Populazzi

Chapter Fifteen



Oh. My. God.

Every time Nate kissed my neck, I felt chills in parts of my body I didn't know I had.

And he didn't stop.

He held me the whole song, rocking me in his arms and singing the words softly into my ear.

I don't know what I thought. I couldn't think. I didn't want to think. I could just feel ... and it felt incredible.

When the song ended, he gave my earlobe the tiniest bite, and I almost lost consciousness. I wanted to fall back into his arms and stay there forever, but the Ruse had already swung into their next song. It rocked hard, and Nate immediately moved away to give himself room to pound his fist and dance.

I wondered if the band took requests and if I could ask them to play "Disenchanted" another thirty or forty times in a row.

Turns out I didn't need that particular song. Any ballad was good. Each time they played one, Nate curled his arms around me again, rocking me, kissing my neck, and doing that crazy nibbling thing that made my knees buckle.

During the band's final encore—a power ballad that was fast becoming my favorite song ever—Nate let his fingers creep ever so slowly toward my chest. Part of me froze in terror at the idea of him actually touching my breasts, especially in the middle of a crowd of people. But I didn't stop him.

The song ended before it could happen. Nate immediately released me to cheer and scream like crazy. I joined in—it seemed like the thing to do—but really I was obsessing about what would happen next with Nate.

I hoped he would kiss me. I wanted him to kiss me. I really wanted him to kiss me. But the near-public boob touch made me nervous that for him kissing would just be the start. If he tried more and I asked him to stop ... would he be cool with that? Would he think I was a loser? Would he even listen?

When the lights went on, Nate looked at me in a way that both thrilled and scared me. "Let's go," he said. He led me through the crowd to the car, holding my hand the whole way.

I liked that. It felt like he was taking care of me.

He didn't kiss me before we got into the car or once we were inside. He just drove, blaring the Ruse's CD so we could "keep the concert mood." My mood was 100 percent eager anticipation. I spent the whole ride imagining every possible way Nate might give me a good-night kiss.

We pulled into his driveway and he turned off the car.

My insides felt fluttery. I was most likely less than one minute from having my first real kiss ever.

"Want to come in?" Nate asked.

"In ... the house?"

"Yeah. Come on." He got out and started walking toward the front door.

I followed him. I couldn't stay in his car by myself. It was weird, though. It was eleven. Were Nate's parents really okay with me coming in at eleven? Were we sneaking in behind their backs? And if we were, what did that mean?

I got nervous all over again. If Nate just wanted to kiss me, he could do that in the driveway. Inside seemed like a place to do more. I was pretty sure Nate wasn't a virgin. Did he expect us to have sex? I was not ready to have sex.

I mentally shook myself. Why was I imagining the worst? Nate might be totally fine with just kissing. Going inside didn't have to mean sex—it could just mean more than one kiss. And if I liked real kissing as much as I liked him kissing my neck, I'd want more than one kiss. Plus, inside we could be comfortable, like on a couch. What could be bad about that?

The foyer of the house was dark but glowed from ambient light in other rooms. Nate wrapped his arms around my waist.

"You look incredibly hot," he said. He pushed me gently backwards until my back was against the wall. Then he leaned in and kissed me.

I had always wondered why people closed their eyes when they kissed. Now I knew: they can't help it. The feeling is too overwhelming: the taste, the touch, the smell, even the sound. The sense of sight had to be excluded, or it wouldn't be possible to function.

I wondered if Nate could tell I'd never kissed before, but I quickly stopped caring. His lips were moving on mine, his tongue was deliciously inside my mouth, his hands were running over my back, my hair, my—

Suddenly he pulled away. I fought to catch my breath.

"Let's smoke," he said.

"What?" I gasped, but he was already walking into the next room. I followed, trying not to stagger.

We wound up in some kind of media room, with two huge couches, two overstuffed armchair rockers, a coffee table, a massive tower of endless electronic equipment, and a giant flat-screen plasma TV. Every piece of furniture was high-end expensive—the kind of thing my mom cut out of Sunset magazine and put on Karl's night table when he was having a good run at blackjack—but the place was disgusting. The hardwood floors were stained and sticky with spilled who-knows-what, and the upholstery on the couches and loungers was filthy. Take-out bags and boxes lay everywhere, and the room smelled like an odd combination of old food and something else pungent that I couldn't really place.

