“Haze, stop! I can’t chase you. That’s cheating.”
I watch him open the large glass doors leading to the balcony. Before I know it, he’s on the floating dock next to the house and throwing my phone as far as he can into the lake.
He walks back into the living room seconds later, laughter wrapping him up, and sits back down next to me. I immediately punch him in the arm with all the strength I can gather and scowl at him. After a few minutes, I give up. It’s not making a difference. If anything, it’s just amusing him more.
“Please, I did you a favor throwing that nightmare away. You should be thanking me.” He leans forward and glances over my shoulder to see what I’m doing. “What are you waiting for? Open it.”
“What’s the deal with everyone giving me stuff today?” I admire the phone—forced to admit that it’s much nicer than anything I’ve ever owned before—and press the button to turn it on.
“Haze, I… I don’t know how to thank you.” I flip the phone around and assess it some more. It’s huge. How am I even supposed to put this in my pocket?
“You can call me Master for the next few weeks and we’re good.”
“You wish, you sicko.” I chuckle.
He tears his eyes away from me. “Had to try.” He gets up from the couch. “You hungry?”
“Famished.”
“What do you want? We got pizza, pizza, and pizza.”
I swallow a small laugh. “How about pizza?”
“Good choice. Coming right up.” He glances at me one last time before turning the corner. Deep down, I’m glad that Maria allowed me to stay here with him. I found out more about Haze in the one day I’ve been here than in the whole time that I’ve known him…
And something tells me there’s way more to come.
8
Close And Personal
“Okay. Why the fuck is the car flying?” Haze says, and I break out into laughter, sinking deeper into the couch. We’ve reached the end of Grease.
Just because I’m watching it with him, it feels like I’m rediscovering the movie—even though I’ve seen it a hundred times—and finding every joke funnier. I’m guessing this might have something to do with the alcohol coursing through my veins.
Haze thought it’d be a good idea to drink the beers he bought earlier and watch a movie while we ate dinner. One thing’s certain: he sure didn’t expect the only DVD left in the house to be Grease.
“Are we going to another dimension? Or space?” He frowns, tilting his head to the side.
I laugh. “Just go with it.”
“I mean, I get it. They graduated, they’re happy, the girl got hot, and the bad boy’s gone soft, but what the hell is this? A flying car? Is this a sci-fi movie and I missed it?”
The closing credits begin, and after arguing with me about the necessity of the flying car scene for a few minutes, Haze gets up and scoops the beer bottles off the ground.
“I’m going to throw these out. Be right back.” He turns around one second before he leaves. “You want another one?”
“Sure. Why not?”
He walks out of the room, and I let myself gape at the stars through the living room’s high windows. This is breathtaking.
“There you go.” Haze walks back into the room and hands me my beer.
“Thanks.”
When he sits down next to me, we’re left with nothing but silence and this tension that follows us everywhere we go. My eyes divert to the grocery store pizza box on the table.
“That pizza was beyond disgusting, by the way.”