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“I’m fine. I told you—I never feel anything with these gummies. Might as well have given me fruit snacks.” He unzipped his leather jacket, and the rest of us watched as he proceeded to rezip it, glancing over his shoulder at the group of people who walked in behind us. “I don’t feel a thing. They didn’t work. I’m fine.”
The way he was obsessively playing with his zipper indicated otherwise, but the rest of us just nodded, deciding to see how this played out.
“Where’s your kid tonight?” Jake asked once we were seated.
“She and her grandma are having a sleepover in the living room,” I answered, opening my menu. “She wasn’t going to let me leave until my mom promised her they could make a blanket fort.”
“What’s the story with her mom?” Xander asked. I looked up at him in disbelief, wondering why he thought this was an acceptable question to ask someone he barely knew. He was so unbothered, though, staring me down as he awaited my answer.
I tapped my fingers on the edge of the table. “She…”
As my voice trailed off, Jake chimed in. “She ditched her kid to follow some dick down to Florida. Left our boy Mason here with full custody earlier this year so she could open up a goddamn food truck on the world’s skankiest beach.”
While my cousin’s summary of events was both accurate and succinct, I probably would have worded it differently.
Xander nodded slowly, and if I wasn’t mistaken, his features softened a bit. Maybe he expected a less dramatic answer. “Mom of the year,” he said. I caught the slightest hint of compassion in his voice.
“Yeah,” I responded, forcing a chuckle. “But it was ultimately the right choice for everyone involved.” Something about trash-talking the mother of my child in such a public setting didn’t sit right with me, despite her faults. I didn’t want to delve into my personal life any more than we already had, anyway. So I turned to Owen, deciding a subject change was necessary. “How are you feeling?”
“I need to… wash my hands,” Owen declared, and it took every bit of self-control not to laugh in the guy’s face. It wasn’t his words, necessarily—it was really more the slowness at which they came out and the paranoid look in his eyes that made me glad I hadn’t just taken a drink. I’d be spitting it in his face.
“Okay?” I chuckled. “Go wash your hands, then.”
“I don’t think I can manage that… alone.”
“Why not?”
“Because this place is a dark and complicated labyrinth, and I fear that if I leave now, I may never find my way back.”
Well, we certainly didn’t want that. Owen was no doubt feeling the effects of the edibles, so I decided to escort him to the bathroom—which was, admittedly, a long journey from our table. I stood outside the door and texted Kendall while he did what he needed to do.
Mason: So. Owen ate 2 edibles. And he’s starting to feel a little paranoid.
Kendall: Maybe that’s why he’s not answering Sarah’s texts.
Mason: I’m not sure he’s capable of that at the moment. How’s the boudoir shoot going?
Kendall: Wanna see? ;)
Mason: Is that a rhetorical question?
As I waited for Kendall’s photo to load, I noticed the sink had been running for quite some time. I opened the door to peek at Owen, who was not washing his hands at all, but staring at his watch.
“We should probably get back to the—”
“It’s been 7:28 for a really long time. Too long.”
I laughed, letting the door swing shut behind me. “No, it hasn’t. You’re just high. And I bet you’re even more starving than I am, so why don’t we head out there?”
Owen ignored me, gazing at his watch a little longer before flipping his wrist over to remove it. “I think my watch stopped working.” And then, to my horror, the smartwatch slipped from his uncoordinated hands into the slowly draining sink below. His reaction time was delayed, so I lunged forward and dropped my phone on the countertop before fishing his watch out of the water. “Oh nooo,” Owen drawled.
I turned off the sink and reached for a paper towel. “Well, I’ve already let you down, boss,” I said, drying off his watch the best I could. “You asked me not to let you do or say anything stupid tonight.”
“You’re fired,” he said with a dazed grin.
His watch was still displaying the time, along with a notification from Sarah. “Look at that,” I said, turning it around to face him. “It still works—and it’s 7:30 now. Time is moving forward again.”
“Fuuuuuuck,” Owen said, slapping his hands to his eyes. I had thought this would give him some relief, but he groaned like he was in pain. “I was not meant to see that.”
