Dali has nothing on the scene that unfolds next in the Leighton living room. People who were trying to sabotage one another thirty minutes ago are now collaborating on a bong-making scavenger hunt. They keep bringing things to Tierney for approval like she’s their ant queen or something. She checks out the pile of stuff in front of her. “There isn’t a screen.”

“I didn’t know where to get one,” Sarah says.

Tierney leaves the room and disappears down the hall. When she comes back a few minutes later, she’s holding a small, round screen in her hand.

“Where’d you get that?”

“Bathroom faucet,” she answers, kneeling down in front of the coffee table and setting to work on building a gravity bong.

Halfway through, Piper eyes Tierney’s progress suspiciously. “I’m not putting my mouth on that thing.”

“You’ll put your hands on Damien’s dick, but you won’t put your mouth on this?” Tierney looks almost disgusted by the waste and we get treated to another exasperated exhalation. “Your loss. You get a bigger hit, but whatever.” She looks around and her eyes settle on Damien. “Here.” She throws some rolling papers at him and tells him to roll Piper a joint, but he doesn’t get far before she pushes him away because he’s destroying it.

“If you can’t roll a joint, don’t try,” Tierney snaps.

“It’s not like it’s that hard,” he says defensively, but he doesn’t fight her when she repos the papers.

“It’s an art, jackass. Get out of my way.” Tierney proceeds to roll the tightest joint I’ve ever seen. She’s right about it being an art and she’s more than talented. I suck at rolling joints, not that it’s something I do all the time, but it might be nice to have the skill.

“Everybody’s gotta be able to do something with their hands,” Drew says, idly running his fingers through Sunshine’s hair while Tierney glowers at him before resuming bong construction.

It’s hard to watch her and not be impressed. She’s completely focused, as if this is a high-tech operation she’s in charge of, and she has total respect for it. Clay hasn’t left her side and is making her explain every part of the process. He kind of reminds me of Sunshine in my garage. Tierney talks him through every step, instructing him not only what she’s doing but the science of it as well. It’s like watching the illegal substance version of physics class.

I try to focus on watching their progress so I don’t obsess over the fact that Leigh is running her fingers up and down my thigh, and Sunshine is sitting right next to her with a front row seat.

When Tierney gets done, she hands the bong to Clay and looks almost proud of him. “You go first. You worked for it.” Then she turns to the rest of the room and tells us we better lighten up because she’s sick of all the angst and she’s not wasting good weed on assholes.

Leigh leans over and whispers something in my ear about finding a bedroom and then we’re up and walking down the hall before I know what’s going on. I make the mistake of turning back around to fortify myself with the picture of Drew all over Sunshine on the couch, but when I do, she’s watching me. Unflinching. Making sure I have to answer for what I’m about to do. Drew looks from her to me and tightens his arm around her waist so that she looks away just before I’m out of her line of vision.

CHAPTER 35

Josh

I walk Leigh out and return to the family room, wishing I was drunk or high like everyone else here. Sarah and Piper are gone, which means they’re probably passed out in her room. Through the sliding glass door, I can see Michelle lying on the grass, staring at the sky. Or sleeping. I can’t tell from here. The gravity bong is abandoned on the coffee table and Damien and Chris are still half-baked, trying to kill each other on the Playstation. Across the room, Tierney is giving Clay a lesson on joint rolling, and I hear him say something about wanting to draw her, which she laughs hysterically at. Drew is on the couch, staring at her. He looks up when he hears me and I can see the disgust take over his face. I don’t need his. I have enough of my own.

“Where is she?” I ask.

“Do you care?” He’s making sure I know I’m an asshole.

“What?” I’m tired and I want to go home and my tolerance for Drew’s bullshit was running dangerously low hours ago.

“It’s a simple question,” he continues. My fist is tightening with every word and I force myself to loosen my hand. “Do you care where she is? Did you care when you were in my guest room screwing another girl?” I can’t believe he has the balls to say any of this to me. It’s not like Sunshine and I are together and he obviously knows that better than anyone.

Tierney is completely blitzed and struggling for clarity while she watches this play out.

“Not here, Drew.”

“Fine. Outside then.” He gets up and he’s surprisingly sober and I realize I haven’t seen him touch anything since dinner hours ago. He never did take the shot he made Tierney pour when he refused to tell me whether Sunshine was drunk or not when they had sex.

“Answer my question.” I lean up against the side of my truck and shove my hands in my pockets because I need something to do with them.

“I took her home,” he says. “Now answer mine.” He’s not f**king around. He’s pissed.

“That’s not the question I meant.”

“I know. Answer mine first.”

“Yes, I care where she is,” I mock his tone.

“Is that what you were doing in the bedroom with Leigh? Caring?” The sarcastic condescension is getting on my nerves. I don’t care if I deserve it or not.

