Twisted (Delirium #1) Read Free

cinnamon gaze locked on him reflected the agony burning what bits of his soul still existed.
    “Give us a minute.”
    “Dude, seriously? Where should we go?”
    “Don’t know. Don’t care.”
    “Hooters!” Dodger shouted.
    “Seriously?” Betsy turned her ire on him. Her short red hair swished, her face contorted in revulsion. “Of all the places you could eat, you want Hooters ?”
    “Chica, it ain’t safe to diss the wings,” he warned.
    “She’s a foodie,” Shasta replied.
    Betsy shook a finger at Dodger, then Chaz and Ace. “If I see even one grope—with hands or eyes—of boobage or ass, we’re out of there.”
    “So I can lick?” Ace taunted. “I’m a tonguing god. I can give references…or a test drive if you’d prefer.”
    The slap reverberated through the room. I winced and pointed toward the door. “Head out before I help her find an axe.”
    She whirled, her blue eyes firing daggers my direction. “Et tu?”
    “Pick your battles, pixie. Cut him some slack. The tour left us edgy and my man over there’s got a short leash as it is.” I forced my gaze on Betsy, but my words were for Shas. “We aren’t here to stir up the past. We’re here to rest and fix shit we fucked up.”
    “Fine.” She opened the backpack she’d been carrying and pulled out a small purse. Shouldering it and setting the backpack down, she tip-tapped her way toward the door, turning halfway there when she realized she didn’t have shadows. “Let’s get our grub on, pervs.”
    “You’re leaving?” Shasta’s shock echoed mine.
    Two things held true in White Bluffs. Football reigned king on Friday nights and the Pinky Sisters were a packaged set. Where one went, you found the other. Never separated, impossible to forget.
    “You’re leaving?”
    I swiped my hands through my hair and forced myself to remain still. Betsy jetted to her sidekick and tugged her into an embrace. Hushed whispers ran between them a moment before she severed the embrace and headed through the door, her fingers swiping her cheeks.
    Shasta took several steps backward when I approached. “This isn’t a good idea. I should go.”
    “Don’t run. Give me a moment, please.”
    “You had your moment on stage. I’ve given you enough, Caleb. There’s nothing left for you to take.”

Chapter Two
    Shasta
    “Give him a chance, dammit. I want my rock princess back.” 
    “She’s gone, Bets. I need to move on, let the past go.”
    “Bullshit. You’ve ghosted through life since he left. Give. Him. A. Chance.” She pulled away. “Pinky Sisters don’t chicken out.”
    Ugh. She’d penned the moniker in recess during Mrs. Ward’s class. I should’ve nixed it then. Too late now. Our conversation before she turn coated her way out of the makeshift room banged around in my head, but my treacherous body honed in on the man prowling toward me as though I was filet mignon and he hadn’t eaten in a century.
    My nipples hardened, my pulse quickened and my tattered heart pounded, as though sensing the man who’d walked away with pieces of it had returned for more. I surged backward, a defense mechanism activated by too many tequila-induced nights of what-if scenarios.   
    “This isn’t a good idea. I should go.”
    “Don’t run. Give me a moment, please.” Desperation crossed his face. He reached for me, but drew his hand back and looked upward. “She didn’t tell you, did she?”
    “Bets operates with her own sometimes questionable agenda.” I forced a smile and allowed my inner hussy a slow visual molestation of the man who’d starred in my every fantasy.
    The spiked hair from the stage had been washed and left to hang in wild disarray. My fingers itched to run through the thick mass, but I avoided his eyes. No way was I prepared for the assault of the gray depths I sensed watching me.
    Dragon tattoos trailed down both shoulders and melded into one another along his upper chest. One red, one blue. My mouth dried as I tracked the