Chapter Eight
Katie
I was having coffee with the Conners. The whole family was in the kitchen, leaning against the island, sipping some java. It was nice, but it made me slightly homesick. I’d talked to my mom last night, and my dad first thing this morning. But I missed my family. I wasn’t used to being away from them, and it was harder than I’d anticipated. I needed to survive the next few days. I needed to thrive away from my comfort zone. If I didn’t, I knew I’d never be able to convince my parents that UCLA was the best choice for me.
“I’ve gotta go. Jett is picking me up.” Marley rinsed out her coffee cup and put it in the dishwasher. I’d met her this morning when she had been coming out of her room and I’d been coming out of mine. She frowned and said, “You aren’t Halen.”
Mrs. Conner studied Marley over her steaming mug. “What are you two up to today?”
“Cleaning out the old red barn by Landry and Brody’s house.” She smiled, like a sweet little woodland creature wearing black-framed glasses and Doc Martens. “Jett wants to restore the building. He says it belonged to the original owners of the ranch.”
Avory snorted into her cup, but since she was standing right next to me I don’t think anyone else heard her. Mrs. Conner smiled and said, “That’s sounds interesting. Have fun, sweetheart.”
Avory rolled her eyes and shook her head slightly, silently telling me not to even ask. Which sucked because I had so many questions. Like, how did they know how to restore a whole barn? What kid thought that was a cool summer project? What were they planning on doing with it when it was finished?
Marley walked out, calling over her shoulder, “Cash is here.”
I guess he decided to come to the door after all. I turned when he entered the room, a smile on his handsome face and a ball cap covering his blond hair. He winked at me. I clenched my teeth so I didn’t smile like a damn fool.
“C Money.” Mr. Conner high-fived him. “To what do we owe this pleasure?”
Cash pointed at me. “I’m taking Katie over to Halen and Beau’s house.” He shrugged, sending Mr. Conner a somewhat sad smile. “She hasn’t gotten a chance to meet everyone yet.”
I wasn’t sure how he was accomplishing it, but by the tone of his voice alone, he was making it sound like he was doing the desolate new girl a favor. It was irritating, if not impressive.
“That’s nice of you, man.” Mr. Conner clapped him on the shoulder. “You two have fun.” He and his wife exited stage left. They always seemed to leave a room at the same time. Like, simultaneously they decided they had something else to do. It was a little odd.
“You want to come, Avory?” Cash took her coffee mug, finishing her last couple of sips. Seemed rude to me, but she didn’t act like she cared.
“No, I’m beat. I think I’m going back to bed.” She yawned, stretching her arms over her head, making her white crop top rise to a hair’s breadth below her breasts. It was like she never really wore clothes.
“Those two a.m. bedtimes catching up to you?” He sent her a smirk and she elbowed him in response. He looked over her head, catching my eye. “You ready?”
“Yeah.” I rinsed out my cup and then placed it next to Marley’s in the dishwasher. “Can we go see the red barn too?”
Cash raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
“Marley and Jett are apparently spending their summer restoring the old barn by Landry’s house.” Avory grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, sending Cash a rather pointed look.
“You think Brax was right?” Cash narrowed his eyes, a frown suddenly taking over his face. “Restoring the old red barn? It’s in the worst shape, but it’s the one closest to Brody…”
Brax? Was that Braxton Jones? The same Braxton that gotten me banished to this little compound o’ fun? “It’s a little bit annoying when you people have conversations I can only understand half of, you know that right?” A little bit annoying, a little bit jealousy inducing. I wanted to have inside jokes and know all the deep dark Devil’s Spawn secrets too. Ugh. Now I was calling them that. It was like they were slowly brainwashing me or something. Like a cult.
“Come on, Katie Baby, let’s get going.” Cash slung his arm around my neck, steering me toward the front door. “I’ll check on MJ and make sure they aren’t doing anything overtly illegal in broad daylight.” Avory waved her hand in the air on her way back to her room.
“She doesn’t seem to care if MJ is doing anything illegal.” I let Cash lead me out the door and down the front walk.
He opened the truck door for me. “She cares, but she cares less than the rest of us.” He went around to his side, jumping in and starting the engine. “Avory and Crue have always been pretty absorbed in Avory and Crue. Out of the ten of us, they tend to keep to their own issues and not really get involved in anyone else’s.”
“And what, pray tell, is Marley and Jett’s issue?” I already knew Crue and Avory’s issue. They had a super-secret high maintenance relationship they had to keep hidden from the whole world. “Big-time renovators? Barn aficionados? Are they spies in need of new headquarters? Entrepreneurs looking to become landlords?” In the few minutes time since I’d learned of the red barn project, I’d come up with a lot of possibilities.
“Entrepreneurs is probably pretty close.” Cash reached across the center console and tapped my knee, like he’d done last night. “How’s that list coming? Did you add anything?”
“You’re changing the subject.”
“I am.”
Well, at least he was being honest about it.
“I added cow tipping.”
