Following Me (13 page)

Hadley bit on her lip, her anger
slipping slightly.  She looked really young in that moment, less than her
twenty-two years.  “It hasn’t been
that
long.”

“How long?” Devon prompted.

“Only a month or two.”

Devon’s eyebrows rose.

“Okay, two.”

“And you’re stopping…when?” Devon
asked.

Hadley looked away, her blonde
hair framing her face.  “It’s not as often as you think,” she said, her wall
slamming back up.

Devon swallowed, wanting to take
her friend by the shoulders and shake her.  It was sad, considering everything
she was hiding from Hadley.  As much as this mirrored her problems, it was so
very different.

“I just want you to take care of
yourself.”

“I can take care of myself just
fine,” Hadley snapped.

“I’ve no doubt,” Devon drawled,
her Southern accent coming out in full force.

“Don’t use that tone with me,”
Hadley muttered.

“Does Garrett know?” Devon
asked.  She already knew the answer since Brennan had told her last night, but
she wanted to hear Hadley’s response.  She needed to hear what Hadley would say
face-to-face, no hiding.

“Of course, he knows,” Hadley
said, not meeting her eyes.  “Do you think I would be living with him if he
didn’t know everything about me?”

Devon sat back hard in the booth,
staring at her friend. 
Had Hadley ever purposely lied to her?  Had Hadley
ever been openly dishonest in any way?  Hadley was many things, but a liar? 
No, she had never been a liar.

And then Devon knew what she had
to do…

“I want to stay in Chicago for
the summer,” Devon told her.

Hadley’s eyes shot to Devon’s
face as she looked at her incredulously.  “Well, have a great time,” she said
sarcastically.

“I’m staying with you and
Garrett,” Devon told her matter-of-factly.

“What?  It’s Garrett’s
apartment.  There is no way he is going to let you stay for three more months. 
Why do you want to stay anyway?  Don’t you miss your boy toy?”

“Doesn’t really matter why I want
to stay,” Devon said.  “I’m staying, and you’re going to call and convince
Garrett to let me live at the apartment.”

“What?” Hadley asked, eyeing
Devon like she was insane.

“Otherwise, I’m going to tell him
that you’re doing coke.”

“But he already knows,” she spat
back as if Devon would believe her.

“Fine,” Devon said, pulling out
her phone.  “Then, I’ll just call and talk to him about it.”

Hadley openly glared at her.  She
was clearly waiting for Devon to bluff.

Hadley thought there was no way
Devon was going to dial through to his line, no way Devon would actually do it.

Devon’s finger was poised over
Garrett’s number.  She was about to push call.

Then, Hadley cried, “Wait!  Jesus,
Dev.  You can stay with us.  Of course, you can stay with us.  I’ll call him
right now.”

GARRETT’S ONLY CONDITION for the
summer was that Devon would contribute to the house by paying rent.  That left
Devon in an awkward position since she didn’t have any savings to draw from
that her parents didn’t actively control.  It would look suspicious if she
suddenly laid out a grand without telling them.  They would wonder if
she
was the one on drugs.

Devon wouldn’t dare ask Hadley to
help her with the money situation.  Devon didn’t want to know how much cash
Hadley was shoveling into her new extracurricular activities.  Plus, Devon
couldn’t afford to ask Hadley for more help.

Devon felt bad enough as it was
for manipulating Hadley into letting her stay for the summer.  She should have
just been up-front about it all.  If Hadley knew what Devon was going through,
then she probably would have been more understanding.  Hadley also might have
hopped on a train to St. Louis to burn the place down.  Devon wasn’t really in
the right mind-set yet to bare all her secrets, so she had acted impulsively
and used Hadley’s weaknesses against her.  It was low, even with the position
Devon was in, but she hadn’t seen an alternative.  And it had worked.

Now, Devon needed to find a way
to pay rent.  She knew Marina City wasn’t exactly cheap either, and she didn’t
know how much Garrett was expecting her to pay.  It was likely a third, but he
hadn’t said.  He didn’t really need the extra money, but Devon was sure he saw
it as a compromise for her using the extra space, adding to the utility costs,
taking away some of his privacy, and so on.

So, Devon had to immediately
start looking for a job.  Unless she wanted to sell her body for money, she
didn’t see an alternative to working during the summer.  She couldn’t exactly
call her parents and ask them to clear the cash.

Her first instinct was to apply
at Jenn’s Restaurant, but after her last encounter with Brennan, she just
couldn’t bring herself to go there.  Devon hadn’t talked to him since she had
left his apartment.  He had thought she was leaving the city anyway.  If she
didn’t alert him of her presence, then he would never have to know that she was
staying.  Her life was too complicated as it was without adding a romantic element
to her time in the city.

Brennan was dangerous and
attractive and caring…and she would have none of it.  She had to shut down her
brain when her thoughts began to venture in that direction.  It would only do
more harm than good.  Eventually, she
would
have to return to St. Louis,
and she didn’t want guilty feelings on her conscience as well.

