap that’s dried to the porcelain. 

Resting against the mass of pillows leaned against the headboard, I open my laptop, determined to see what the damage will be if I go ahead and reserve a compact rental car for the next 13 days. There’s no way I’ll be able to get anything done without a car, even if I have to spend a couple hundred dollars for the sake of convenience. 

“It’s just money,” I tell myself. “I’ll make it back quickly and all will be well in the world again.” Silently, I add,
if Tomas doesn’t do a 180 and fire me.

I’m typing the rental car agency’s web address in when I notice the tiny red notification in the left corner of the Facebook page I left up earlier after I was through chatting with Tori and a girl I’d gone to high school with. It’s a friend request.

From Kylie Martin, Lucas’s blue-haired assistant.

“Dear social media: piss off,” I mutter, moving my mouse to decline the request. The message just below the request stops me, and I lean in closer to the screen to read it. 

Hey Sienna,

I know you really want to just tell me to go get hit by a bus (or you know, decline being my friend) but please accept. I have a way you might be able to save your grandmother’s house. All we need is a few minutes of your time.

-Kylie

And just like that, I’m friends with the enemy’s little worker bee.

Less than an hour after I accept Kylie’s friend request, my curiosity gets the best of me. What does she
mean
she knows a way to save this house? I message a single word reply that simply says:
How? 

A shrill ding indicates that I’ve received a brand new message seven minutes after I click send. Tossing the fitness magazine that I’m attempting to read (and failing miserably because I’m so worked up by Kylie’s cryptic message) on top of my nightstand, I watch the screen and shift my teeth together as Kylie sends me a series of instant messages.

Kylie Martin:
Hmm . . . to be honest, what I’ve got to tell you is probably something that should best be said in person and not online. Are you free this evening?

I wait to answer because the instant messenger says she’s still typing.

Kylie Martin:
I can pick you up at, say, 7pm and we can go into all the nitty-gritty details over dinner. My treat. Order the most expensive prime rib on the damn menu, if you want. It’s on Lucas’s dime.

This time, I don’t immediately answer because there’s something that chafes me raw about going out to dinner and using Lucas’s money to do so. It makes me feel . . . well, sort of cheap, even though I know that’s ridiculous. I’m sure his assistant takes other people out on all sorts of dinner and lunch dates, swiping Lucas’s credit card at as many restaurants as she can reasonably get away with. If I go, tonight won’t be any different.

Except for the glaring fact that it so obviously is different.

Kylie Martin:
Just let me know something in the next hour, by 6pm, okay?

I ease my butt down on the edge of my bed. The mattress dips down a tad in that particular spot and I make a vow to go for a run first thing tomorrow morning. Clutching the sides of the laptop, I stare at the messages at the bottom of the computer screen. I can’t look away, even when the words start to blur into one another and all I’m able to see is a dizzying swirl of blue and white and black. 

Does Kylie genuinely know something about Lucas that might delay the foreclosure? But even if she does, why would she betray her boss like that to help me? She’s been working for Lucas for a long time—at least a couple years—and I’m no one special to her. Other than this afternoon, I’ve only met her one other time in my entire life and we hadn’t had much to talk about other than the usual pleasantries.

Then, another possible reason behind Kylie’s invitation comes to me, knocking me upside the head like a brick. My thoughts shift to a completely different direction.

What if her inviting me out is some sort of setup just to get me out of the house for something? Like Lucas and those two contractors coming back over here tonight so they can go over where to put the gaudy house he’ll more than likely start building in two weeks or how much of Gram’s cabin they should keep around for firewood.

A frustrated noise escapes my lips. I press my fingers to the computer keys and type out a message in record time. 

Why can’t you just tell me now?
I demand.

For five minutes, Kylie doesn’t answer, but I see the little notification letting me know that she’s typing in the center of the message box. I’m impatient as I wait, tapping my fingertips on the flat space on either side of the mouse pad and grinding my teeth back and forth, the clicking noise coursing tiny prickles through my body. The teeth gnashing has got to be the worst in the history of awful nervous habits. It’s one that I picked up as a kid after my parents dissolved their ill-fated marriage that not even relaxation massages or yoga have been able to control or stop. 

If Tori could see me right now, she’d hand me a piece of gum and tell me that my teeth will be nubs by the time I’m 40.

I’m so irritable today I’d probably throw one of Tori’s many stress balls at her head. Or five or six of them.

Kylie Martin:
Sorry, I’m only willing to do it in person. If it’s not tonight or by tomorrow evening, it will be too late to do anything.

She’s giving me an ultimatum. She’s using a limited timeframe to coerce me into going out to dinner with her, and I don’t like it one bit. Ever since my sophomore year at college, I’ve tried hard to avoid people who do that to me because it’s too reminiscent of the boy I dated all through high school who wanted to control everything I did.