I reel my attention back to Jake. “Um, Portland.”
“Portland, Maine?”
“Portland, Oregon,” I correct. Jake takes another swig of his beer, and the silence and blunt conversation is making the entire thing awkward. “Sorry, where’d you say Tyler was again?”
He stops drinking and raises a brow. “Why does it matter?”
Because I want to go home and we just so happen to share the same one. “I’ve got to get a beer for him.” Sold.
Jake hesitates for a long moment before finally saying, “He’s out back. Watch yourself.”
“Thanks.” I take a quick sip of my own drink and head out into the hall, following it down toward the back of the house and through the mass of bodies. Bodies that do not include Tiffani and Rachael and Meghan. And right now, I could really do with having them with me. I’ve been abandoned among a crowd of strangers in a brand-new city, and it certainly doesn’t feel great.
At the end of the hall, there’s a back door left open with people slipping in and out of the house, so I squeeze by and step outside into the yard, laying my beer down on the patio table. There’s a guy throwing up by the fence and a girl passed out on the lawn. I contemplate helping her, but my attention is immediately diverted to the eruption of laughter from the shed in the corner. The laughter sounds as though it belongs to a group of guys, so I build up some courage and head over there. If I don’t, I’ll be stuck at this party until some unearthly hour of the morning.
As I get nearer, I notice the smoke in the air. There’s no window and the door is shut, so I reach for it and pull it open. Immediately I’m hit with the most overwhelming smell of weed, so overwhelming that as the smoke escapes into the night air all at once tears well in my eyes. I clasp a hand to my mouth and cough, squeezing my eyes shut and taking a step back.
“Is that weed?” I blurt.
“No, it’s cotton candy,” someone shoots back, and the shed rings with howls of laughter. But there’s nothing funny about this at all.
I open my eyes again as the air clears, and I find four guys staring back at me. One of them is Tyler. There’s a joint in his hand and he’s attempting to hide it behind his leg, but it doesn’t make a difference. I can still see it, the same way I can see the panic and alarm crossing his features. “Are you serious?” I ask in disbelief.
“Dude, get this chick outta here,” someone mutters. I don’t even know which one of the other three is talking. I don’t care about the others. My eyes are locked on Tyler. “Unless she wants to come in here and keep us company.”
“Bro,” Tyler says, but it’s hard to ignore the shake in his voice as he swallows and forces a small laugh to escape his lips. His eyes are glazed, pupils wide. “You really want that kid in here?”
There’s more laughter, but Tyler doesn’t join in with the combination of chuckling and coughing. He’s just gnawing on his lips and glancing between me and his friends, not quite sure of the best way to handle the situation. For starters, he should get rid of the joint that’s still in his hand.
“Who the hell is she?” the same guy asks. More smoke wafts toward me as someone exhales, but I quickly wave it away from me. “Has no one taught her the rules?” I squint through the dispersing plume of smoke until I spot the pair of bloodshot eyes struggling to focus on me. The black guy that they belong to is grinning. “No interrupting, babe. Get the fuck out of here unless you’re here to ball with us.” He takes a step forward and holds up the glowing joint in his hand. It’s almost burned out, but he offers it to me nonetheless.
As though I’d actually consider taking it from him, Tyler steps in between the joint and me. He licks his index finger and presses it to the cherry of his own joint, extinguishing it and then stuffing it into his pocket before straightening up and glowering at the guy in front of him. “What the hell are you doing?” he asks, nodding to the jay in his hand. “C’mon, Clayton, where’s your common sense?”
Clayton moves the hovering joint back to his lips, drawing on it for a long moment before exhaling the smoke toward Tyler’s face. “Offering her a hit is common sense. It’s called good manners. It would be rude not to,” he says. He peers at me over Tyler’s shoulder. “Am I right, new girl?”
The other two guys stifle a laugh again, but they’re not paying too much attention anymore. I think they’re too baked to even care. They’re just standing around at the back of the shed, laughing, grins wide. Tyler, on the other hand, is not so easily entertained.