“I was ending it,” I tell him, even though I don’t owe him an explanation. And the whole time I was wondering what the hell I was doing. I sat on the bed and looked at her green eyes and blonde hair and the perfect body that was mine whenever I wanted it, no strings attached. It was simple, convenient, uncomplicated. And I didn’t want it anymore. OK, I wanted it, but wanting it had never involved a choice before today.

I leaned over and kissed her, hoping it would make every other thought go away. I closed my eyes, and for the first time since I had been with Leigh, it wasn’t her face I was picturing. I didn’t see blonde hair and green eyes and simple and uncomplicated. I saw dark hair, dark eyes, dark, complicated, frustrating, messed up everything. And the moment I broke away and opened my eyes to look at the girl pulling my shirt up over my head, I knew what I would lose if I did this. There was never a price before, but now there was and it wasn’t worth it.

She wasn’t even upset. No drama. No questions or tears. Just the same as I would have been if it had been the other way around. Ending things with Leigh was just like everything else had always been with Leigh – easy.

Even when I walked her out, I kept thinking how simple it would be to change my mind and take it back. And then screw her in the backseat of her car so that it would make it impossible for me to ever take anything back again.

“That changes things.”

I don’t really know what it changes for Drew. I know that I just gave up getting laid because I felt guilty about a girl I don’t even have.

“Why didn’t you tell me you slept with her?” I ask and I still want to know if he waited until she was wasted, because if he did, I’ll seriously hurt him.

“Because I didn’t.” Not the answer I was expecting.

“You said you did.”

“I guess I didn’t take the truth part of truth or dare literally.” He shrugs.

“She didn’t disagree.” I think back to the look exchanged between the two of them. He was asking her for permission but I don’t get why she gave it to him.

“We have an agreement.”

“Break it,” I tell him, even though I have no right.

“Why?”

“Because you’re all over her all the time. You make her look like a whore.”

“First, I hardly think I’m the only thing making her look like a whore. Second, if she asks me to stop, I’ll stop. Otherwise, why should I?”

“Because I’m asking you to stop.”

“She and I have a mutually beneficial relationship. Kind of like you and Leigh but we don’t have sex. It works. Why would I give that up?” He’s not hiding the subtext.

“Because it doesn’t mean anything to you.”

“Why does it mean anything to you?”

“Because she’s mine and I don’t want you touching her.” I’m a five year-old fighting over a toy. I feel like an idiot as soon as I say it, but it’s said and it’s true. And I don’t want it to be.

“I know,” he says arrogantly.

“You know?”

“I’m not stupid Josh. The two of you have been eye-fucking each other since the beginning of school. I wasn’t going to do anything with her and she was never going to do anything with me.”

“Then why all the bullshit tonight?”

“Just wanted to hear you say it.” He smiles and heads back toward the house. I’m too relieved to be pissed at him.

“What’s with you and Tierney?” I ask when he gets to the porch.

“Trying not to screw each other. Trying not to kill each other. Same thing that’s always with me and Tierney.”

***

I’m at Sunshine’s house at nine o’clock the next morning. We’re supposed to have plans, but after last night I’m not sure if we still do. I wait in the driveway because Margot probably just went to bed and I don’t want to knock and wake her up.

When the door opens, Nastya comes out wearing a pink, flowered sundress and flat white sandals and I wonder who she is today. She gets in the truck and shuts the door.

“Shut up. It was a birthday present,” she says before I can even comment.

“Doesn’t mean you had to wear it.” But I’m glad you did.

“I figured I should get something out of the intervention since I didn’t take the phone. Besides, I spend so much time doing your laundry that I haven’t gotten to any of mine.” She buckles her seat belt and we’re off without a word about last night.

We hit three antique stores by noon and I still haven’t found anything remotely like the console table I’m looking for. If she’s true to form, Sunshine will start complaining around store number five. That’s where her antiquing patience tends to run out. Store number four is a high end one, two towns west of us, and I have to promise her ice cream after this one to get her to leave the truck.

“Wouldn’t it be easier to just find what you’re looking for on the internet?”

“Where’s the fun in that?” I ask. She’s right. It would be much easier, but I like the looking.

“Where’s the fun in this?” She pulls open the door and exaggeratedly drags her feet inside.

“You know you like it.”

“I do?”

“You do.”

“And you know this, how?”

“Because I know you, and no one makes you do anything you don’t want to do. If you didn’t want to come, you wouldn’t come. And if you didn’t come, you wouldn’t be here. So it follows that if you didn’t want to come, you would not be here right now. But you are here, so by the transitive property of Sunshine, you want to be here.”

“I hate you.”

“I know that, too.” I say nonchalantly and one side of her mouth turns up in response.

“It was worth coming just to hear that many words leave your mouth at one time. That may never happen again.”

“Probably not.”

“So remind me again why you can’t join modern society and use the internet.”