Lie to Me (A Touched Trilogy) (20 page)

Tonya’s phone beeped again, and I groaned. “Just ignore it,”
I said. “He’s going to see you in a few hours anyways.”

She shot me an ‘are-you-crazy’ look, and flipped open her
cell. I went into the change room, and pulled on the shirt. It was cute, damn
it. Just once, I wanted to find the good stuff, even if I just passed it off to
her. I redressed and slung the top over my arm, leaving the hanger on the floor
of the small room.

Bianca was sitting on a love seat directly across from the
change area, while Tonya was on her cell talking. Bianca and I shared a look.
Trevor was turning into a pest and he wasn’t even in town yet.

“You find anything?” she asked, and I held up my shirt in
response. “Cute. A bit tame, but cute.”

“Come on,” I said. “Help me find some earrings.”

We wandered over to the jewelry racks near the cashier and I
let the shiny baubles distract me from Trevor. For a minute at least. Then
Tonya giggled and I wanted to puke.

“You really don’t like this guy, do you?” Bianca asked me.
She held up a pair of giant hoops to her ear.

“No way am I going anywhere with you in those. And I’m
trying to like him. He seems perfect, at least everyone says he is.” Everyone
but me.

“He seemed okay the one time I met him,” Bianca said.

“Maybe I should be ragging on Nathan to call me more,” I
said. “Then again, it’d be kinda creepy to have him calling me every two
minutes.”

Bianca shushed me with a chuckle as Tonya pocketed her phone
and scanned the store for us.

“What was it this time?” I asked, doing a horrible job of
hiding my irritation. This was supposed to be about enjoying a shopping trip
with my best friends and instead I was battling Trevor for attention.

“He was just wondering what we were up to, and to double
check what time he was meeting us.”

“The last text you sent told him that.”

“I think it’s sweet that he keeps wanting to talk to her,”
Bianca said. She smiled and I knew she was enjoying stirring the pot.

“It’s annoying.”

“Ha!” Tonya nudged my shoulder, then said to Bianca, “I
think Phoebe’s jealous that Trevor cares enough about me to want to know what
I’m doing.”

“Jealous that my boyfriend doesn’t boarder on stalkerish?
Yeah, I don’t think so.” I could tell that pushed Tonya’s buttons and knew if I
kept going, we’d end up in a massive fight. Not what I’d been aiming for.
“Anyways, I’m getting the shirt, and from now on you’re picking out everything
I buy.”

“Hey, don’t I get to pick anything?” Bianca came over and
wrapped an arm around each of us. Tonya and I glanced down at Bianca’s slightly
bizarre ensemble, a tattered purple and black plaid mini skirt with a hot pink
polo shirt, then looked at each other and laughed. Bianca looked at her outfit
then back at us. “What?”

“Nothing,” I said, giving a lame cough to cover my slight
chuckle. “Hey, what happened to Karin?”

“She went next door to try to find something for tonight,”
Bianca explained.

Tonya made a gagging sound. “The only things there are penny
loafers and golf shirts. I think I’d take your advice on clothing before I
asked her.”

I went over to the cashier and handed her the shirt to ring
up. Tonya and Bianca kept browsing, but I was completely broke. I’d considered
raiding Chloe’s closet, but after the disaster with the dress I’d figured it
was better to play it safe, and with Lily being almost seven inches shorter my
options with her closet were pretty limited. After paying, I took my bag and
headed over to the racks of skirts Bianca and Tonya were searching through.

“Oh, my God! Look at this! It would go perfect with that
purple top I bought last week.” Tonya held up a deep purple mini-skirt for us
to inspect. “I’m going to try it on. Here, hold this.” She thrust her purse and
bags at me, then took off for the changing room.

“This is why I never like going shopping with you guys,”
Bianca said with a groan. “I’m starving and we can’t even get out of the first
store we go into.”

“Hey, it’s not me. I’m done. And I’m hungry, too.” I glanced
toward where Tonya had disappeared into the tiny room. Tonya was a delayed
shopper. If she tried on something she liked, it took forever for her to get it
off. She’d probably spend the next ten minutes imagining it with every other
top in her wardrobe before she came back out.

I walked over and knocked on the door to her change room.
“Hey, we’re going to go and find Karin, so we can grab a bite to eat before we
all starve to death.”

