Awww, yay. I'm glad you liked this scene because THIS SCENE IS WHY CALLA HAS TO KICK THEM OUT OF THE HOUSE. Like, I will cut it if I have to, but I love this scene. :D
What I kind of want to do is still have Calla kick Wes and Devin out of the house (because she so would). Since I am stretching out the whole "hostage" subplot, Zack will still be living in the house at the time this chapter (and the previous one from Devin's POV) take place. So even though Calla's reason for kicking them out is contrived (so she can talk to Kalen without them around -- and I guess she might have to get Brendan to take Zack somewhere, I don't know), their reason for staying out is Devin wants to be alone with Wes (when Zack isn't around). Or is that still too contrived?
This is Brendan's description of the neighborhood (from chapter 5):
At least Kalen's found us a place to stay. Guess we might be getting close to it now, because the scenery we're trudging past has shifted. One minute we're in the middle of the desert and the next we're in this residential area with big old houses and scraggly tumblebrush lawns. It's not a fancy neighborhood, but you can tell people take pride in their homes. A lot of them have little rock gardens or other ornaments in front and the buildings themselves seem well-maintained.
I follow Kalen up the pebbled driveway of one of the houses. It's painted a weird dark purple but the ornamental cacti in front are trimmed just so. There's a wind sock tacked up by the front door that looks like some kind of dragon, maybe? I'm not sure what it is, but it's monster-y and has big fangs.
So, it's like a middle-classish neighborhood that's not super fancy and the houses are older, big, and reasonably well maintained. Kind of like this house I used to rent when I was younger (and would theoretically be able to afford to own now if it had not long since been bulldozed, but for sure wouldn't have at Devin's age).
Devin is always worried about money because Devin is always worried about money. He never had any growing up. And he's Devin.
With that said... he should not be able to afford the house. I'm pretty sure he is doing illegal things to afford the house. Illegal things he is not proud of and does not want to talk about. Maybe this is something that needs to be acknowledged in the story somehow?
Re: scene 1
What I kind of want to do is still have Calla kick Wes and Devin out of the house (because she so would). Since I am stretching out the whole "hostage" subplot, Zack will still be living in the house at the time this chapter (and the previous one from Devin's POV) take place. So even though Calla's reason for kicking them out is contrived (so she can talk to Kalen without them around -- and I guess she might have to get Brendan to take Zack somewhere, I don't know), their reason for staying out is Devin wants to be alone with Wes (when Zack isn't around). Or is that still too contrived?
This is Brendan's description of the neighborhood (from chapter 5):
At least Kalen's found us a place to stay. Guess we might be getting close to it now, because the scenery we're trudging past has shifted. One minute we're in the middle of the desert and the next we're in this residential area with big old houses and scraggly tumblebrush lawns. It's not a fancy neighborhood, but you can tell people take pride in their homes. A lot of them have little rock gardens or other ornaments in front and the buildings themselves seem well-maintained.
I follow Kalen up the pebbled driveway of one of the houses. It's painted a weird dark purple but the ornamental cacti in front are trimmed just so. There's a wind sock tacked up by the front door that looks like some kind of dragon, maybe? I'm not sure what it is, but it's monster-y and has big fangs.
So, it's like a middle-classish neighborhood that's not super fancy and the houses are older, big, and reasonably well maintained. Kind of like this house I used to rent when I was younger (and would theoretically be able to afford to own now if it had not long since been bulldozed, but for sure wouldn't have at Devin's age).
Devin is always worried about money because Devin is always worried about money. He never had any growing up. And he's Devin.
With that said... he should not be able to afford the house. I'm pretty sure he is doing illegal things to afford the house.
Illegal things he is not proud of and does not want to talk about. Maybe this is something that needs to be acknowledged in the story somehow?