But I can’t throw everything away to sit on this couch, even if Nomi’s sitting beside me on it.
“I can’t—eat any more pizza,” I finish lamely, which is a lie, but I force myself to abandon the slice. When was the last time I let myself have pizza? An eight-pack of abs ago?
She assesses me a few seconds longer, then glances at the clock on the wall, one of those cat types with the swinging tail and moving eyes. “It’s really late. Whatever you’re still feeling, you’ll sleep it off by morning. Drink this.” She hands me a tall glass of water and watches me gulp it down, then disappears. My heart pangs at the cold spot at my side, where a few seconds ago, her warm body had been. When she returns, it’s with another glass of water, a big, fluffy pillow, and the softest blanket I’ve everfelt. I nuzzle it against my face, breathing in the smell of Nomi’s laundry detergent, and exhale, feeling magically better.
“I’m in there if you need anything.” She points at her bedroom door. She must sense the angst building in my chest at her leaving because she adds, kindly, “You’ll be okay, Julian. I promise. And… thanks.”
“For what?”
“For cheering me up. I—was having a pretty rough night, until you came along.”
“You’re welcome,” I sigh happily as I snuggle under the blanket, smelling of her. “I’ll come anytime you want.”
She rolls her eyes and looks at me, bemused, as if shealsocannot believe that I’m sprawled out on her couch. She turns off the lamp, the last source of light in the living room, and leaves, her bedroom door snicking softly shut behind her.
I can’twaitto see her again.
Something isprofoundlywrong with my mouth.
My tongue creaks in protest as I rip it from my palate, glued there by the vestiges of my dried-up saliva. It feels too big, coated in sandpaper, and when it finally wrenches free, it makes a sound like Velcro. Moving it triggers my gag reflex, and I shoot up from the couch,whose couch am I on, and grab at the glass on the coffee table.
Fuck, it’s empty! I stumble-run for the hall bathroom, filling the glass from the tap then gulping it down. I finish, breathless, then blink until my tear ducts release some moisture into my bloodshot sclera.
The image in the mirror is blurred at the edges,where the fuck are my glasses, and utterly unrecognizable. My hair is a mop of bedhead, completely flat on one side, a bouffant on the other. My respectable clothes are gone, cruelly replaced by a pair of silky pink sweatpants that cling to every crevice and end at midcalf. Likewise, the tiny T-shirt someone has dressed me inends in a bare midriff. I peel it up to read the words screaming in hot pink: Kiss & Tale, A Romance Bookshop, Collingswood, NJ.
Thefuckis going on?
My whole body aches, and for some reason, my left arm is tender, painful, and three times the size of my right, a real-life Popeye situation. A streak of red is painted across my mouth, and squinting, I scrape a bit of it off and smell.
Is thatoregano?! I stand up straight, then gasp at the mound blooming beneath the T-shirt. I poke at it in disbelief, only for it to spring back.
Pizza belly!I havepizza belly!
“Julian?” An instant later, Nomi Wyeth appears in the doorway, and I shriek, yanking down the tiny T-shirt to cover my bloated abdomen.
“Oh, sorry!” she yips, then turns awkwardly to give me privacy.
Memories of the night bumble back with all the grace of a middle-aged man doing Pilates. Disturbing. Wrong. Painful to endure. These areNomi Wyeth’sclothes. I—spent the night here. Nothing happened, except for—oh, God—when I stole her vibrator?! The feel of her straddling my lap courses through me,thatmemory crystal clear, as well as the massive boner that resulted. And the kiss…
My eyes flutter shut remembering the kiss. The slide of her soft pout against my bottom lip, the feel of her ass in my hand. How Ibegged.
Oh, God. I think I’m going to die.
“Is everything okay?” she asks without turning around. “Are you, um. Still stoned?”
Stoned… that’sright—that’s what happened to me! I ate those protein bars, and then I—the memories get fuzzier after that. They have the hazy quality of a dream where nothing you said or did makes any sense, and yet it happened anyway, and despite everything seeming incredibly stupid now, when it happened there was a vibe, a good one.
Everyone liked me. Everyone was cheering forme. My cousins, Eve, people I didn’t even know.
Did that really happen?
“You got me stoned…” I blink.
Nomi snorts. “You got yourself stoned by raiding the edibles table at our Pot Luck fundraiser.”
“Pot Luck fundraiser?”
“Last night was a fundraiser for my dispensary. Do you remember anything?”
