Savage Vandal (82 Street Vandals #1) - Heather Long Page 0,82

Jasper has one in his. Tell you what, come on.” He caught my hand in his and half pulled me down the hall.

“I don’t want to go to Jasper’s room,” I argued. My body protested the lie. I wanted more than Jasper’s room, but I had zero intention of chasing him down after his reaction in the studio.

“Trust me, I don’t either,” Freddie assured me as he guided me down the hall. “I don’t feel like having him wring my neck. Though that’s a step up from having my balls removed.” He checked a door, then pulled a slender case out of his back pocket and knelt down at the door with a pair of picks.

That’s what they were. Lockpicks.

He slid them in, and a moment later, the tumblers gave.

The door opened to another bedroom, this one as neat as Kestrel’s, as colorful as mine, but with darker woods and heavier blues. There was a huge desk with tools scattered over it and slouchy chairs, as well as a video game system and a huge television.

The door had been locked.

“Here,” Freddie said, thrusting a remote control at me. “Make yourself comfortable and stay here, okay? I’m gonna run down and get you food.” He was halfway out the door before he slid to a stop and looked at me. “What do you want?”

I needed to carb up after that dance, but right now, I didn’t want anything fancy. “Whose room is this?”

“Tell me what you want to eat, and I’ll tell you whose room it is.” Freddie waggled his eyebrows at me, and I sighed. Glancing over the room, I paused on a familiar T-shirt.

“It’s Vaughn’s.”

“Wow, you’re amazing. How did you even guess that? Or did you guess? You know, never mind. I forgot, never play poker with you. Um…food?” Freddie sounded more disgruntled than impressed.

“I really don’t need to eat.” Yes, I’d said I was hungry, but I wasn’t starving. Eating after a workout was just an old habit. I’d only been here a few weeks, and my real life seemed so far away.

Freddie squinted at me. “Yeah, that doesn’t work for me. You’re not some weirdo herbivore or anything, right?”

I picked up Vaughn’s shirt. It smelled like him. “You don’t know?” That was curious. “Rome knows my favorite dance shoe.”

“Rome’s got champion stalker tendencies and he likes art. Dance is art, you know? He used to hit some of the magazine stands over on 20th, they had the best one. The artsier ones. Me, I was more into the tabloids and skin rags.” A faint rush of pink touched his ears as he rubbed the back of his neck. “You never posed for any of those, right?”

“No,” I said and sank down into the soft bean bag chair. It was huge, kind of like a nest, and I sank into it.

“Damn.”

“I’m not an herbivore,” I clarified. “So as long as it’s not spoiled or made out of something I can’t identify, I’ll eat it.”

He gave a little half nod and closed the door behind him. The lock tumblers secured, and I leaned back in the chair, pressing Vaughn’s shirt to my nose. It took a minute longer than I expected, but the thump of Freddie hitting a wall made me laugh. He was probably asking himself if I had posed for a magazine.

I probably shouldn’t tease him. I couldn’t help it. Freddie was funny. I pointed the remote at the television and turned it on, then skimmed the channel for the news.

They never turned the news on downstairs.

I was half asleep when the door opened and light spilled in the room. I smothered a yawn and tried to sit up. I hadn’t meant to go to sleep, but this floofy chair was the most comfortable thing I’d ever sat in before. It was like a ginormous body pillow that hugged.

And smelled like Vaughn. Not that the latter had anything to do with my interest or why I was still holding his shirt.

“Did you have to kill the cow or something yourself?” The flippant question was meant for Freddie, because not only had he not come back, it had easily been a couple of hours. The news channels had offered me glimpses of the outside world, but it had been far too early in the day for anything local. I had watched a gameshow and then found reruns of Law and Order.

It was one of the staples of road life. No matter what town we were in, someone had