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

fine.”
    “What have you eaten? Other than Lena’s cookies?”
    That gave me pause. My answer would have to be nothing . I wasn’t admitting that, though. 
    My stomach made a nervous sound heard only in movies directed by Ridley Scott.
    I gave her a look that said back off .
    She did. We drove in tense peace, listening to anything but Random Acts of Crazy. Maggie’s taste in music leaned toward Tori Amos. Christina Perry. Sad chick indie rock. I was fine with that for an hour, but my brain would wave a white flag and beg for POW status soon if I had to listen to nothing but that for twenty-nine hours. 
    After about a half hour on the road, she turned to me and asked, “When are you going to tell me what really happened?”
    “Huh?” I knew this was coming, but it was easier to pretend I didn’t. 
    “You didn’t get mugged.”
    “I got cleaned out.” The memory of this morning made my gut ache. Nothing like being betrayed by your own brother. The one you helped raise since you were eleven. 
    Not thinking about that. Not thinking about that. Not thinking about that.
    “That’s not the same as mugged. Muggers don’t get their hands on your wallet, phone and instrument.”
    I said nothing.
    “C’mon, Tyler. You owe me an explanation.” 
    Owe. They all said that eventually. My life was a mixture of being told what I did and didn’t deserve, and what I did and didn’t owe people.
    “I owe you money to pay you back. I owe you my gratitude for helping. I do not owe you an explanation,” I said, all in a voice that I hoped meant she’d put this topic to rest.
    “Hah!”
    Guess not.
    “You think you can just be the Emperor of the Car Trip?” She started using her hands to gesture wildly. 
    Fuck.
    “And declare silence? Nope. You owe me an explanation because you have to admit it was pretty fucking bizarre to have you reject me two months ago, come to Joe’s hospital room, insult me, then kiss me, and a few days later show up at my home in St. Louis!”
    Yeah. She was right. It was loony.
    “Okay.”
    “Okay? Okay? That’s all you have to say?”
    “I guess so.”
    “It’s like talking to a brick wall,” she declared to the air, as if it were listening.
    I could handle being compared to the brick wall. Brick walls are solid. They stay put. They have your back. They do what they need to do and leave people alone.
    Best of all?
    They don’t talk.
    “Who stole from you?”
    My body went cold and my stomach turned into a twist tie.
    “What?”
    “Who stole from you?”
    “A guy.”
    “You know him?”
    I sighed. “Yes.”
    “Was it a drug deal gone bad?”
    She went there, huh? Because they always go there. You look like me, you come from my part of the city, you get stereotyped.
    I took a deep breath through my nose. My body was crawling with a prickly feeling that someone once said was shame. A teacher at school, maybe middle school. I don’t remember. We were learning about feelings in some social studies class and she said that shame was a social emotion. Other people make it happen to you.
    But you have to do it together. They trigger it and you join in.
    “Drug deal?”
    “Well.” She stopped herself, her voice going quiet.
    Maybe I could trigger shame in someone, too.
    “You assume that’s the only reason someone like me could get rolled?”
    Her cheeks went pink and she stared straight ahead at the road. Those wild hands went white-knuckled on the steering wheel.
    “Tyler, I—”
    “Believe what you want.”
    “What?” 
    “Believe what you want,” I repeated, then shrugged. “That’s what people like you do.”
    Her eyebrows softened and her eyes narrowed. “People like me?”
    I said nothing. Why bother? I’d said too much already, and I really didn’t need to get kicked out of the car.
    “Tyler? You can’t just fold up and go silent after saying something like that!”
    But I did, nestling down and facing the door.
    “Tyler!” she shrieked. If she thought that