“Sure. Oh hey, pass me my wallet.” Her arm reached over the
door and I dug through her purse to pull out the red faux snakeskin wallet.

“Thank God,” Bianca said as we left the store. “I think I’m
going to die of starvation.”

My eyes rolled and I barely contained a snort. Bianca was
one of those naturally ultra-thin girls that never set foot in a gym, or tried
a diet. Not that she was as bad as Karin with her fake complaints about not
being able to gain weight, but one day I hoped karma would catch up with her,
or both of them. Not that I wanted them fat, but still a little chunkier would
make me feel better. I’m sure Dad would simply tell me that I should hit the
gym like Chloe if I wanted that perfect size six, but honestly, I was just too
lazy. Size ten was working for me.

Tonya’s cell phone rang just as we went into the clothing
store to get Karin. Both Bianca and I groaned, then laughed at the absurdity of
a guy calling fifteen times in the span of two hours.

“Are you gonna to answer it?”

I pulled the cell from Tonya’s purse and saw Trevor’s name
floating across the screen. Tonya would want me to answer it, even if it was
just to say that she’d call him back. Before I could change my mind, I hit end and
then held it down until the phone powered off.

“Nope.”

“You know she’ll just call him back as soon as you tell her
he called,” Bianca said, her eyebrows raised.

“True. Or we could just not tell her he called. She won’t
even know her cell is off.” I would have done the same even if it hadn’t been
Trevor calling. Really. “Besides, it would add on another ten minutes until we
could get to the food court.”

“You are so bad,” Bianca said, an evil grin that matched
mine spreading across her face. Her stomach gave a well-timed rumble. “I never
heard her phone ring. It must have been covered by the grumbles of my stomach.”

I shoved the turned off cell phone back in Tonya’s purse,
and tried to arrange her junk so it made the thing hard to find. The less
chance she had of coming across it, the less chance she had to think of its
silence. For a brief moment, guilt assaulted me, then I thought of how annoying
the calls had been, of the bruises on Tonya’s arms, of the voice that rang
through my head when he lied.

I wouldn’t lie. If she asked, I’d admit he called, but
otherwise I wasn’t going to tell her. Not really a lie. Just a simple, not so
innocent, omission.

Chapter 11

Not so simple, really. And I have to admit, it wasn’t even
close to innocent either. Not that I was about to admit that fact to Tonya as
she stood at my front door four hours later.

“Did you turn off my cell when we were at the mall?” she
demanded, holding the offending phone up as if presenting evidence.

“What?” That came out sounding so guilty.

“What the hell, Phoebe? Trevor called and left like fifteen
messages. He thought something was wrong.”

Nothing had been wrong. After I’d turned the thing off, the
four of us had enjoyed a fun, and Trevor-free, lunch and then gone home to get
ready. I’d even forgotten about doing it until Tonya arrived completely pissed.

I considered lying, but despite my gift at reading other’s
lies, telling them wasn’t a talent of mine, so I opted for some partial truths
and possibly a bit of deflection.

“I’m sorry. I only turned it off because I wanted us all to
spend some girl time together.” The truth, minus my continued distrust of
Trevor. Now for deflecting. “Can you help me get Lily dressed. She’s totally
flaking right now. Saying she’s too tired. And if she doesn’t go, Dad says I
can’t go, which means you won’t have me as your cover.”

“What?!” Tonya marched passed me, heading for the stairs and
an unsuspecting Lily. “What’s up with her lately anyways? She a bit more freaky
than normal.”

“I don’t know. She’s just been tired a lot.” I knew the
healings she did sometimes wiped her out, but this was more than normal. Then
again, it could just be she was realizing what a prick Dylan really was.

“Well, she’s going tonight, because if you can’t go then
I’ll be totally screwed if Gran calls your dad.” She stomped down the stairs,
went straight to Lily’s room, and gave one short knock on the door before
flinging it open.

Lily practically jumped up from her bed where she’d been
laying. “Tonya! You scared me.” She gave a slight chuckle that didn’t quite
make it to her eyes.

“I can’t believe you’re trying to ditch this,” Tonya said,
crossing her arms over her chest. I couldn’t see her face, but I was sure she
gave Lily the evil eye.

“What are you talking about?” Lily asked, completely
confused.

