She wiggles her body in a sideways motion. “I need to move. My whole body feels…” She weaves her fingers together into a fist. “Tight. Too tight. I need to move.”
“I thought you wanted tacos?”
“Walk first. Tacos second.” She turns for the door, not waiting for me to follow her.
I catch up with her at the bottom of the stairs. “Want to change out of the cat costume first?”
“I’m a lion. A lioness,” she says, pulling the door open and heading out into the night, leaving me to make my own decision.
I scramble to lock the door and catch up with her. “Where are we going, Cutlass.”
“I didn’t drink enough to be drunk. But I kind of feel drunk.”
“You’re high, Cutlass.”
She swings her head to me, eyebrows furling. “I’m not high. I didn’t smoke. I don’t smoke.”
“You had an edible.”
Her eyebrows lower with confusion and then soar high on her forehead as her eyes grow wide.
Something rumbles in my chest, a sense of protectiveness and rage unleashed by her reaction.
“I’m high?” she asks.
“Who gave you the edible?” I ask. “Was it someone on the soccer team?”
“I really don’t think they’re your enemies,” she says. “I mean, maybe the guy in the room next to yours. He sounds like he might hate you, but the others…” She shakes her head.
“What did you eat? Do you remember who gave it to you or what they looked like?”
Hadley laughs. “It’s so weird. It’s like my brain is saying stop, go, stop, go—like that game we played as kids. Did you play that? Traffic light? This is not what I expected.” She holds her hand out in front of her, stretching and contracting her fingers. “Am I going to be okay? How long does this last? Is Hannah okay?”
“Who gave you the edible?” I demand, my voice gruff with the anger I’m barely managing to hold onto.
“Let’s fight about it tomorrow. How long will this last?” She trails her hand up her arm and then back down.
“I have no idea. I don’t know how much you had.”
“My body feels good.” Her eyes slide to me, emboldened by her high, and heavily contoured with makeup that makes them masterpieces deserving of every memory I’ll have of her going forward. “Maybe we should go skinny-dipping again. There’s a lake over here. North Carolina should be called the state of lakes. How did Minnesota get that name? Everywhere I go here there’s a lake.” She turns, taking a marked trail beside someone’s house.
The moon is bright and heavy in the sky, helping the lampposts light the trail.
“We’re not going skinny-dipping, Cutlass. Not here. Not tonight.”
She pouts. “Why? I bet swimming naked would feel sublime right now.” Her fingers graze the length of her arm again, and then her chest.
“Because you’re high.”
“How high am I? Are my decisions impaired or am I just less inhibited? What if we had sex?”
“The only way I’m willing to test that theory is if you want to call Luke and tell him you don’t like him because he’s boring as hell and talks too much.”
“That’s not why I don’t like him.”
“He’s boring.”
“I’mboring.”