Without further ado, Devon began
walking around the city, filling out applications wherever she could.  Not many
places were hiring at the moment.  So many of them had already filled up their
staff for the summer tourist season.  The places that had signs up in the
windows were looking for more experience or offering low wages or not hiring
immediately.  Anything that could possibly get in the way did.

Devon returned home empty handed
and plopped down on the couch in the living room, propping up her feet on the
coffee table.  She was exhausted from another day of searching for jobs.  It
seemed like a futile mission.  She was convinced she would never find anything in
time to pay rent at the end of the month.  She had already been scouting for
two weeks, and the month was dwindling away.  After three unsuccessful
interviews out of at least a hundred applications, Devon was spent.  She didn’t
know what else to do.  If she couldn’t get a job, she couldn’t stay, which
meant she had bullied her best friend at a time when she needed her the most
for nothing.

She pulled up Netflix on the
PlayStation and started flipping through the catalog of TV shows.  She had
never been a big TV fan before, but this was also one of the first times in her
life she didn’t have anything to do.  Hadley was always at work, and when
Garrett was here during the day, he would usually be locked away in his
bedroom.

Deciding on the first season of
Heroes
,
Devon kept her phone close by just in case someone decided they wanted to give
her a job, and then she vegged out.  After she made it all the way through
episode two, Garrett made an appearance outside of his bedroom.

“What’s up, Dev?”  He pulled out
a snack from the fridge and then took a seat next to her.

“Just praying that someone calls
me for a job,” she said, turning on episode three.  Then, thinking better of
it, she offered Garrett the remote.  “Do you want to watch something?”

“No,
Heroes
is fine.  Just
so you know, the first season is addictive, but the other ones suck.  You
should probably stop now,” he said.

Devon just shrugged, not having
anything better to do.  “I think I’ll let myself get sucked in.”

She swallowed hard, hearing
herself say that out loud. 
Wasn’t that always her problem?
  She always
let herself just get sucked in to things, and then she couldn’t or wouldn’t
want to find a way out.  Even now that she was out of it, she couldn’t believe
it had all happened the way it had.  She sometimes wondered if Chicago was the
dream, and her dreams were reality.

“So, the job search isn’t going
so well?” Garrett asked, offering her a carrot from his plate.

“Ugh,” she grumbled, tossing her
head back.  “It’s the worst possible thing ever.  Why do businesses even
advertise that they’re hiring if they’re not actually hiring?  Or better yet,
if they already have someone else in mind, why do they waste your time by
setting up an interview with you?  It’s total bullshit.”

“That’s the worst.  What kind of
jobs are you looking into?” he asked sympathetically.

“Everything.  Anything.  I’ve
scoured the newspapers, craigslist, and all over the fucking Internet.  I’ve
walked up and down the streets, checking for new signs.  I think I’m pretty
familiar with the landscape now,” she said, half-joking.  “There’s just nothing
out there.  Most places aren’t likely to hire someone they don’t know who
doesn’t have a degree.  Even a lot of the serving jobs…well, most are full, but
they want someone who will be here after the summer.  And when they see that I
went to Wash U, they don’t believe me when I say I’m not going back to St.
Louis for school.”

Devon wasn’t sure where it had
all come from.  During the last two weeks, she had been so frustrated from
trying to a find a job and having no one to talk to.  Hadley was avoiding her
as much as she could, Garrett was mostly absent, and Brennan was completely out
of the picture.  It was nice to just talk to someone.

Garrett pursed his lips.  He
seemed to be contemplating her scenario before speaking.  She didn’t know what
he was going to say about it, but it couldn’t be worse than what Hadley would
likely say.

“I mean, I hate to say it, but it
has only been two weeks,” he looked sympathetic.

“I know,” Devon relented.  “I
just have to pay you rent soon, and I don’t have the money.”  She sheepishly
looked down.

“Hey,” he said, his hand landing
on her knee, “don’t worry about that.  I’m sure we can arrange something.”

Devon didn’t know if she should
hear the hidden meaning in that or not, but she chose not to.  This was
Garrett, and he was madly in love with her best friend.  There was no way he
was insinuating what she thought he was insinuating.  To avoid accidentally
spilling her thoughts, she didn’t dare open her mouth.

“I’m sure you’ll find a job soon,
and in the meantime, feel free to stay as long as you like.  I’ve made do
without the rent this long, so I think I can manage otherwise.  I trust you to
pay it back when you actually do get a job.  Don’t stress yourself into the
ground over it,” he told her, pulling back his hand.

Devon felt like a shitty person. 
Was she a completely wrong judge of character?  Or was she just so used to
people being horrible and taking advantage of any situation that she had
assumed someone like Garrett could be like that, too?

“Thanks, Garrett,” Devon said. 
“I appreciate it, but I’m still going to look for work as hard as I can.”