The Devil Wears Girl Jeans [BEING EDITED]

The Devil Wears Girl Jeans (Chapter 48)

“Can radio stations only afford 4 different songs or what?” Dallas asked from the passengers seat, flipping rapidly between the three radio stations that this city had to offer. We were on our way to the mall to get started on our Christmas shopping, and due to some kind of insane miracle, I had gotten to be the driver. My driving wasn't necessarily bad, but I more or less drove like I was playing Mario Kart so things could get a little scary.

“Ugh I know what you mean, if I hear that song about blow job metaphors by Flo Rida one more time, I'm going to stab myself in the eye with an unsterilized needle.”

“Lacey, please. There are children present.” Seth scolded, nudging her shoulder with his.

“I'm not a child. I'm sixteen.” Grant muttered, but everyone else seemed to ignore him. He slumped back into the cracked leather seat and let out a sigh, his breath coming out as fog in the freezing morning air. Poor Grant looked like he hadn't gotten more than 20 minutes sleep last night, and I didn't really blame him. After coming out to his family, his aunt had promptly passed out, his mom started crying, and Dallas had highfived him. Breakfast had been tremendously awkward this morning, since both Mr. And Mrs. Wilks were nowhere to be seen.

“Okay so we're all splitting up when we get in, right?” Lacey asked, adjusting her bun that had somehow managed to migrate to the left side of her head. She had her army jacket buttoned up to her chin in an attempt to keep out the cold that was seeping in through the rusted hole in the floor, but I doubted it was helping at all. I was pretty sure it was actually warmer outside than it was in here.

“Yeah. Kinda have to. I mean, not to give anything away, but one of you is my secret Santa.” Dallas said, turning to look at the other four people who were sandwiched into the backseat.

“Oh okay well that sure narrows it down,” Tristan muttered, staring out the window. He hadn't said more than ten words to anyone for the entire car ride, and I was worried about him. As far as I knew, I hadn't done anything to upset him recently, but then again maybe he was still having trouble accepting the fact that Halden and I were together and would be for a while. Either that, or something entirely different was going on that I wasn't aware of.

“Hartley!” Dallas yelped, grabbing the wheel and jerking it to the left, successfully keeping me from running over a woman and her son. “Thank god we're here, I don't think I could take much more of that.”

The rest of my friends muttered in agreement as I painstakingly manoeuvred the van into the tiny parking spot, half of them jumping out before I even had a chance to shut the engine off.

“Okay, so when are we meeting back?” Dallas asked as we jogged through the wet snow and into the building, my purse thudding against my hip with each step.

“Like, 5, I guess. Do you have your phone on you?”

“Uh, I was kind of really angry after the whole surprise adoption thing and may or may have not have smashed it.”

“If you smash your own phone in anger, you probably aren’t intelligent enough to own a phone. Here, you can use mine, I have a watch.” I sighed, tossing him my phone in a low arc. He caught it in one hand and flashed me a smile before heading off in the opposite direction of where I was going.

A few meters ahead of me, I could see the top of Grant's blonde head bobbing through the crowd, and increased my speed in order to catch up. After dinner, he had locked himself in his room, and it'd taken a hell of a lot of convincing to coax him out of there this morning.

“Hey, Grant! Wait up!” I called, and he tensed up immediately, whipping around to see who was calling him. He relaxed when he saw me, but not by much.

“Hartley. Hey. I wanted to talk to you. Listen, thanks so much for not telling anyone about uhm, that, before I was ready. It means a lot. I'm really sorry for all those times I was mean to you too, I just guess I never really knew you.”

I stared at him for a long time, not entirely sure that I wasn't just hallucinating. Next thing I knew, Grant had pulled me into a hug, his chin resting on my head. That was about the point where I realized that someone must have put some serious narcotics in my orange juice this morning because there was no way this was happening.

“Its no problem, Grant. I'm really proud of you, and I know your family is too.”

“Yeah? Better tell them that, I don't think they're aware.”

With one sad smile and a half hearted salute, Grant turned and sauntered off into the nearest store, leaving me to figure things out all by myself, once again.

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By the end of the day, I had bought Seth a stack of old photos, a vinyl record of some obscure band that I doubted he had ever heard of before, a stuffed dragon, and a scarf. Lacey, Quinn, Seth, Grant and I were all sprawled out around the light pink and slightly stained food court table waiting for Dallas and Tristan, and I took that moment to try and figure out who my secret Santa could be. Unfortunately, everyone's bags were either closed by a drawstring, or stuffed full of decorative tissue paper, leaving me just as clueless as I had been when I started.

“Hey, sorry we're late.” Dallas said, tossing a small bag onto the table and flopping down beside me. “Here's your phone back, by the way. You have like 4 missed calls from Ash, you should probably call him back.”

I stared at the phone in his hand as if it was a four eyed rabbit, because I couldn't for the life of me figure out why Ash would have called me not only once, but 4 times. He was Halden's friend, and we'd kind of drifted apart after Halden and I had started dating. Now that I thought about it, Ash and Halden has drifted apart too, which made me even more confused as to why he was calling me.

I hesitantly took the phone from him and was just about to hit redial, when a hand closed around my wrist, pulling the phone gently away from my ear.

“Don't.” Tristan said, the same pained look on his face that he'd been wearing all morning, “It's better if you hear it from me.”