The boys chuckled.
“All right,” Wesley said. He leaned over and whispered something in Cadence’s ear. She grinned.
“Oh, that’s good,” she said. “That’s really good.”
“What’s the secret, Cay?” Oliver asked.
“I’m not telling.”
“You know you want to,” Charlie urged.
“Come on,” Pete chimed in. “We won’t tell.”
“Nope. See? I can keep a secret.” She rolled over on her stomach and twirled a strand of her hair around her forefinger.
The boys nodded, unconvinced.
“You’re the exception then,” Pete said.
They watched her carefully. She lay on the ground thinking about Wesley’s admission, dying to blurt it. She thought it was just because of the weed and not her brain wiring compelling her to share.
“Give her ten more seconds,” Oliver whispered.
Ten, nine, eight, seven . . .
“Jennifer Parson showed Wesley her breasts in eighth grade!” she cried. “She told him she’d kill him if he said anything! She let him touch them, too!”
The boys cracked up. Their laughter floated on the night breeze, carried up, up into the stars.
“Damnit,” Cadence groaned.
“You held out there for, like, a minute,” Pete said. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
Cadence grinned. “I think it’s a lie anyway. Jennifer wouldn’t give you the time of day, Wesley.”
“Why do you think she threatened to kill me if I talked?” he argued.
Cadence learned a lot about men that night. Mostly she learned that they were stupid and only really cared about sex and skateboarding. At least this particular group. It wasn’t until someone mentioned needing to go home that she realized she didn’t know how they’d get there.
“Call your man, Cay,” Pete suggested.
“Are you out of your mind?” Cadence asked. There was no way in hell she was calling Mark. He was as anti-drugs as they come and would go ballistic.
“Already did,” Oliver said.
“WHAT?!”
“Dude, how else are we getting home?” Oliver said to Cadence.
“Don’t call her a dude, man. She’s a dudette,” Wesley said.
“Oliver, I’ll kill you! What happened to having each other’s backs?” Cadence screamed.
“Uh oh. Is someone in trouble with daddy when she gets home?” Pete asked.
Cadence whirled around. “Not funny, dipshit. That’s actually really gross.”
“Totally,” Charlie agreed.
“Stop agreeing with me because you like me!”
“Hey. You kissed me, sweetheart,” Charlie said.
“And don’t call me sweetheart!”
They all turned to look as headlights pulled into the parking lot.
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” Cadence breathed. “I’m so dead.”
She watched as Mark walked up to the park entrance and looked at the group through the locked gate.
“How’d you get in there?” he called.
“Hole in the fence around the other side,” Wesley replied.
Mark nodded. “Have fun?”
Wesley wasn’t sure how he was supposed to respond. “Uh, yeah?”
Mark rolled his eyes. “Ready to go?”
“Dude, you skate?” Pete asked.
“Yes,” Mark replied.
“Want to?”
Mark considered the offer. He needed time to think, so he figured he might as well brush up on his skateboarding skills.
“Where’s the hole?”
Five minutes later, Mark was doing kick flips. Took him a few tries to get back into the swing of things, but he realized it was like riding a bike. Once you learn, it never leaves you. He showed off a little for Cadence. He wanted her to sit there and think about all the things he planned to say to her when they were alone at home. He knew it was excruciating for her, making her wait like that. She wanted to treat the whole night like a Band-Aid. Rip that fucker right off and be done with it. Not Mark. He was gonna drag it out—make it just the slightest bit painful.
He made Cadence sit on Pete’s lap when they got in the car. She really didn’t have much choice. The car wouldn’t seat all of them, and after Mark learned that Pete was the only one with a girlfriend, he decided his was the only suitable lap. He listened patiently to the boys’ inane yammering as he drove each one home, dropping them off one by one until it was only him and Cadence. She stayed in the backseat, too humiliated and scared to move up front. They were silent the entire drive.
“Hungry?” Mark asked as they walked through their front door.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“That’s one side effect,” he replied, pulling homemade guacamole from the fridge. He made it yesterday to go with their chicken tacos.
“I don’t need a lecture,” Cadence warned. She plopped down in a chair at the dining room table.
Mark brought her the dip and chips and pulled out his own chair.
“Wasn’t gonna give you one. Though you should probably know your brain may move a little sluggishly for the next six weeks or so.”
“Huh?”
“Research. It could take up to six weeks for the drug to leave your system. In the meantime, you may have some issues in class with short-term memory loss and difficulty comprehending the material.”