Devoured

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.

Preston had had different demands for something or another every other day, and each one was something he'd change his mind about as soon as I followed through. By the time he ended things with me he swore I was co-dependent. Looking back at the situation now, I was.

I still am.

I focus on the screen again, attempting to ignore the bevy of emotions that thinking about Preston always seems to bring about. I don't love him. Tori says I probably never did and just went out with him because of my parental issues. Still, there's a bitter ping in the center of my chest.

Swallowing back memories and exasperation and the sense of defeat, I send Kylie a reply: I don't like being bullied any more than I enjoy being given a couple hours to decide something.

Kylie fires back a response seconds later. It's just dinner - it's not like I'm asking you to get pregnant with my blue-haired love child and come live with us in Paris, you know? Like I wrote you before, I know a way you can save your grandmother's house. You just have to . . . trust me. I can't do anything more than that online.

Massaging my upper nose in a slow, circular motion, I start tapping out a one-handed reply. It's only a few words, but it takes me a couple minutes and several tries to make sure I don't sound like the blubbering idiot I feel like right now.

Where and what time?

I wonder if she's smiling wherever she is because she immediately writes Yay! About a minute later, she adds, Fondue. Oh God, please tell me you love fondue? After I respond positively she types one last comment:

Kickass - Fondue it is, then. I'll pick you up at your place at seven, and I promise to have you home by midnight. See, I'm a respectful date and won't even try to get to second base. Catch up with you soon!

I send Kylie a couple more messages asking her if she's going for casual or formal dress and whether she can park at the end of the driveway so Gram doesn't see her, but she doesn't answer either of them. I startle when I hear the front door slam. It rattles the bookshelf in the corner of my room, and I stumble off the bed, nearly breaking my neck on a pair of tall boots I left in the middle of the floor. Glancing out the window, I see my grandmother's Land Rover sitting in the driveway, backed in so that the open trunk is closest to the house.

I heave a sigh of relief.

A moment later, Gram yells up the stairs in a noticeably tired voice, "Sienna?"

"I'm here, Gram!" I call out, slipping my feet into a pair of flip-flops.

I reach the foyer as Gram shuffles through the front door, struggling with several bags of groceries. Quickly, I scoop them out of her hands where the plastic has started to make harsh indentations on her wrists. She offers me a grateful look.

"I stopped and picked up some food for you so you won't starve to death while you're here. All your favorites, and I'll even cook them," she says, just a touch too brightly.

I can see into the back of her SUV from where I'm standing. There are at least a dozen more bags in the trunk alone, not to mention what might be in the backseat. I feel a swell in my ribcage because my grandmother is on the verge of losing her house and having to spend money to relocate somewhere else. We both know she's not got the funds to do things like stock a house with the foods I enjoy.

Instead of pointing this out to Gram, or immediately grilling her about where she's been, I move the bags in my right hand up and around my wrist and give her hand a tiny squeeze.

"Thanks, Gram," I say. Then, keeping my tone as light and as teasing as possible, I add "You haven't cooked in, what? A year or two ago, when Seth was still in high school?"

Gram lets out a throaty chuckle. "You're worth it."

I insist she take a breather in the family room while I store the groceries. She doesn't give me hell, like usual, but goes willingly. It's so obvious that she's dead tired, so I try hard to remain as quiet as feasibly possible so I won't bother her while she rests.

Unloading the bags is a monotonous task that reminds me of my time bagging groceries at the store up the street when I was in high school. I'm grinning by time I finish because I have images of cart-racing with my co-workers and an even more vivid picture of racing wardrobe racks on the set of Echo Falls with Vickie, the other wardrobe assistant.

If I ever got the nerve to do something like that, Tomas would shit a few bricks.

The digital clock on the stove catches my eye. 5:45. I'll be with Kylie soon, and there's a chance - albeit not a very strong one - that I'll know what to do to make sure this house stays in Gram's possession.

Speed walking into the living room, I say, "Hey, I'm going to - " But I stop short. My grandmother is asleep on the couch, snoring, her chest rising and falling. "Head out with a friend," I whisper. Turning to leave, I notice a balled up piece of paper in the corner of the doorway. I stoop down and pick it up, unraveling it. It's the grocery receipt from Gram's massive shopping expedition. But it's not the amount of money she has spent that makes my heart beat faster. It's the city and state the groceries were purchased in.

Bowling Green, Kentucky, which is an hour drive from Nashville.

It's the halfway point between here and the prison in Lexington that houses my mother.

Honestly, I want to feel denial or shock or even anger - God knows I've experienced all three emotion and often at once when it comes to Mom in the past. As I fold the receipt into tiny, even squares, though, the only thing I feel is a sharp pang in the middle of my chest.

Kylie arrives early - a quarter 'til seven, when I'm finishing up the last touches of my makeup - in the giant silver Cadillac SUV. She must not have gotten my message because she parks halfway up the drive and gets out of the car. As she practically skips toward the house, and into the path of the motion detection lights, I decide she looks like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in her blindingly white parka and with her short, black and blue hair poking out from beneath a slouchy white crochet hat. Tennessee's not that cold.

