Hadley walked in, looking worse than Devon had expected. Had she been looking like this all week and Devon just hadn’t noticed? Had Devon been so lost in herself that she hadn’t seen her own friend’s problems? She hadn’t seen a lot of Hadley this week because of her job, but Devon didn’t think Hadley had seemed that different.
“Hey.” Hadley took a seat across from her and opened the menu, not making eye contact.
“Hey,” Devon responded.
Hadley clearly wasn’t going to throw her a line or anything. She stared stock-still at her menu. Devon was sure Hadley wasn’t reading it.
“Hadley, come on,” Devon pleaded.
“Don’t act like you’ve been forthright the whole time you’ve been here,” Hadley snapped, still not looking at her.
“Fair,” Devon said, trying to bite back her retort. “I’ll give you that, but I also wasn’t flaunting my problems in everyone’s faces in a public place.”
Hadley dropped her menu down on the table. “I wasn’t flaunting anything, Devon!”
Devon sighed, seeing how this was all going to go. “Fine. You weren’t doing that either. I just happened to see it. But how long has this been going on? And how long are you going to keep it up?”
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.”
Chapter Nine - Everything for a Price
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 f**king 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.