Page 90 of Secondhand Smoke
“I’d tell you,” Toni said, getting up and grabbing his jacket for the walk to the quarry. He grinned at her and lowered his voice. “But we’re not supposed to mention it.”
* * *
Warming up in the chilly early autumn night was easy with two things: alcohol and a very beautiful girl standing close enough to touch when she laughed and made your blood pump.
And boy, did his blood pump.
He drank more than usual, getting carried away with the music and nerves.
Their hands had brushed a total of twelve times on the walk from Toni’s house, and he’d been too chicken to just grab it. Whatever happened to that burst of courage he’d had when he kissed her?
He’d kill for that again, but as long as his friends were around, he couldn’t so much as casually wrap his arm around her waist—which he’d been picturing himself doing the past twenty minutes—without worrying they might embarrass her.
But every time they happened to touch, she would look over at him and give him her familiar drunken smile, a puff of smoke rising from her lips.
She was a vision, glowing in the moonlight.
Her golden roots had grown out, and their light color diving into her dark muddy ends gave off the most magical look—like an elf, or a fairy or something.
Damn. He was drunk.
She laughed at something Paulie said, and before Barrett knew what he was doing, his arm had wrapped around her waist.
He could feel her heat through her jacket, and it made him itch with the need to get closer. His eyes had steadied on her waist, but when he looked up, Nell was watching him.
Despite the terrible things she thought of herself, he’d only ever seen kindness in her gaze. A single look from her sent a soft buzz through his body.
How anyone could ever convince themselves to hate her was beyond him.
“Is this okay?” He wasn’t nervous anymore. The alcohol made sure of that.
She blinked a few times, then gave him an imperceptible nod and a simper.
He’d love to go brag to his sixteen-year-old self.
Toni turned up his boombox, and made it difficult to hear anything, so he could get up and tap his drumsticks on a nearby rock along with the beat. Dennis disappeared for a few moments to the van and came back with a baggie.
Barrett frowned when he saw it.
It was a zip lock from his selling stash, half full of a white powder. He stared at the edge of the quarry as Dennis dumped small piles of it onto a magazine and used his driver’s license to divide it up.
It wasn’t Barrett’s place to dictate what his friends could and could not do. He just knew what it could do, so he stayed away from it when it wasn’t putting cash into his pocket.
He’d rather watch Nell, but even she studied them with her head tilted. Barrett frowned deeper.
“I’ve never tried it,” she mumbled.
The intrigue in her voice made a small flicker of sobriety light in his brain, and he followed her gaze, his gut twisting.
Dennis kneeled by the rows and took his share, Toni following. Someone said something, and they all laughed, but Barrett’s humor stayed alert.
He looked back at Nell. There was something in her eyes he couldn’t read, far away and glazed over as she observed.
Before he could understand, she blinked, her eyes back in focus and on him. “Want to go for a walk?”
The hit of soberness eased back into a comforting lull of inebriation, and his lips automatically twisted up for her. “If you lead the way.”
Even her giggles slurred as Barrett rose to his feet, pulling her up with him, which was a fun adventure in both of their states.