Nate and I weren't alone. A tweener boy sat in one of the loungers playing a Wii game that involved Pikachu and I think Sonic the Hedgehog battling for dear life.

"Dude, you've got to see this!" the kid said to Nate as we entered. Then he saw me. "Hey."

"Hey," I said.

Shouldn't he be in bed?

"That's Thackery, my little brother," Nate said as he rummaged through one of the coffee table drawers.

"Great," I said. I couldn't help asking what seemed like the obvious question. "Um ... are your parents around?"

Thackery snorted. Nate shot him a look, then turned to me. "Not so much. Mom's in a coma and Dad's out with his girlfriend."

I shook my head. I felt completely disoriented. "What? Your mom's in a..."

"Coma," Thackery finished. "It's okay; you can say it. It's been five years. Yes! Pikachu is going down!" He jumped onto the cushion of the rocker and did a little victory dance.

"Car accident," Nate said, completely matter-of-fact. "Drunk driver. The other guy, not her."

"Oh my God, that's horrible," I said. "And your dad..."

"Got a new girlfriend about a year ago. I think he feels guilty about it, so he mostly stays at her place. There's a housekeeper who comes in and cooks for us and stuff." Nate must have caught me looking around at the squalor in the room, because he laughed. "She won't even touch this room. Says it's too far gone for her. The rest of the place is nice, though. Really. Aha!"

He grinned and pulled out a baggie of small tapered paper rolls and a lighter. "You smoke?"

I froze. Nate was asking if I smoked pot. Nate was holding a baggie of pot, and he was asking if I smoked pot like he would ask if I drank water. "Surely you drink water, ma'am, do you not?" "Why of course I drink water! Who doesn't?"

Except I didn't smoke pot. I had never seen pot except in the movies, and I had never smoked anything in my life.

Nate read the answer in my face. "You don't, do you?"

Did he look disappointed?

"No," I said. "I mean, I never have or anything..."

"It's cool. You don't have to. It's just that, uh"—he glanced at his brother, who was back into another round of the video game—"certain... things are really, really good when you're high."

Certain "things"? Did Nate want me to take drugs and have sex? I didn't care if leaving would make me look like a dork; this was getting insane. I had to get out.

"I don't ... think I'm ready for ... certain things. I don't know, maybe I should just go."

"No, no, I'm not talking about ... I just mean..." Nate seemed embarrassed to have to spell it out, especially within earshot of Thackery, but he did. "Making out is really good when you're stoned. It's more intense."

More intense? If kissing Nate got any more intense, I'd be the one slipping into a coma. Ouch—I winced at my own thought. Way inappropriate.

"Not that you have to do it," Nate said. "At all."

He meant it. I could tell. I liked that. And I really didn't have any desire to try ... mostly. Except for the part of me that was a little curious. Especially since for Nate it seemed to be a prelude to really good making out.

"What's it like?" I asked.

"Really cool," he said. "It's not scary or weird or anything. It's just mellow and ... nice."

I reached out, and Nate handed me the baggie. I took out one of the joints. It had an odor to it. I recognized it as the pungent smell in the room I couldn't place before.

"Nice, right?" Nate asked. "Do you want to try?"

There was no pressure in the question; I could see that. I could also see that Nate was kind of hoping I'd try.

And I was curious.

And it's not like I was alone. Nate was with me, and he knew all about this stuff.

And it's not like a couple puffs would hurt me, right?

"I'll try it."

Nate rewarded me with a smile. "You'll love it. We can go upstairs to my room; it's more comfortable there."

"Your room? Nate, I—"

"Nothing will happen you don't want to happen. It's just ... quieter there." He glared toward Thackery, and I understood.

We went up to his room. Nate hadn't lied: the rest of the house was much nicer than the media room. I wondered if he even spent any time up here. It was immaculate. Like a hotel room.

As Nate got everything ready, he explained how big a deal pot was to him and how seriously he took the honor of introducing it to someone for the first time. Clearly we had hit on another of his passions. The only other time he spoke this much was when he was talking about music.

Nate seemed dedicated to giving me the perfect pot experience. He set up lots of pillows on his bed so it would be extra comfortable, then went to his Mac and played an iTunes party shuffle he had created specifically for times like this. Music, he said, totally made the experience. His computer had surround-sound speakers, so the whole room would reverberate. Visually, he said, it was important to have something interesting but not too complicated to look at, so he turned the flat-screen TV/monitor on his wall to a multicolored lightning-bolt screen saver.