Okay, so maybe I’d lied a bit, but hopefully Lily would at
least pretend to be mildly put out about going. Behind Tonya’s back, I tried to
do some kind of charades gesture that would get my point across to Lily, but I
sucked at games, and this whole mess of Tonya confronting Lily perfectly
demonstrated how I sucked at lying even more.

“Phoebe said you were trying to bail tonight.”

“Uh...” Lily hesitated and I got in one more chocking motion
before Tonya twisted around as if sensing my frantic attempts to get Lily to
cover for me. But it must have worked, because Lily said, “Oh yeah. I’m a bit
tired.”

“Come on, please. I really need Phoebe to cover for me, and
since she’s suddenly developed some kind of conscience and doesn’t want to lie
to my gran, she has to go tonight.”

“And I have to go because...?”

“You know Dad won’t let me go with Nathan if you’re not
going.” I practically crossed my eyes trying to signal Lily to keep going along
with everything.

“Ah, well I suppose I could go.” Not that she had been
intending to bail, but there was a reluctance in her voice that made me wonder
if she really wanted to.

“Thank you, thank you!” Tonya did a little happy dance out
of Lily’s room, and we went down the hall to mine. Tonya sprawled across my
bed, while I sat down at my desk. I fiddled with my iPod, then plugged it into
my desktop computer to charge. The computer was a relic, but unlike Lily and
Chloe I wasn’t going to save up for months just to buy a laptop that I wouldn’t
know how to use anyways. I was only marginally better at typing on a keyboard
than texting with my cell.

“So, when is everyone coming over?” Tonya asked, grabbing a
magazine from my nightstand.

“Pretty soon, I guess. We all agreed on five-thirty. God,
it’s gonna be a tight fit with all of us in the truck. When is Trevor getting
here?”

“Oh, he’s going to meet us there. That way we can have our
own space.” She tried for a sly, sexy look, but failed miserably when we both
started laughing.

“You better not have sex in there, ’cause if Karin finds
out, you know she’ll rat you out.”

“God no! I don’t even really like it.”

“What? Then why are you doing it with him?” I tried to
imagine not liking sex with Nathan, but it was hard when I couldn’t even say
that I liked it, which kinda sucked.

“He’s a good kisser and I like, you know...” She gestured
around her chest with her hands. “But I don’t know... I thought after the first
time it would get better, or at least last a bit longer.”

“Oh my God, Tonya, you’re dating a minute man!” I burst out
laughing and tried to avoid the playful whacks Tonya was aiming at me.

“Shut up. You and Nathan aren’t even doing it yet.” Failing
to reach me with her swinging arms, she threw a pillow at me. I caught the
pillow and tossed it back at her. My distraction plan had succeeded, now I just
had to hold her off until the others arrived.

“Who said we weren’t?”

“Chloe. She also told Bianca you’re gonna be waiting a
while.” This time she laughed louder. It sucked having a friend who was also
friends with your sister. Not that Bianca and Chloe hung out a lot, but
apparently it was enough that Chloe was spilling about my love life to her, and
Bianca in turn was sharing with Tonya.

“Whatever.” Not my smoothest come back, but anything lamer
was interrupted by the doorbell. Hoping it was Nathan, I leapt out of the chair
and ran up the steps, with Tonya following at a much slower pace.

My luck with answering the door hadn’t changed. Instead of
Nathan, I found Dylan. I opened the door for him to come in and tried to put on
my polite face. Not the easiest task since Dylan ranked pretty low in my books,
just above Vivian and Trevor, but he had gotten us the tickets half price and
he’d agreed to let me turn his date with Lily into a group event, so I figured
I needed to at least be polite. For a while.

“Hey, Lily’s downstairs,” I said and he nodded. I went to
the top of the stairs and yelled down to let her know it was Dylan. She made
some kind of response that I took for ‘be right up’ and I went back into the
living room to find Dylan making himself at home, sitting in my dad’s recliner,
his feet propped up on the coffee table and flipping around the channels on the
TV.

“So...thanks for the tickets.” Awkward, but what else could
I say? Dylan and I had had little to talk about when he was a nice guy, now
that he’d turned into an ass there was even less.

“Yeah, well Lily told me your dad wouldn’t let either of you
go unless it was a group thing, so it’s not like I had a choice.” He shot me a
dirty look before focusing back on the television screen.