Clay closed the door after them and sat on the sofa. My head lolled over toward his shoulder. “Thanks,” I managed through the rocks in my mouth.
Clay shook his head. “I thought only girls had to worry about that crap. I guess it’s good you asked me to be here, after all.”
I wanted to nod, but couldn’t muster the energy.
“What were those pills?” I mumbled.
“Just caffeine. I wasn’t about to come here empty-handed.”
A laugh clogged my throat, gurgling.
“Laugh it up, Fuzzball.” Clay picked up the remote. “We’ll wait here for a while.” He surfed through some channels, stopped on a lame reality show. I closed my eyes and felt stupid.
After a second episode, I could hold my head up without the room spinning too fast. Thinking was still an effort, but moving was getting easier.
“Guess you didn’t drink much,” Clay said.
“Half,” I said. I rubbed my eyes.
“Good. Only a little longer and we can get out of here.”
He watched the show. I closed my eyes. The party grew louder. As it got easier to think, it got easier to talk. I filled Clay in on the scene at school yesterday morning: Cyndra coming to get me in the cafeteria, Michael’s bruised face and his gambling debts to Cesare. And what Janie had already told him: how Cyndra’s coming to my house early had set off my dad.
Clay absorbed it all, nodding. “So did Michael get the gun?” he asked, holding a hand out to the party on the other side of the door.
“Yeah.”
Clay whistled low. “This is getting intense.”
“I know. But I need to keep it going a little longer.” Thinking not only of the money now, but of Cyndra. Holding her on the canopied bed in her room. Red-gold hair sliding across my skin.
“Just don’t take any more drinks from anyone, okay, Champ?” Clay said, as I stood.
“You got that right,” I answered, feeling a bit light-headed and trying not to show it.
“You good?” Clay watched me closely.
I nodded. My head felt like it was packed with gauze.
“What now? You’re not going home.” His eyes snagged on the bruises on my face.
A sudden image of my father, hulking in the doorway and watching me get into a car I had claimed to know nothing about.
“No.” I pushed my hands into my hair, wanting to scrub off the fatigue.
“Well, I’m parked down the street. It sounds crazy enough out there, we could probably just slip out.”
“I was kind of hoping to go home with Cyndra.” For some reason, saying it made me feel even stupider than getting roofied had. Stupid because I figured I knew how she really felt about me. And because of how she had made me feel after we’d had sex. Stupid all the way to the bottom of my stupid heart—because I wanted to be with her again, in spite of it all.
“Oh.” Clay’s voice held a world of understanding. “I was right about that, huh?”
But it wasn’t a question. I met his eyes. And it was like looking into the eyes of a concerned teacher—this slight frown pinching his eyebrows and a small smile, edged with worry.
I shrugged, feeling the new clothes tight across my shoulders. One more thing that I pretended: that they fit me.
“Yeah.” I wanted to say more, but couldn’t find my way to the words through the blaring noise of the party and the pounding in my head.
The worry on Clay’s face stamped itself deeper.
“It’s okay,” I told him. It is what it is, I told myself. As I opened the door, the roar of the party pounded into my throbbing skull.
I turned and held out a hand. “Thanks for the save.”
Clay slid a shake. I pulled him into a quick, one-armed hug and then let go. He looked up at me with that calculation working behind his eyes.
“Don’t forget who they are.” What he didn’t say, but I heard under the words: Don’t forget who you are.
“I’ll see you tomorrow. Tell Janie where I’ll be. Tell her I’m fine.”
“Yeah.”
I walked out into the noise and got better with every step. Went back outside by the pool, more to get away from the relentless music than hoping to find any of Michael’s crew there.
“Ice!” Cyndra ran up like she’d been looking for me. I sat heavily on the low wall.
“What’s wrong? You look like hell,” she said.
“Monique spiked my drink,” I answered, surprising myself.
Cyndra’s eyes bored into mine. “That bitch.”
“I’m fine. She didn’t get what she wanted.”
“She’ll do anything to get there first, I guess,” she said.
I knew what it meant—but not what to make of it. Was our having sex supposed to be a secret because of Michael? Could it be that she didn’t care about bragging rights or the bet? That she actually cared about me?
My head throbbed all over again. Yet I somehow felt good at the same time.
Cyndra ran her hand down my arm. “You feel okay?”
I shook my head. Wished I hadn’t.
“I’ll kill her.” Usually if someone sexy like Cyndra said something like that, it’d make me laugh or smile. But she looked serious.
“It’s okay. I can handle it,” I told her.
“Fine. I’ll hold her down and you kill her.”
I had to laugh. It made my side sting.
Cyndra tucked herself under my arm. “Let’s go find Michael. Then we can get out of here.”
“Or we could just go.”
“Yeah, but I want to go to his house. I’m not too anxious to go home tonight. You?”
Michael’s house. Seemed better than the old gym.
We wandered through the party and found the group sitting around the kitchen table: Michael, Beast, Mike-Lite, T-Man, and the others.
A distinct, burning smell punctuated the haze of cigarettes.
“Hang on,” Cyndra murmured. “Wait here.”
I leaned in the doorway as she walked around the table and whispered in Michael’s ear. He fished in his pocket and spiraled a key off the key ring. He grabbed Cyndra’s elbow and pulled her close, murmuring in her ear.
Then he shoved her away.