Page 7 of Her Crew

A smile creeps across my face, and I slide my tongue between my teeth until the barbell clanks against them. She notices my tongue ring for the first time, and she swallows hard. I’m clearly not something she’s used to seeing. And I kind of like it.

“We’re as legit as we can be.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“The money is legit, and that’s all that matters.”

Her ears perk up when I mention money. I’m guessing she doesn’t have a job, based on the desperation in her eyes.

“So you lie to people for a living?” she says, her lips tightening.

“Yes.”

“Is that what all this is? Manipulation?”

I bite down on the tip of my tongue. “No, Tegan. I wanted to help you.”

She stands, throwing the lid down on her food and swiping it off the table. “I don’t need your help.”

She looks around—for the guard, I presume—before rushing toward the exit. I hurry to catch up to her. I have no clue what I did to piss her off.

“Tegan!” I call toward her back. “What if I could offer you a job?”

She pushes through the doors, but I go after her. She won’t get away this easily.

Chapter 5

Tegan

I step into the night air, but my feet become lead weights. I want to keep walking, because fuck that guy. Liars fucking suck. But then my thoughts go to the restaurant, where I lied about being pregnant, and the weight of my hypocrisy pushes me into the earth and stops me from disappearing into the parking lot.

A job? This is probably a sympathy gig. Or my fat ass will be brought into sexual slavery or something if I go with him. I haven’t been offered a job since I’ve started trying to find one, though, and maybe this is worth the risk.

Maybe this is my out.

“You’d offer me a job?” I say, turning on my heels to face him just as the mall doors close behind us. I heard him following me, the jerk. He couldn’t let me make my escape in peace. Now he’s reeling me in with promises I shouldn’t believe.

“Yes.” He clears his throat. “Well, I can try.”

I raise my eyebrows, encouraging him to explain.

He nibbles his bottom lip. “I’d have to ask my boss.”

“This is a waste of time, then. Bosses don’t like me. That’s why I’m still unemployed.”

“I think he’d like how you look.”

“Poor?” I snap back.

I look down his body and notice what I didn’t notice before. The rip in his jeans was clearly done by a knife. His shoes look older than me . . . until I study them a bit closer. The dirt is superficial—slapped onto the top and not that deep. And we can’t forget the attractive (to me, at least) piercings that make him look like a troubled kid.

He’s trying to look downtrodden. He’s trying to look like me.

“Were you ever even poor, dude?” I ask, tears crawling toward the crease in my lids. “Or are you just trying to look the part?”

His lips tighten, and he looks serious for the first time since I met him, which wasn’t very long ago. He fingers the intentional tear in his jeans and shakes his head. “I’m playing off my old life. What I am now doesn’t mean I wasn’t poor then. It doesn’t negate what I’ve been through. The money in my pocket doesn’t suddenly give me privileges I’ve never had.”

“That’s what your boss does, though? Scoops up the hungry and needy like some kind of savior?”