“Cow tipping?” He looked over at me, his nose wrinkled. “Really?”
“We have cows at the ranch and I’ve always wanted to try it.” But I never did because I’d have to sneak out of bed in the middle of the night to accomplish the tipping task. At the Devil’s Share compound I was sure I could simply walk out the front door at midnight and no one would blink an eye. “Can we do it?”
“I guess.” Cash still wore his disdainful expression.
“You told me to add things that I’d always wanted to do, so I did.” I threw my hands up, letting them slap back down to my lap. “What? Is it too lame for you? Too boring?”
“Too mean.”
***
I really liked Halen and Beau. They seemed more normal than the other spawn I’d met in the last twenty-four hours or so. They served bagels with strawberry cream cheese. Anyone who had cream cheese on their table was a winner in my book. Also they had a massive dog named Boxer. Like, huge, probably one of the biggest dogs I’d ever seen. But he was sweet and spent most of his time sleeping.
Landry and Brody were really cool too. I’d met Brody yesterday, which led me to believe that the Brax Cash and Avory were talking about was Braxton Jones. The flirty giant with the unsolicited attempted kiss.
So, Clashing Swell had married into RiffRaff Records. Oh the tangled webs we weaved, and by we I meant these crazy people I’d hitched my wagon to. Either way, Brody and Landry’s little boy Wyatt was seriously one of the cutest toddlers I’d ever seen in my entire life. Brody still reminded me of a sexy surfer, but Landry talked like a brilliant surgeon. They were an odd couple, but hey, if it worked for them, who was I to judge?
“I’m really sorry about yesterday, Katie. We should have never left you alone with Brax.” Brody sent me an apologetic smile. “He’s an asshole.”
“It wasn’t really his fault.” I wiped my hands on a napkin—they were covered in cream cheese. “And I think everything worked out for the best.” I refused to look over at Cash. I didn’t want him to think I was talking about him specifically. The males in this family I’d met so far already seemed cocky enough. “I still get to go to Europe and I don’t have to spend the next week going from boring hotel room to boring hotel room.”
“So, Katie, you graduated this year?” When I nodded, Landry asked, “Are you planning on going to college?”
Normally, questions about college tended to make me nervous and fidgety. But Cash had given me a glass of orange juice about five minutes ago. I’d downed it before he could mention it was mostly my old friend champagne. “College is the plan. Which one is still up in the air.” My parents wanted me close to home. I wanted to move three states away. We’d have to see who won.
After a few more minutes Landry and Brody got up to leave. On his way to the door, Brody pulled Cash aside. I couldn’t hear what they were whispering about, even though I was leaning forward at an unnatural angle and trying real hard.
When Cash came back into the room, he reached down and grabbed my hand. “You haven’t seen the back deck yet. The view is pretty amazing.” I let him pull me to my feet; I liked a good view as much as the next girl. And I also like the way he kept holding my hand.
“You’re right, they were smart to build on the ridge. You can see for miles back here.” I shielded my eyes from the early afternoon sun.
“Here.” Cash pulled a lighter out of his pocket. “We’re going to mark something off your list.”
“Holy crap is that a joint?” I whispered joint like I was too afraid to say it out loud. I looked around us, making sure we were alone and the cops weren’t closing in. See? Sheltered. “I didn’t know people even still smoked those anymore. I thought everyone bonged.” Well, I did go online, so I wasn’t completely out of the loop.
Cash lit it and took a long inhale, holding the smoke in for several long seconds before blowing it out again. He looked like a handsome blond dragon. “I figured, for your first time, we’d go old school and give you the full experience.” He held it out to me. “Here, your turn.”
I took it, holding it between my middle finger and thumb. I wanted to seem cool, but at this point, we both knew I wasn’t. “How does it work?” I waved it around, the white smoke trailing behind it. “Like how do I…you know, do this?”
“You put it to your lips.” Cash took my wrist, moving my hand closer to my mouth. “Then you inhale on a deep breath, hold it, and then blow it out.”
I did as he instructed. It tasted bad, but it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. “That was easy.”
“No.” Cash shook his head. “You didn’t inhale. You held the smoke in your throat or something.” He turned me to face him. “Take a deep breath, like a practice breath.” He nodded. “Now do the exact same thing, but with the joint.”
I tried again. “How ‘bout that time? Did I do it?”
“No.” He sighed, taking the weed from me. “Count to five, and then close your eyes and take another deep practice breath.”
I counted to five in my head, watching as Cash took a big puff off the joint. He made it look so easy. I wondered how often he smoked. When I got to five I closed my eyes and started my big deep inhale, I got halfway through when I started coughing and gagging. “What did you just do?”
“Shotgun.” He handed me a bottle of water. “You couldn’t inhale, you were wasting the weed. So. I helped a little.” He waited while I downed half the bottle. “Feel the difference? When the smoke actually goes into your lungs?”
“Yeah.” I went through another coughing spell. “The difference is I almost hacked up a lung.”