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Scooting down in the lounger, I bring the blunt back to my lips and take another long hit. Tucking my knees up, I balance my sketchbook against my thighs, and reach over for my phone, tapping the volume button along the side until the music is all I hear.
My surroundings fade into the background as everything becomes sensation for me. The pencil gripped tightly between my fingers, the graphite point scratching sharp lines along the white paper. More smoke fills my lungs, before skating over my lips as I release it into the night.
My body feels heavy yet weightless in that way only weed can make it feel. My thoughts muffled; still there, but not as loud and domineering as they were prior to coming out here.
I start shading, loving the way it feels brushing the edge of the pencil along the paper, watching the way the shadows fill up, giving the sketch definition. Watching the scene depicted before me come to life.
A jagged, pointed city skyline.
A crowded street full of faceless bodies. No details whatsoever. Just curved outlines.
And in the center, two completely blacked out figures standing side by side. I make it so it looks like they can either be staring at me, or facing away, staring somewhere in the distance. A trick of the light meant to evoke different interpretations.
They don’t touch. Their balled up hands hang loosely at their sides. Over the one figure’s head, I draw a cloud—a thought bubble.
But when I go to write something in it, I pause, my mind blanking over.
What’s going through your head?I wonder.
Awareness prickles along the back of my neck and I blink, slowly lifting my gaze off the paper to stare into the long, narrow fenced in yard stretched out before me.
My fingers twitch along the pencil, and a lump forms in my throat. I don’t know how I know he’s there, but it’s always been like this.
Whether it’s in a room of fifty people, or late at night, outside, alone, somehow I always sense when he’s near. Like every nerve-ending of mine has been tuned in to when he enters a room, and isn’t that the most cheesy, stereotypical thing you’ve ever heard?
I quickly bring the blunt to my lips and take one last hit, steeling myself for whatever’s coming.
This time, I blow the smoke out harshly. Too harshly. Wincing, I turn and muffle a cough into the crook of my arm.
With the hand holding the blunt, I reach up and pop out one of the earbuds, tucking it in my fist. “You gonna come sit, or just continue to stand there awkwardly gawking at me?” I say in a raspy voice no louder than a whisper. But I know he hears me.
Waving the smoke away, I sit up, lean over, and stub the cherry out in the grass. I pinch the end and set it down on the table next to me along with my phone, saving it for tomorrow.
“You didn’t have to put it out,” Mason says quietly, his feet crunching softly over the grass as he draws near.
Shrugging, I watch from the corner of my eye as he rounds the lounger.
Fucking hell.He’s shirtless, because of course he is. And he’s wearing gray sweatpants to boot.
Kill me now, please.
“It’s fine,” I say roughly, tracking his movements. “I’m done.”
He grunts softly at that, not looking at me. Hands stuffed in his pockets, he looks around the backyard, taking it all in. He’s bathed in shadows, save for where the moonlight slants down his profile and his upper back, drawing stark attention to his chiseled jawline, and the muscle that bulges when he hunches his shoulders.
I sigh.
“Can’t sleep?” I say after a long moment.
He twists his head just enough to level me with a pointed look, as if to say,Really?
“What?”
He huffs something like a laugh and lifts a hand, wiping it over his mouth, turning to face the yard once more. “Nothing. Just… You’re asking me that, yet you’re the one out here pulling an all-nighter. Did you try to sleep at all?”
Shrugging, I tighten my grip on my sketchbook. Rolling my thumb over the coiled binding, if only to give myself something to do, I say, “Ivy snores.”Barely.
This time it’s definitely a laugh—short and raspy, more like a startled cough than anything. It’s my favorite Mason laugh. There’s just something about catching him off guard that never fails to warm my insides.
