I’ve been so busy training and worrying about my parents and Chloe that I hadn’t noticed there was a change.
Slowly, without even realizing it, I stopped being the new girl.
I notice his leather boots first, and when I look up at Vas—dressed in gray and black even though it’s September in Arkansas—he’s peering down at us like we’re the neighborhood kids who’ve egged his car.
“Is everyone okay?” His voice scratches like sandpaper.
Vivien flashes her teeth and points her thumb in the air. “All good here. Harley was trying to cremate some brownies, that’s all.”
Vas’s green eyes fall on me. “Was there a fire?”
It takes me a second to remember myself. “No,” I say finally, shaking my head to be clear. “Just a lot of smoke.”
“I didn’t hear the alarm go off,” he says, and I realize that what sounds like stiffness is actually concern.
“The batteries died in our smoke detector,” Vivien says with a sigh.
Vas frowns. “Do you have any spares?”
“Nope,” Dexi says, squinting from the sunlight. “They’ve been dead since the last time we almost had a fire and you lectured us about the importance of fire safety.”
“So you haven’t had batteries for seven months?” he asks, lifting his brow.
Dexi clicks her tongue. “Correct.”
Vas shakes his head and walks back to his trailer without another word, returning with a box of AA batteries and a scowl on his face. He disappears into our trailer, and a few minutes later the alarm sounds for a brief second. When he steps back onto the grass, he’s holding an empty box.
“Thanks, Vas. You’re the best,” Vivien says in a singsong voice.
“The best,” Dexi repeats.
Vas clenches his jaw, shakes his head, and wanders off without a word.
Vivien and Dexi laugh beside me, but all I can think is how even if the rest of the circus has started to look at me differently, there’s one person who has been the exact same since day one.
And even though I shouldn’t care what a boy thinks—especially when I have a trillion other things going on—the thought of Vas truly seeing me sends sparks through my bloodstream.
Shreveport, Louisiana October—Week 7
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
I have vegetable korma, rice, and peshwari naan for lunch, along with an enormous glass of water. People always talk about drinking eight glasses a day, but I think I’m the only person I know who actually does it. Because if I don’t hydrate, I’ll wake up in the middle of the night with the most painful leg cramps in the history of the universe. Seriously, Wolverine probably went through less pain when they bonded his bones with adamantium.
Dexi told me bananas help too, so now I eat one first thing every morning. The Lunch Box has a whole crate of them that never seems to run out.
Vivien plucks at her own meal—boiled rice with grilled chicken, steamed spinach, and carrots. “I think my favorite things in the South are deep-fried Oreos.”
Dexi pretends to gag, and I scrunch my nose.
“Gross,” we both say.
Vivien narrows her eyes at us. “I bet neither of you have even tried it.”
“I don’t need to, the same way I have no interest in tasting cyanide.” Dexi blows gently at her ginger tea, scattering the rising heat. “You don’t have to try something to know you don’t like it.”
“I thoroughly disagree,” Jin scoffs, falling into the empty space beside Dexi. His bowl of curry lands with a thud on the table. “I try everything once. Some things twice. And some things I know I don’t like, but I try them again anyway because who says you can’t change your mind?”
“I swear to God, if you’re talking about sex—” Vivien is already rolling her eyes and she hasn’t even finished her sentence.
“I’m talking about food, you perv,” Jin corrects. “Though, to be clear, it works in any scenario.”
I laugh before realizing how strange it is for Jin to be sitting here of his own accord. Normally I’m like a social land mine—wherever I am, nobody will be.
“What, did your latest hookup end in disaster, or is there a more garbage reason as to why you’re sitting with us again?” Dexi challenges. I guess I’m not the only one who thinks it’s weird.
“Yeah, traitor,” Vivien barks. “Doesn’t Maggie have you under strict orders not to associate with us as long as we’re friends with Harley?”
My skin prickles. It’s the first time any of them have said out loud what I’ve known all this time. That Maggie wasn’t just trying to turn