Page 68 of Necessary Space

“Wes.”

“And if you think I didn’t find those sketchy little videos you tried to hide in the root cellar, you have another thing coming,” he teased, eyebrows waggling.

“Wesley!” I covered my face with my hands, cheeks burning my fingertips.

“Honestly, I probably have more experience than you.”

“You have to stop or I’m putting you on a plane.”

“The one thing, though.” He raised a finger, clearly not interested in stopping anytime soon. “What’s in the little bottles?”

“What?” I squinted at him, caught off guard and unsure what bottles he was talking about. I had forgotten about the porn stash in the root cellar, but I didn’t remember leaving anything behind besides some old dog-eared magazines and a couple of videos.

Wes pushed a fingertip against the side of his nose and sniffed. “The bottles.”

“Oh, God.” The thought of my brother huffing twenty year-old poppers he’d found in the root cellar had my blood running cold. “Did I leave that behind?”

“What are they?” he asked again, ignoring me.

“Nothing you need to try.”

“I’ll google it,” he warned. “But I’d rather you told me since you know what they are. Obviously. And, no, you didn’t leave any behind. They were in one of the videos.”

“Be my guest on the search engine, but I’m not having this conversation with you.”

Thankfully, the waitress took that moment to return and take our orders, momentarily distracting Wes from his line of questioning about poppers and what they had to do with sex. After he ordered his orange chicken, I made sure to be quick on changing the subject.

“Did you have anything that you wanted to do while you’re here?” I asked as soon as the waitress stepped away.

“I was hoping you would know the cool things to do,” he said.

“Do I look cool?”

He scoffed. “I’ll google that too, while I’m at it.”

“We can go to Hollywood,” I suggested.

Wes smirked. “Okay.”

“Tower Records.”

“What’s that?”

I sighed. “Never mind.”

“What’s there to do in Hollywood?” he asked.

I wished I had an answer for him, but I’d literally just had this conversation with Colin over lunch. I hadn’t gotten out and explored the city at all, so I didn’t know what was even worth seeing or doing. I’d been planning on asking Miles to take me around. I thought they would be cute dates, but…

“The Walk of Fame,” I answered. “The movie theatre where they do the premieres. I think they film one of the late shows there.”

“What else?”

“We can go to the Observatory, muscle beach, all of that.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about, do you?” Wes slurped his soda, the plastic cup landing hard against the table when he finished.

“We can explore together,” I offered.