Page 19 of Burning Demons (Burning Torments #1)

Chapter 19

Tate

Phone in hand, scrolling up and down over Franklin’s contact, I contemplated calling or deleting it for the hundredth time today. Why had I saved his number? Why had I named it Franklin in my contacts? His name now flashed on the screen with each text. The chain held tons of messages from him, messages I never answered, but he didn’t stop. This was the sort of thing that might have thrilled me a year ago, before I knew how he really felt about me. This wasn’t love.

I stared at the little green phone icon on the screen that called to me. He’d answer. He’d come. He’d take me back because he saw me as his.

His .

Wren had called me the same thing at lunch yesterday, and it had been completely different. Franklin saw me as a possession, his right to claim, his lost luggage. Wren wanted me to be his boyfriend.

Boyfriend, a silly label, but I wanted it. I wanted him. But before I allowed myself that bit of happiness, I had to come clean. I supposed I didn’t owe anyone explanations about my past, or maybe I did, fuck if I knew. Telling him now, anyone really, was more about saying it out loud, confessing to the sky, putting the words into the universe so that they stopped drowning me. And Wren was the person I trusted to unload on.

Lucky him.

He was there. A solid force to prop against. A fixed presence I could focus on.

Now, I just needed to tell myself, and believe it, that Wren was a much better shoulder to lean on than Franklin.

As if to prove how much he got me, Wren had stopped at the ancient gas station on the way home from school yesterday. Pete had been working, and Wren picked up a new pack of cigarettes for me. He hadn’t said a word. Nothing about how they’d kill me or anything stupid I already knew.

I’d smoked enough to make a forest fire proud, calming my shaking hands so that my head was mostly back to normal when Franklin sent yet another text. With lucid thinking and rationalizing, I knew what I needed to do.

Cut the cord. Snap the link. I needed to delete the contact that sat like a festering wound in my phone, but every time I hovered over the tiny trash can, I couldn’t make myself push it. It would do no good to ask me why. I had no clue. I was done with Franklin, I told myself over and over. I might not have mentally been where I needed or wanted to be yet, but I was in a better place with better people.

Just delete the fucking thing!

A minute later, Wren burst out of the double doors twenty yards from me. A frown pulled his features low. He flexed one hand open and closed as he marched my way like a storm cloud. He’d helped the cheerleaders put together their booth for face painting earlier and had said he’d meet me here after he cleaned up a little. Dust covered his jeans, and his hair was damp, but he was still as fucking sexy as ever.

I didn’t move, and Wren stopped a few feet away, cutting his eyes to the students milling around, half of which were staring at us. Percy, my little lab partner, was trailing after his sister as they headed toward the festival. His fingers were flying across his phone, but he glanced up long enough to wave at me. I waved back.

“Who’s that?” Wren asked.

“Percy. You don’t have any classes with him? He’s pretty cool. Smart too. Skipped a grade.” I reached for him on instinct but let my fingers fall short of touching him. “What’s wrong?”

“Mr. Jimenez wants me to do a solo at the concert in the spring.”

“The thing at the civic center?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s bad?”

“It’s …”

The issue with this dawned rather quickly. “A lot of attention?”

“Yeah.”

“So? You can handle it.”

He was already shaking his head. “No. No. Fuck, no. I can’t solo.”

I rolled my eyes and huffed. “Don’t be stupid. You’re the best in the band. And you know I’m not just saying that, or you wouldn’t have been chosen.”

He laughed and scratched his head. “I know I’m the best.” Mmmm, sexy confidence. “It’s not that. I’ll be in a spotlight. They’ll be staring.”

“I thought you were getting over that.”

“I was. I mean, I am, but this is huge. This is, like, thousands of people.”

“So? Thousands of people you don’t know. It won’t matter anyway. The second you start playing, everyone will be lost in the music.” He didn’t seem convinced. “Do you know what they want you to play?”

He nodded.

“Played it before?”

Another nod.

I grinned and punched his shoulder. “Stop thinking about it, and show me this festival shit.”

Wren snorted and followed my lead.

