Page 37 of Devil in Disguise
“Hey,” he said gently. “What’s wrong?”
“What, me? Nothing. I’m fine.” She smiled, showing him both dimples, but he wasn’t buying it. “How are you? How’s Houston?”
“Oh, you know. The usual. Team bus. The Marriott. But, hey, Harlan and I went shopping for baby clothes tonight. That was new.”
It worked, because she laughed. “Seriously? That’s agreatimage. I love it.”
“Yep. And you aren’t the only one who loves it, because I found something out tonight. Nothing turns women on like watching a man pick out baby clothes. I practically had to carry Harlan out of there. He was getting mobbed.”
“I bet. Other than maybe seeing a guy with a cute puppy. Which is not a suggestion. No cute puppies.”
“I don’t need a cute puppy,” he said. “I have you.” And grinned when she gasped in outrage. “So how was it saying goodbye to your mom?” He was guessing that could be it. Dyma was feisty as hell, but she was also all alone.
“Kind of strange,” she said, so he’d been right. “I wanted to just be all, haha, you know, Mom, crying and all, but I realized …” She hesitated.
“Yeah?”
“That it’s because she loves me.”
He laughed. “Well, yeah.”
“No, but …” She hesitated again, and that wasn’t like Dyma.
“Baby,” he said, “you can tell me.”
She laughed, a broken sound, and brushed a finger under her eye. “Why do I like that you just called me that?”
“Hey,” he said, keeping it gentle, “everybody needs somebody to love them.”
“All right. Now I …” She blew out a breath, he saw two tears slipping down her cheeks, and he would have given anything to be there with her. She brushed them away with the heel of her hand and said, “Yeah. That’s it, you know? She loved me. And she didn’t have to. I’m her rapist’skid, and she loved me anyway.”
“No,” he said, his heart aching hard. “You were her baby. You always will be.”
A few more tears, and she said, “Maybe I’m worried she won’t love me best once …” A sniff. “Once she has another one, conceived the right way. Now that I’m not the most important person in her life anymore. Can I be that jealous and petty? I just felt like she was … driving away from me, you know? But Iwanther to be happy. I do!”
“I know you do,” he said. “Feelings aren’t simple. Feelings are hard.” Wishing he had better words, the right words. He was better at actions than words. Being at the other end of a video call … that wasn’t even close to where he needed to be.
“Right.” She sat up, blew out another breath, and shook her shoulders. “So. College.”
This tenderness. It took his breath away. “College. Tell me.”
“Well, I haven’t really seen much yet. Just, you know, the dorm. And I took a walk with a couple of friends I made. They’re juniors, so they could show me the campus. The engineering-centric parts, anyway, because it’s huge. We played some Ultimate Frisbee, too. Ate in the dining hall, and I picked up an application. That’s got to be my best bet, don’t you think? I mean, everybody’s going to want the job in the library. Not too many people are going to be signing up for the breakfast shift at the dining hall.”
He wanted to tell her that she didn’t have to work in the dining hall. He wanted tomakeit so she didn’t have to work in the dining hall. He was sure Harlan had already had that conversation with Jennifer, though. And, yeah, he knew all about nurturing a work ethic, about structure and focus and buckling down. He still hated that she had to work in the dining hall. “So how are the roommates?” he asked.
“Oh. Well.” She paused again. “Not so great, but what the heck, I guess, right?”
“Dyma.” He made it a little stern, because whatever she said, she loved that. “Tell me.”
She sighed. “They were pretty snotty to Mom. They’re rich, and their parents are in tech. And I think they were talking about her being a single mom. Like she goes around having babies with different guys. I mean, I’m used to being called trash, but still.”
“Uh … she’s not exactlynotrich anymore, you know.” Dyma was used to being calledtrash?His blood was boiling now.
“Yeah, right?” she burst out. “Do we have signs on us thatsay,‘white trash,’ just because we’re from Idaho, and my mom maybe has a little bit of a hick accent? Besides, who’s richer than Harlan? Well, Bill Gates, obviously, but neither of their dads is Bill Gates. Know how I know that? If he were, they’d have, ‘My dad is Bill Gates’ tattooed on theirarm.How did I end up with the snobby girls? How? And I know it doesn’t matter. ‘Care about what other people think, and you will always be their prisoner.’ Iknowthat. I’m not even going to be there that much, probably. It’s just, I thought … I’d be reinventing myself. Instead, it’s the same thing all over again, and it pisses meoff.And I amnotcamouflaging myself so nobody finds out who I really am. I’m not ashamed of who I am!”
“You shouldn’t be ashamed,” he said. “Who you are is great. And of course it matters. You’re in a dorm room. About two hundred square feet. Pretty hard not to notice the other people in it. You should’ve seen the look onmyroommate’s face when I showed up the first day. Horrified, I think that’s the word.” He laughed. “He was from Amarillo. Not exactly New York City, but he wasn’t expecting to be rooming with a football player. Or a ranch hand’s kid, but I think it was more the football-player thing. He started out by ‘suggesting’ these rules for the room, I remember. In a really prissy voice. Like he expected me to leave my dirty jockstraps lying around.”
“So what happened?” she asked, tucking her knees up closer to her chest, which tilted the screen momentarily so he was looking at her chest. Which was fine, especially since it had his number on it. Yeah, he could live with her wearing his jersey around there. He wondered if she was wearing anything under it. Probably a thong. That was the only underwear he’d ever seen her in. He liked to think it was what she always wore.