She pauses in the circular walkway, tilts her head up until her dark eyes meets mine, then smiles and waves. Feeling myself flush from head to toe at being caught, I wiggle my fingers back at her. Why the hell is she so friendly when she hardly knows me? A moment later, she stops flapping her hand and disappears under the covered wraparound porch. The doorbell rings.

Ah, shit! I should've stopped her because of Gram!

Suddenly feeling nauseous at the thought of my grandmother answering the door and having to face down Lucas's assistant, I speed down the steps. I'm too late. My feet hit the final stair just in time to hear Kylie complimenting Gram on how beautiful the house is. My grandmother's not giving her accusing looks or asking her politely to leave, so I'm caught off guard. Then I realize that Kylie wasn't in court yesterday. Gram apparently has never had the chance to meet her, but now that she has, she's charmed. Kylie's praise is making her blush hardcore.

Lucas's assistant's sugary act is really starting to freak me out.

"Um, Gram, this is Kylie, she's - " There's no way I can introduce her as Lucas's assistant. I shoot Kylie a pleading look.

"A friend from high school," she effortlessly adds. When Gram looks away for a split second, Kylie winks one of her brown eyes at me. It's heavily lined in metallic blue liner. "I'm in town before heading off for vacation in a couple days and hooked up with Sienna online."

My grandmother's eyebrows draw together, and I can tell she's trying to place whether she's ever met Kylie before. I can read the emotions on Gram's face as she thinks back to graduation and homecoming dances and piano competitions. Coming up with nothing, she lifts her shoulders slightly and shakes her head, her gray hair springing around her face.

"That's so wonderful you stopped by for Sienna," Gram tells Kylie. Then she darts her blue eyes up to me, where I'm still standing on the last step, staring at me questioningly. "Did you want me to cook or - "

A lump forms in my throat. I know I shouldn't but I'm thinking of the Bowling Green, Kentucky, receipt that I've folded until there are hundreds of tiny creases lining it. It's upstairs, tucked under the magazine on my nightstand. I shouldn't keep it. I should've dropped it where I found it.

Because now I feel like a spy and the only thing I'll do when I see the slip of paper or Gram mentions cooking for me is wonder whether or not she was actually with my mom this afternoon. It's going to eat away at me until I have the chance to talk to her about it.

No, I'll have to confront her in an intervention like scenario because my grandmother always clams up when it comes to talking about Mom.

My mother tends to evoke that type of response from everyone.

"You've been busy all day, so you should get some rest," I say, despite the constriction in my throat. "Plus, Kylie's got this outrageously unlimited expense account for her job and she's taking me out to dinner to catch up. Isn't that right, Ky?"

Biting her lip - either to avoid laughing aloud at the emphasis I placed on the word "unlimited" or to keep from telling me to shut the hell up and that her name's not "Ky" - Kylie gives us a thumbs up, and replies, "She's right. My boss lets me be a lush, and I take every advantage of it. And we better get going because I'm starving and we have a reservation."

Then, Kylie takes Gram's hands in between her gloved ones and offers her a genuine smile. Once again I'm struck, curious as to why she's being so nice to the old woman her boss wants to evict. "It was so great to meet you, Ms. Previn, and thanks for letting me borrow Sienna for a while. I promise I'll take good care of her."

I'm pretty sure that's exactly what my ex-boyfriend said when he picked me up for junior prom, the night he talked me into giving me up my virginity.

I fidget with the short hem of my chocolate-colored boatneck dress.

Gram's nose wrinkles and crosses her arms over her chest as if she's in deep thought. At long last, she says, "You girls have a good time. And absolutely no drinking and driving!"

It isn't until I'm buckling my seatbelt in the Escalade, which smells like cigarettes and too much pine-scented air freshener, that I realize why my grandmother had such a strange expression on her face just before Kylie and I walked out the door.

Gram and I have different last names - hers is Previn and mine is Jensen, my dad's last name and Mom's former married name. Not once had Gram mentioned what her last name is to Kylie.

The Tuesday night crowd at the costly fondue restaurant on 2nd Avenue is scant, and Kylie and I are seated in a dimly lit, horseshoe-shaped booth. She removes her coat, revealing an oversized sweater with glasses-wearing owls covering it and a pair of stretchy pants. I'm not one for bold colors or prints like Kylie - I mean, I've played with the idea of dying my hair for years because it's that red - but the way she dresses suits her.

As she rolls her coat into a tight cylinder shape and places it between us, she asks, "You're not dissecting my outfit, are you?"

I feel my ears turn red. "Of course not. Why would I do something like that?"

She makes a weird face, curling her lip up so it touches the tip of her nose, and rubs her chin with her index finger and thumb. "Hmmm, I don't know. Maybe because it's your job. Hell, I find myself doing my job even when I'm off the clock and critiquing every little piece of music I hear. For example, the music here" - she moves closer, as if she's about to share an intimate secret, so I do the same - "Is really, really shitty. But just so you know, I don't mind if you're taking creepy, wardrobe person notes about my clothes. I happen to like the way I dress."