Nate darted downstairs to get some water and snacks in case I got thirsty or hungry afterward. He wasn't gone long—just enough for me to look around and confirm my first impression. It was like a hotel room: no pictures, no books, no random personal things like my Tastykakes and mini Liberty Bell.

When Nate came back, he turned down the lights and sat next to me on the bed. "I'll get it started," he said, "then I'll pass it to you."

I nodded.

He lit one of the joints, then sucked in several times as the now-familiar acrid smell filled the air. Then he took in a big breath. He explained what he was doing, and I tried not to laugh. He was working so hard to keep in his breath while he spoke, he sounded like he was on helium.

"You breathe it in, then you hold the smoke in your lungs for a bit before..."

With a whoosh he blew it out.

"Now your turn." He handed it over. "You might cough but try not to. Try to keep it in."

I did what he said. I sucked in deeply and almost fell into a coughing fit, but I didn't. The smoke burned in my lungs. It hurt. I held in the smoke as long as I could, then let it go in a rush. There, I was done. I handed the joint back to Nate.

"Okay, I tried it," I said. "Now do we get to the really-good-making-out part?"

"A couple more hits," he said. "Just to make sure you get the full experience."

I thought I'd already had the full experience, and I didn't like it at all, but maybe I needed to give it more of a chance. If Nate loved it so much, there had to be something else there. And if not, if this really was the only time I'd ever smoke pot, I figured I should at least do it the right way.

I took the joint back from Nate and sucked in again, long and deep, then suffered through one more round passing it back and forth.

"Are we good now?" I asked.

Nate took another long pull, held it in, then let it out. "Yeah."

He leaned down to kiss me, and for a minute it felt amazing all over again...

But then I couldn't kiss him back.

It was weird. I wanted to. I was kind of dying to. Or at least I had been. But now I pulled out of his arms entirely. Now I just really wanted to lean back, shut my eyes, and listen to the music.

And grin.

It felt like I had a huge goofy grin on my face. I had no control over it. None whatsoever. And I couldn't control my body. I couldn't move. Not my arms, not my legs, not my head, not at all. I couldn't talk either.

It wasn't pleasant. It was terrifying. I was lying in a strange guy's bed! He could do anything, and I couldn't stop him. My heart started racing as I envisioned all the horrible things that could happen to me in this strange house with no parents and no rules and no one to care if I screamed, which I couldn't, even if I wanted to.

Nate's voice came to me as if through ten feet of water.

"Cara? Cara?"

Inside my head I screamed for help, but my body wouldn't respond.

I heard a chuckle through the ten feet of water. "Wow ... you are so high." He tucked the comforter of the bed around me and leaned down to whisper in my ear. "Enjoy it," he said.

I felt him lean back on the pillows, and heard him open a bag. The smell was intense: potato chips. I felt very alone, stuck inside my head next to him. But then he reached over to gently pet my forehead and hair, over and over.

It was nice.

It made me feel a lot better.

I completely zoned out.

When I regained consciousness, the room was pitch black. My mouth felt like a big fluffy guinea pig had died inside it. Nate was next to me, fast asleep.

We were both fully dressed. This was good.

Something was beeping. I followed the sound to my purse and opened it to find my phone.

Its clock said 4:30 a.m.

Oh no.

The beep meant I had messages.

I had a lot of messages.

First, texts from Claudia wondering where I was. Then voice mails that grew more and more frantic until the most recent one of the bunch.

"Cara, it's Claude. It's after four in the morning. Where the hell are you? I'm freaking out! Why didn't you give me Nate's number? Was there an accident? Did something happen at the club? I can't find anything on the Net. I don't know where you are, I don't know what you're doing, but it's crazy late and I'm..."

I had never heard Claudia like this. She sounded awful, like she was on the verge of a complete breakdown. I couldn't believe I'd done this to her.

"...I'm ready to call your parents, I swear it," her message continued. "I'm really scared, Cara. Just ... if you get this, just call me, okay?"

My parents? She was going to call my parents?

Panic ran through me. I checked when she'd called. Ten minutes ago. Oh my God. Had she actually called my parents?

I was glad I had Claudia on speed dial. My hands were shaking so hard, there was no way I could have handled ten digits.

Please don't let her have called my parents. I know I deserve it if she did, but please-please-please don't let her have called my parents, pleeeeease...