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“So what’s your excuse? What are you doing up at this hour? You have to be up at dawn. And I didn’t know you smoked.”
“Oh, well. Only sometimes.” He looked down at his cigarette. “It’s weed.”
“Oh!” Then I felt silly for being surprised. Lots of people smoked in California obviously, I just didn’t realize it was easy to get in Texas. Or that Reece… I shook my head at myself.
He leaned down and stubbed it out on the ground, his face a little sheepish when he looked back up at me. “Jeremiah doesn’t approve, naturally.”
“Hence being out here at two a.m.?” I asked.
He shrugged. “And I can’t sleep sometimes.”
“You?”
“That surprises you?”
I shrugged, feeling a little embarrassed. “I don’t know. You just seem so… I don’t know. Solid. Unperturbed by life.”
He laughed. “That’s a new one.”
“What? Are you kidding?”
He shook his head. “No way. Jer considers me the fuck up. The one he always has to look out for.”
I frowned. “That’s nuts. You’re great.”
“Huh.” He sounded surprised. “Well. Thanks.” He rubbed a hand on the back of his neck. “So, nightmare? Wanna share?”
I shuddered, holding my arms even tighter. “No. Definitely not.”
Though I had to say, being out here with him was a better distraction than I could have hoped to find. I was finally calming down and the shaking had almost stopped.
Reece nodded.
I looked at the cigarette, which I guess could more accurately be called a blunt, that he’d tucked behind his ear. Then I asked, completely on a reckless impulse, “Could I have a hit?”
His eyebrows went up but he nodded. “Sure. Sorry, it was rude of me not to offer.”
Reece lit up the joint again, sucking in and hollowing out his cheeks. Then he passed it to me.
I put my lips around it, acutely conscious that his lips had just been in the exact same spot. Then I sucked and breathed in at the same time.
And coughed so hard I almost doubled over.
“Shit,” Reece said, reaching for me but pulling back at the last second like he wasn’t sure I wanted hands on me.
“I’m fine,” I coughed out, laughing at the same time. Tears from the smoke pricked at my eyes but before I could think better of it or Reece could try to take it away, I sucked in another long inhale.
And coughed all over again.
“Jesus, woman,” Reece said, snatching for the joint.
But I danced back from him.
“Uh uh,” I said in between coughs. “You are not stealing my first,” cough, “weed experience from me,” cough cough cough.
“Oh shit, it’s your first time?” Reece’s eyes went wide. “Then no more. This shit’s the good stuff.”
I handed it back. I was already laughing, though I doubted the weed could hit that fast. It just felt… ridiculously good to do something reckless. It helped settle me back into this life and made the nightmare life feel worlds away. Where it belonged.
