Random on Tour: Los Angeles (Random Series #7) by Julia Kent Page B

services here. To these people, I was dog shit. The old bat next door made that clear. Guy from my part of town?
    Bad news.
    I was bad news, and from the sounds of the argument Maggie was having on the phone with Charlotte, she agreed with Cujo next door.
    Bite me.
    Maggie got off the phone and moved slowly, reaching for a cookie on a plate. Then she put the cookie in her mouth, picked up the plate, and walked from the open kitchen to the foyer.
    She held the plate out toward me.
    “Want one?”
    I gaped in disbelief. “Antibiotic cream and dry clothes are what I need. Not something out of a Pillsbury commercial.”
    She made a face of mock horror. “They’re made from scratch!”
    I just glared.
    “And you need a ride to L.A.” She chewed, never taking her eyes off me.
    “Not sure about that now.”
    She frowned. “You don’t need a ride to L.A.?”
    I snagged a cookie and shoved it in my mouth, chewing like I was eating straw. Rage, fury, embarrassment, and shock all coursed through me. My blood was a soup of those shit emotions we all work so hard to push down. It pumped and pumped through me in a loop, like all that crap would never leave my body.
    Maybe that was true. Maybe it was always there and I was fooling myself thinking I could escape it.
    But making a stupid, impulsive decision not to go to L.A. wouldn’t help, either.
    “No. I do.”
    “You do need a ride? Can’t you take a flight?”
    “No ID.”
    She nodded slowly. Those glowing eyes looked at me like something out of a Pixar movie. “And you can’t take a train, either?”
    “Too slow, plus—they sometimes check ID.”
    “What happened to your stuff? Your wallet?”
    “Got rolled.”
    “Mugged?”
    I nodded.
    “Damn. That sucks.”
    “I also got crotch kicked by a chick who looks like something from a Pokemon episode. It’s been a shit day. You giving me a ride or not?” 
    Her face morphed into a WTF? expression. “Say ‘pretty please.’”
    “ What? ”
    “Ask me nicely.”
    No. I just stared at her. That should work. Most people couldn’t stand being stared at for long periods of time. They always cracked. My calf throbbed where the dog bit me and goosebumps started to form on my arms from being wet and cold, but I locked eyes with her and didn’t move. 
    Pretty soon I could barely breathe. Layer after layer of time and space peeled back as I saw Maggie. Watched her glowing blue eyes twitch, saw how the muscles of her mouth stored some words she wasn’t saying. Our breath became the only sound in the room. It filled my ears, like the tide coming in. 
    “Don’t you need to go home and pack?” she finally asked.
    That’s a normal question, right? Except nothing about this fucked up mess was normal. Nothing about my fucked up home was normal. Nothing about my family was normal. I didn’t really have it in me to answer the question. I stayed silent.
    “Well? Tyler? Frown? Hello? When someone asks you a question, the decent human thing to do is give an answer.”
    “I don’t have one.”
    “You don’t have an answer?”
    “I don’t have a home.”
    “You’re homeless?”
    I thought back on what the apartment looked like after Johnny tossed it. I could answer her question in lots of ways. They all spun around in my head like confetti in a blender. None of them paused long enough for me to see the words.
    It was easier to say what she assumed.
    “Something like that.”
    Alarm filled her eyes. Fuck. That was the wrong answer.
    “I have an apartment. Live there with my dad,” I said quickly. Let’s leave Johnny out of this. Too complicated.
    The fear receded. You tell people what they want to hear and they mostly leave you alone. Except I couldn’t have Maggie leave me alone right now.
    I needed her.
    I hated needing people.
    “Then why did you say you don’t have a home?” 
    I looked around her house, this nice suburban two-story colonial along the edge of the city. No one I knew lived in a house like this