I grab it from him and head towards the front.
“Ready?” I ask them as Demi looks at our resin ashtrays and Amy admires our hookah pens.
“Yea, I’m starving though.” Demi replies without looking up.
“I know a burger spot,” I look over at Amy, “and don’t worry. It’s organic, grass-fed beef.”
Demi laughs and Amy rolls her eyes smiling.
As we walk out the door and towards the burger spot, I swear I see a figure looking at us from a distance but when I turn my head to look, there’s no one there.
I need to stop being paranoid.
I pull my phone out to check on Mason just in case.
Chapter 13
Demi
It’s been pretty chill in the Peterson household lately.
I’d chalk that up to Connor not being here though.
Canon has been making me feel like an alien in my own skin. My body gets hot and hyper aware whenever he’s around.
It’s never done anything like this before, not even when I dated my ex. Sure, he got me horny and we hooked up, but he never really got to know the real me.
He never sat down and asked me about my drawings or realized I was going through something behind the scenes.
It seems like nothing gets passed Canon though.
I leave the library where I browsed through all the books I’ve read over a thousand times already, bored out of my mind with nothing to do. Amy and her mom went for their weekly spa session. They offered for me to come but I opted out because I know that’s how they bond, and it needs to be just the two of them.
I make it back to the room I’m staying in upstairs and can’t help but start to think about my mom. When I was younger, we used to always paint pictures of different animals and try to make a competition out of it by guessing what animal the other person painted.
I walk over and pull my suitcase out from under the bed, digging into the front pocket and pulling out one of my favorite pictures.
It’s of me and my mom holding up our paintings with a small cameo from the top of my dad’s finger. I’m smiling at the picture when my body suddenly heats up and I can feel the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.
“Who’s that?” Canon asks from behind me. He sounds pretty close, making me feel like he’s testing the boundaries.
I turn, and sure enough, my sock brushes against the tip of his shoe. He was leaning over my shoulder to look at the picture, but now his face is a few inches away from mine.
I take a step back.
“You really have to stop sneaking up on people.”
He smiles. “My bad. Force of habit.” He takes a step toward me. “Who was that?”
“Pushy much?” I cross my arms. “My mom.”
He lets his shock slip through his features. “She looks like she can be your twin sister. She looking for a boy toy?”
“Ha, very funny,” I say sarcastically. “She barely even has time for her daughter, let alone a boy toy.”
I take a seat on the bed, ready to end this conversation, but Canon gets comfortable and sits backwards on the vanity seat.
“Damn. I mean, you did say it’s ‘cause of her job right?” He asks and I remember I told him my parents travelled when I gave the tour.