I almost want to tell her I'm taking notes on how off-the-wall she is in general, but instead, I take a giant sip of my water to clear my throat before getting directly to the point. "You said you know a way to save my grandmother's home, Kylie. That's the only reason I agreed to come out tonight. So . . . what is it?" I drop my voice to a hush, adding, "What do you know about Lucas?"

"You know what I've been wondering? Just how in the hell did you manage to keep a body like that growing up in a place with such amazing food?" she says, evading my question. "They deep fry everything. I've been here literally a month and had to have Lucas advance me my clothing allowance for next season to buy looser fitting jeans."

"Where are you from?" I ask.

She grimaces, clenches her hands, before cheerfully saying, "Oh, just Atlanta."

Atlanta, Georgia. Where butter and bacon and pecans or more of a household necessity than they are here in Tennessee. Now, I'm not exactly buying her comment about the amazing food, even if she has been living in L.A. for a while.

Changing the subject, Kylie asks me about my childhood, about the school I went to, and what I did for fun, and I answer each question politely, taking the utmost care not to mention my mother. I feel myself growing more and more frazzled as each second seems to crawl by at a snail's pace.

Finally when our first course arrives, I've had just about had all I can take of Kylie's game of elusion. I place my palms flat on the table and clear my throat. She looks up at me, her dark eyes as enormous as the owls on her shirt. "Kylie," I say as patiently as possible, "Why did you want to bring me here?"

Dipping a broccoli spear into the pot of scalding cheese that sits in the center of table, she frowns. I watch as she swirls the broccoli around until it disintegrates, each second making my heart thud louder, making me feel like she's hiding something.

"Lucas wants you," she says and then shrugs before blowing on the broccoli.

I already know this, but then a reason I didn't think of this afternoon for her wanting to see me hits me hard. I come to terms with a frightening possibility and drop the piece of bread I'm chewing onto my plate. "Oh god, you're not going to try to scald my face off with fondue or pour it in my lap because you're in love with your boss, are you?" I ask in a shrill voice.

Her head pops up from the cheese and she stares at me blankly. I'm already making quick, jerky movements struggling to get myself out of the booth and away from this situation. To just leave her sitting here alone before drama ensues.

Then she starts to laugh hysterically.

That's it. First thing in the morning, I would find a way to contact Lucas to tell him to keep Kylie the hell away from me.

Blinking back tears, she grabs my hand and pulls me back down. My knees lock up and I have no other choice but sit. I'm wheezing like I've just run a half marathon when she finally manages to squeeze words past her amusement. "No, don't go, it's just that what you said -  Dude, so gross. I mean, I love Lucas, but that's because I'm forced to. Our parents would have my ass if I didn't."

"Wait - what?"

She smiles. "Yep, guilty. I'm Lucas's kid sister but only by a couple years."

My hands automatically fly to my face, covering my embarrassment. "I thought you were . . . your last name is Martin," I mumble slowly because there's a thickness in my throat.

She holds up her left hand, placing it close to my face so that I'm able to see the tattoo circling her ring finger. She twists her hand, back and forth, so I can read the Old English text that clearly says MARTIN. "Eight years ago, the day I turned 18. His name was Bradley Martin and my marriage lasted about as long as the sex we had on my wedding night and was just as goddamn awful. Sorry, babe, you're going to have to reevaluate your opinion of me because I'm not one of those assistants."

How did I fail to notice what Kylie is to Lucas? Even though I've witnessed very few of their interactions with one another, it's not like I've ever seen him treat her like anything other than his assistant.

I feel wretched for jumping to conclusions about her. I apologize, but she waves it away, grinning broadly. "Are you kidding me? You're totally fine. You want to see real psycho assumptions, go and check out some of Lucas's fan message boards. These people are devout fans, know exactly who I am, and still bash the hell out of me."

I swallow hard. "Anything else I should know?"

Her tickled grin gradually gives way to a sheepish look. I've always hated looks like this because it never indicates something pleasant. Then she drops her head, rearranging the silverware in front of her. "I hate fondue. Like really, really loathe it."

"Then why did you ask me to come here? We could've gone somewhere else. I'm not picky. I'm not . . ." But I am sweaty and nervous. I'm not so naive that I believe her shame face stems from a hatred of melted chocolate and cheese. No, Kylie's withholding something else.

"Because you wouldn't have come for him," she whispers, pointing. I follow her fingers across the restaurant, to a smaller booth, to where Lucas is sitting.

My stomach pitches, and I cross my arms over it.

Why is he in this restaurant spreading his . . . ugh, rockstar charm? Why can't I think or move or speak right now? The only thing I'm able to do besides hold my stomach and wish myself smaller is observe. Lucas beckons a pretty brunette waitress over to him, whispers something into her ear. She smiles down seductively at him, nods her head, and swishes her hair over her shoulder as she goes over to do his bidding.

He doesn't spare her a second glance.

Now, he's standing, walking toward my table. A scarlet haze stretches from the back of my skull and wriggles its way to the front of my face, making me unable to see straight for several seconds. That's just how pissed I am at having been set up by Kylie and Lucas.

I'm still speechless, but now absolutely seething, when he comes back into focus.

He towers over me, his intense hazel eyes blazing into mine as he waits for a response.