Part 14 (1/2)

It burned like a wildfire in my lungs and I immediately began to cough. ”Jesus,” I said as the car began to spin around me. ”Jesus, what is that s.h.i.+t?”

From the front of the car, Sonya turned around, took one look at me, and glared at Manny. ”You dumb f.u.c.ker,” she said, ”what the h.e.l.l is wrong with you? Don't give that s.h.i.+t to people without telling them what it is.”

Panic bubbled up in my chest. ”Why?” I demanded, although it seemed like everything was suddenly very far away. ”Why, what's in it?”

”Nothing,” Manny said. ”It's just pure medical grade weed.” He grinned at me and his teeth were as white as a s.h.i.+ning moon.

”Holy s.h.i.+t,” I said. The top of my head was trying to unscrew itself and float away. ”What the f.u.c.k...”

”You dumb motherf.u.c.ker,” Sonya said again, and I had no idea if she was talking to me or Manny. Manny just laughed and Sonya leaned on the horn again.

Time did a weird thing and stretched out very thin before snapping back again when someone opened the front door of the van.

”Me, me, me!” Carter was saying. ”I called shotgun before we even left the house!”

I heard Kent heave a sigh. ”Fine,” he snapped. ”Enjoy it.”

I turned my head in a haze, just in time to see Carter hop into the front seat. He turned and gave me a huge wink and I realized, with all the clarity of a weed revelation, that he was playing matchmaker. Trying to set me and Kent up.

I burst into the most inappropriate giggles ever just as Kent climbed into the van.

To my pot-addled brain he looked insanely attractive. Not just hot, but panty-melting hot. Which was weird since I had never ever gotten h.o.r.n.y after smoking pot, but suddenly just seeing Kent set my nerves on fire.

Then Kent locked eyes with me and I was. .h.i.t by the sudden, heady paranoia of really good weed.

He knows! my brain screamed at me. Knew I got turned on just seeing him, knew I got off to the sound of him jacking off in the next room, knew that I wanted nothing more than to screw his brains out, or to have him screw my brains out and Jesus, this weed was really good. He probably knew I was high, too. High as the moon. Moon. Mooooooooooooooooooon.

I laughed harder.

”Did you give her a hit?” I heard Kent ask Manny.

”Yeah, man. She looked like she needed it.”

Kent sighed. The sound of his breath raked over my senses, setting me on high alert, and my body felt heavy and suddenly I was starving.

Clawing my way out of the giggles, I turned my head to Manny and tried to see straight. ”You got anything to eat in here?”

”Always, darling. Always.” He turned to the side and I realized there was a cabinet next to him. He opened the door and pulled out a bag of sour cream and onion potato chips.

How did he know? ”You read my mind?” I asked him.

”Who wouldn't eat these?” he said. He tossed them to me and I was incredibly shocked to find that I was able to catch them, although the sudden jump made me feel as though my face were about to float off my skull. This was some really powerful weed.

”Hey Kent,” Manny said, ”you wanna hit?”

”No.” Kent's voice, always an almost physical presence to me, caressed my skin and I couldn't suppress the s.h.i.+vers that ran up and down my body. This, of course, did not stop me from yanking open my bag of potato chips and cramming them in my mouth. All it meant was that I was now happy on several levels.

I turned to look at Kent and found him sitting tensely next to me, his whole body curled in on itself, his arms crossed and his eyes watching the window across from us, glaring out at the moving landscape. Moving. We were moving?

The van went over a b.u.mp and I fell over, straight into Kent.

So yes. Yes, we were moving.

I started to giggle again. ”I'm so sorry,” I babbled. ”Manny didn't tell me this was medical weed. I had no idea...” My hand was on his thigh, and his muscles beneath the dark fabric of his well-worn jeans were hard as rocks. I stared down at where my hand had landed, marveling at how the paleness of my skin shone out against the darkness of him.

He was stock still next to me, against me, and I looked up to see him staring down at me. His eyes... intensity. Ferocity. Staring straight through me...

The van jostled again and I seemed to wake from my trance. With more force than necessary I pushed away from Kent, not sure how long I'd been feeling him up and staring into his eyes. I scrambled backwards on the couch and decided to keep at least a foot between us. The ride down to San Diego wasn't too long. Two hours at the outside. I just had to ignore him until then.

Inhaling deeply, I turned toward the TV hanging from the back corner of the van. ”Let's watch something,” I said to Manny.

”Sure thing, darling,” he replied, and I wondered, somewhat distantly, why he had started calling me darling all of a sudden.

Oh well. That was just Manny being Manny, from what I could tell. He flipped the TV on and I let myself slump in my seat, drifting away on a cloud of pot smoke and potato chips.

I woke up to the sound of my cell phone ringing.

I kept my eyelids shut. My mouth was dry and my eyeb.a.l.l.s felt like marbles, but even that discomfort couldn't distract me from the fact that it was the last ring tone I wanted to hear right now.

Scratch that. The last ring tone I wanted to hear ever.

Struggling through the post-high haze, I peeled my eyes open.

Things were... different.

For one, they were all sideways. I was lying down. And my head was on something warm. And living. And firm.

And blue.

Oh. Oh, dear.

Adrenaline spiked through me and I sat bolt upright. ”Are we there yet?” I chirped as brightly as I could, pretending I hadn't just been sleeping with my head in Kent Hudson's G.o.dd.a.m.n lap, holy s.h.i.+t!

”We'd be there if it weren't for this f.u.c.king traffic.” I blinked. That was Sonya's voice. Turning my head, afraid that it would fall off, I noted that she was staring intently at the road, her knuckles white on the steering wheel. And the traffic was, indeed, atrocious. But we were here. We were in San Diego. I would have recognized it anywhere.

The post-high haze began to recede and I looked around.

Manny had succ.u.mbed to the pot smoke and was curled up on the couch snoring peacefully while Carter was quiet in the front seat. And next to me...

Next to me Kent was staring at me.

A flush of color and heat went through me, potent and startling, enough to take my breath away. I bit my lip and turned away, raking my fingers through my hair in an attempt to look as though I hadn't just been sleeping with my head in Kent's lap. The brother of my nominal boyfriend.

I remembered Carter's wink.

Okay, my nominal boyfriend's brother, and said boyfriend wanted to hook us up or something. Carter's motives for finagling this seating arrangement were somewhat suspect-if Kent and I were involved with each other it would obviously be harder to keep Carter on our radar, which was the exact reason we had agreed not to pursue anything, entirely aside from the lie that Carter had a wholesome girlfriend and oh my G.o.d when did my life get so complicated?

I put a hand to my face just as my phone started ringing again. Again the dreaded ring tone. Jason's ring tone. The opening bars of one of his songs.