The event was open to the whole town, and both students and adults were scattered everywhere. By the time we walked through the fall-themed arched entrance of the festival, cluttered with people, my scowl matched his earlier one. I wasn’t fond of crowds.

Fingers wrapped around my elbow, stopping me in my tracks and startling the hell out of me. As soon as Wren had my attention, he dropped his hold, leaving behind a cold band where his hand had been. He jerked his chin at the booths to our left serving food.

Wren picked his way past several stalls swarmed with hungry students. Each had similar fare, but one thing united them: deep-fried.

Pickles, shrimp, apple fritters, onion rings, okra, and chicken. If it sat still long enough, I was sure it was battered, fried, and offered at one of these tables. There was BBQ, sweet tea, and lemonade. But the strangest of all the offerings had to be one booth that seemed to be serving only one item. The banner above it declared in huge black letters: GRITS.

“They need an entire stand for grits?” I asked. Winnie had severed them plenty since I came here. They weren’t amazing or anything, so this was weird.

Wren snickered. “There are more ways to eat them than with butter or sugar.”

“Like what?”

“Well, uh, with cheese, or sausage, or shrimp. Or you can combine a bunch of stuff. Some people mix in BBQ or eggs. Think of them like pasta or baked potatoes. You can load them up with all kinds of shit.” I lowered my brows, trying to picture this, and Wren laughed. “Come on, City Boy.”

Wren chose the food and ordered for us, and then we sat at one of the benches out in the center of it all. The basket he sat in front of me had fried corn on a stick and the largest corn dog I had ever seen.

“You sure about this?” I asked.

Wren pulled his brows inward as if confused. When I dipped the corn dog in mustard, then licked it off before I closed my lips around the tip, those brows skyrocketed.

“Fuck my life,” he groaned.

I could hardly eat from laughing. Wren threw a wadded-up napkin at me.

After we finished, we headed for the rows of games first and found Sienna, along with some football players, including Alex, unfortunately. Wren challenged Alex to a football and basketball toss, which he good-naturedly lost. However, Wren won the duck-hunt-like games. Sienna snapped candids of the crowds, then me, then pulled me away for more under a tree.

“This light is perfect,” she said of the cloudy day.

She directed me to smile this way and that way, then chatted with me and snapped more.

All in all, the afternoon hadn’t been too terrible. Wren caught up to us, and not long after, Sienna bounced off to be lost in the bustle of everything. We waved at Winnie in one of the booths selling jars of something that might have been edible. Kids ran around with pumpkins painted on their faces and scarecrow-shaped balloons.

The fire department was here in case of an emergency, so Wren introduced me to Mr. Stevens. I had nearly forgotten about the guy who had once sparked debilitating jealousy and fear inside me. When Wren mentioned him, I had worried the older, experienced man was moving on Wren. The same as one had done to me. The guy was friendly, though, and those embers stayed cold.

“It’s too crowded, and I need a smoke,” I confessed when it seemed as if we’d seen everything there was to see.

When I glanced at Wren, finding no judgment, he jerked his head in one direction, and I followed as he led us to an area behind the restrooms near the football stadium. The crowds were close, but we were out of everyone’s line of sight.

“Oh, fuck, yeah,” I mumbled as smoke billowed out of my mouth.

Wren watched me until I squirmed, then narrowed his eyes. “What’s it gonna be, City Boy?”

I wanted to pretend I didn’t know what he was asking, but I couldn’t play stupid. He had patiently waited for me to answer his boyfriend question, so this push wasn’t that bad.

“You really want to date me?” I asked, holding my cigarette a little higher, and added, “I’m full of bad habits and demons.”

“You think I’m not?”

I snorted. “What’s your worst?”

“Is it a contest?” He turned and fell against the back side of the building, then stared at the sky.

One cigarette became two, then three before we headed back into the crowds. We waved bye to Winnie and went home. Wren didn’t bring up the dating thing again, and as the night wore on, I felt like the biggest asshole for not answering him. He deserved better than me.

And I had one way to prove that: telling him the truth.