sand in order to look at him. My head rests on his stomach and I smile when the heat of his skin radiates past his T-shirt onto my cheek. Or maybe I’m smiling because it’s Isaiah and only he can make me smile.
I love his dark hair, shaved close to his scalp. I love his kind gray eyes. I love the earrings in both ears. I love…that he’s hot. Hot when he’s high. I giggle. He’s tragically hot when he’s sober. I should write that down.
“Do you want a dress, Beth?” Isaiah asks.
He never teases me when I remember my
childhood. In fact, it’s one of the few times he asks endless questions.
“Would you buy me one?” I don’t know
why, but the thought lightens my heart. The teeny sober part of my brain reminds me I don’t wear dresses, that I spurned ribbons. The rest of my mind, lost in a haze of pot, enjoys the game—the prospect of a life with dresses and ribbons and someone willing to make my wildest dreams come true.
“Yes,” he answers without hesitating.
The muscles around my mouth become
heavy and the rest of my body, including my heart, follows suit. No. I’m not ready for the HC TITLE-AUTHOR
17
comedown. I close my eyes and will it to go away.
“She’s baked.” Noah’s not baked and part of me resents him for it. He quit pot and being carefree when he graduated, and he’s taking Isaiah with him. “We waited too long.”
“No, it’s perfect.” Isaiah moves and places my head on something soft and fluffy. He gave me a pillow. Isaiah always takes care of me.
“Beth?” His warm breath drifts near my ear.
“Yes.” It’s a groggy whisper.
“Move in with us.”
Last spring, Noah graduated from high
school and the foster system. He’s moving out and Isaiah’s going with him, even though Isaiah can’t officially leave foster care until he graduates next year and turns eighteen. My aunt doesn’t care where Isaiah lives as long as she keeps receiving the checks from the state.
I try to shake my head no, but it doesn’t work too well in sand.
“The two of us talked and you can have a
bedroom and we’ll share the other one.”
They’ve been at this for weeks, trying to convince me to leave with them. But ha! Even stoned I can foil their plans. I flutter my eyes HC TITLE-AUTHOR
18
open. “Won’t work. You need privacy for
sex.”
Noah chuckles. “We have a couch.”
“I’m still in high school.”
“So’s Isaiah. In case you didn’t notice,
you’re both seniors this year.”
Smart-ass. I glare at Noah. He merely sips his beer.
Isaiah continues, “How else are you going to get to school? You gonna ride the bus?”
Hell no. “You’re going to get your sorry ass up early to pick me up.”
“You know I will,” he murmurs, and I find a hint of my bliss again.
“Why won’t you move in with us?” Noah
asks.
His direct question sobers me up. Because, I scream in my mind. I flip onto my side and curl into a ball. Seconds later something soft covers my body. The blanket tucked right underneath my chin.
“Now, she’s done,” says Isaiah.
MY ASS VIBRATES. I stretch before reaching into my back pocket for my cell.
For a second, I wonder if pretty boy from Taco Bell somehow managed to score my HC TITLE-AUTHOR
19
number. I dreamed of him—Taco Bell Boy.
He stood close to me, looking all arrogant and gorgeous with his mop of sandy-blond hair and light brown eyes. This time he wasn’t trying to play me by getting my number. He was smiling at me like I actually mattered.
As I said—just a dream.
The image fades when I check the time and the caller ID on my cell: 3:00 a.m. and The Last Stop bar. Fuck. Wishing I never sobered up, I accept the call. “Hold on.”
Isaiah’s asleep beside me, his arm
haphazardly thrown over my stomach. Gently lifting it, I squeeze out from underneath.
Noah’s passed out on the couch, with his
girlfriend, Echo, pulled tight against him. Shit, when did she get back in town?
Quietly, I climb the stairs, enter the kitchen, and shut the door to the basement. “Yeah.”
“Your mother’s causing problems again,”
says a pissed-off male voice. Unfortunately, I know this voice: Denny. Bartender/owner of The Last Stop.
“Have you cut her off?”
“I can’t stop guys from buying her drinks.
Look, kid, you pay me to call you before I call HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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the police or bounce her out to the curb.
You’ve got fifteen minutes to drag her ass out.”
He hangs up. Denny really needs to work on his conversational skills.
I walk the two blocks to the strip mall,
which boasts all the conveniences white trash can desire: a Laundromat, Dollar Store, liquor store, piss-ass market that accepts WIC and food stamps and sells stale bread and week-old meat, cigarette store, pawn shop, and biker bar.
Oh, and a dilapidated lawyer’s office in case you get caught shoplifting or holding up any of the above.