Page 23 of How to Blow It with a Billionaire

She watched me for a little while, and then the corner of her mouth ticked up into a smirk. “I don’t like Mondays but not in the mass murder way. I meant on the PS4.”

The last time I’d fired up the epic flat-screen in the sitting area had been when Nik was staying. Because, the thing was, home cinema felt ridiculously fucking lonely if there was only you.

“Sure,” I said.

We got ourselves settled on the sofa and Ellery got everything set up, finally tossing the second controller into my lap. We played some kind of Call of Duty-alike (actually, it probably was Call of Duty) and I was basically terrible—dropping grenades on my own feet, banging into Ellery’s character, and wincing every time I had to shoot a person-shaped collection of pixels. By contrast, she was positively surgical, cutting through our enemies, headshot by headshot by headshot.

When she wasn’t laughing at me, anyway. She had a good laugh—throaty and uninhibited, just rarely seen in the wild. Strangely, it was when she most reminded me of Caspian.

I ordered a pizza at the point that a sensible-food-having time rolled round. It was Ellery’s choice, though she only ate a slice and then did coke off the box.

“Problem?” she asked, catching me staring.

“No. I mean…Um. Drugs are bad, aren’t they?”

“This isn’t bad. It’s some of the purest shit you can get.” She swung her legs up onto the sofa and sprawled out, lazy as an alley cat who had beaten up all the other cats and nicked the best spot in the sun. “Sure you don’t want some?”

I shook my head. “Aren’t you worried you’ll get addicted or your nose will fall off or something?”

“Nah. They’ll send me back to rehab before I go full Winehouse.”

“Good to know.”

We were quiet for a bit. It was probably the longest I’d ever seen Ellery sit still.

“Why do you do it?” I blurted out, sounding like Squarey McSquareson, the Squarest Square in Squaresville. The only place in the universe they still said square.

“Do what?”

“You know.”

“Ohhhh, you mean getting tweaked. Getting geeked. Blowing out. Making it snow. Hitting a bump. Chillin’ with mah white bitches.”

I pouted. “I feel mocked and derided.”

“You should. Because that’s what’s happening to you.”

“It’s not a completely unreasonable question,” I mumbled.

“It’s boring, which is worse. I do it because it feels good. Obviously.”

“But it’s not real.”

“Have you noticed nobody ever says that about the shitty stuff?”

“I…hadn’t thought of it like that.”

She gave one of her I’m-almost-too-apathetic-to-express-my-apathy shrugs. “Life is just another come down. Least this way I get to choose.”

“Steady on.” She’d managed to put me off the pizza. Apparently pepperoni didn’t go with ennui. “There must be something else that makes you happy.”

“Like what?”

“Um, a beautiful sunset?”

She shot me a look from beneath her half-closed eyes: this sliver of greenish malice. “A beautiful sunset? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“I panicked, okay?”