Elise fakes a yawn. “I’m going to head up. Are you going to watch TV?”
“I won’t judge you for wanting to have intimate shower relations with your hot boyfriend, you know.”
Her mouth drops open. “You hush, Lydia Bettencourt! You gave Catherine such a hard time for saying things like that.”
“He’s, like, obviously waiting for you. There’s no way he’s not clean yet.”
“I am going tobed.Iloveyou. Don’t stay up too late, please.”
Elise leaves the living room with her chin up. She really thinks I don’t hear her taking the stairs two at a time.
I wait a little while, then go up to my room.Myroom. Gabriel said I can pick a new paint color for the walls. He said he doesn’t care if I hang drawings on the walls. He said he’d buy me a drafting table, if I wanted.
No wonder Elise is in love with him.
I scroll through the list of schools, clicking on links and reading about all the prestigious, illustrious programs I could be part of. These people actuallylikeart. They wouldn’t act like it was a dirty little secret.
Oof. More emotions.
Rainbows and explosions and electricity. This is, like, a whole new life.
I need some air, otherwise I’ll never be able to sleep.
At the back of the brownstone, there’s a secret-ish staircase that leads up to the roof. I take a blanket with me and go.
Only the roof isn’t empty.
Nate’s up here.
He’s sitting in one of the two folding chairs, tipped back, his ankles crossed on the brick railing that goes all around the rooftop.
Ugh. Rainbows. Explosions. Electricity. How does he have such nice hair? I want to run my fingers through it and just…look at his face. His bruise is getting better every day. Soon I’m going to be able to decide if he’s model-hot or lacrosse-team hot. Not that he’s ever played lacrosse.
He blows a cloud of smoke into the air. “Hey, princess. Didn’t anybody teach you it’s rude to stare?”
“Hey, asshole. Are you smoking weed?”
“Cigarettes are for people who want to die.”
“Good to know you don’t.” I go sit next to him in the other folding chair. We’re not very high up, but it’s an interesting perspective. Headlights and streetlights and lamps in windows and us, looking down on all of it.
I tuck the blanket over my lap and watch him take another drag.
Nate’s eyes glint. He’s got these green-gray eyes like nothing I’ve ever seen. He offers me the joint like it’s a rose, then frowns. “You’re probably too rich to smoke weed.”
“Um, okay? Then you’realsotoo rich.” I take the joint out of his hand, lock eyes with him, and inhale. His eyes stay on my lips. Funny, since he thinks I’m such aprincess.I let the smoke out slow. “A picture would last longer,” I whisper.
“You want me to jerk off to a picture of you smoking weed?” He gestures for the joint back, and I hand it over, pretending my face isn’t hot.
“What’s the alternative, you steal some of my panties?”
He shrugs, then passes me the joint. Nate blows out the smoke for, like, thirty seconds before he answers me. “Your panties are fine, I guess.”
I cough out the smoke in a very smooth, mature manner. “You stole my panties? Already? Are you that obsessed with me?”
He laughs out loud, and my heart does a swoop like a clean line on thick paper. “Relax, princess. It was a joke. I never jerk off with your panties. They’re too high-class for me.”
“You havenoway to know that.”