Page 3 of Try Me

I rolled one shoulder in something like a shrug, the question unsettling me for some reason. Or maybe it was that Chet was the one asking. “Not really. We hook up sometimes.”

“She’s hot.”

I agreed with a slight nod, and he took another lazy toke from the joint. Rumors about Chet’s sex life swirled around town like the smoke he was exhaling, hard to pin down. And just like the smoke, a couple of the things I’d heard in the past curled and twisted in my groin as he licked his full lips.

“Gimme that.” I made a grab for the joint, but Chet jerked it out of reach easily.

“This shit’s too harsh for your golden lungs.” His tone wasn’t as cutting as he probably intended.

“You have some skewed-ass picture in your head of me.”

“Only what you’ve painted there yourself.”

Another reach, another jerk away. I pinned Chet with a flat stare, and after a beat, he cocked his head at me, brows lifting. The silver ring piercing one of them glinted. He had a hoop through his nose, too, both of which he removed for games. For the first time I was curious when he’d gotten them and with whom. Shit, my parents probably would’ve disowned me for something like that. His folks had always been more liberal, though.

“You really want it?” he rolled the joint back and forth between his fingers tauntingly.

“Yeah, quit being a dick about it.” Of all the things Ididn’twant tonight, this was the one thing that actually sounded good. Smoke filling my lungs, the cottony sensation of a high. I didn’t do it often, but yeah, it sounded like the ticket right now; my shoulders were too fucking tense. It probably also didn’t hurt that Chet was the one holding it. In spite of everything, he still intrigued me. “Whatever you think of me, I didn’t paint that picture, you did.” Or everyone else did, and I could’ve been wrong about that, too, but the flash in his eyes made me glad I’d said it anyway.

I maintained an unrelenting stare until Chet’s lips split in a grin, a challenge sparking and dancing in his eyes.

“Open your mouth, then.”

I angled toward him and leaned, opening my mouth slowly.

Chet scoffed and then, eyes narrowing, he lifted the joint to his lips and flipped it around, the glowing cherry vanishing when he sealed his mouth around it.

I put my lips to the paper and the rush of smoke barreled down my throat in a forceful jet that exploded in my lungs. I reeled back, hacking and thumbing the water collecting in the corners of my eyes. Chet pinched the joint free of his mouth and barked out a hearty laugh while I pounded my chest and wheezed.

“Fuck,”I gasped out, chest racked by another coughing fit. Definitely not schwag. “You shouldn’t be smoking this shit anyway,” I said when I could manage a full sentence, fully aware I was being a total hypocrite.

Chet laughed again, and this time it was softer, blanketed by the faint sense of light-headedness that wrapped around me. “You’re right, I shouldn’t. Good thing I don’t make it a habit or you’d have something else to gossip about. Now, will you get the fuck out of here?”

The rhythmic sound of water lapping at the shore twenty feet from us lulled me. From the direction of the house came a splash and the indignant shriek I’d been predicting. More splashes and whoops followed. Usually I’d be the second or third in, dragging people after me, partnering up for chicken fights. When I didn’t answer, Chet glanced over his shoulder, then ticked his head impatiently toward the house.Go.

“One more,” I demanded. Even as I said it, I wasn’t sure why. Between the liquor-filled punch and that single toke, I was set with a nice, fluffy buzz, and the truth was I hadn’t thought about Chet that much over the last four years. Not enough for the desire to linger in his company to be as strong as it was. We’d been tight once, and we weren’t now, and there were plenty of bullshit family politics that forged that divided path, but our town was pretty big and once freshman year of high school started, there was a whole new school filled with hallway gossip, teammates, and friends. There was sex to have, and ball to play—which I guessed was what our fathers intended all along.

Chet rolled his eyes, then signaled me with an annoyed twitch of two fingers.

I leaned again.

Opened my mouth again.

And waited.

This time he didn’t flip the joint around but instead drew a deep inhale that he held as he leaned toward me, fingertips dusting lightly over my shoulder to brace himself.

His lashes lowered and smoke moved in a lazy stream between our mouths, blooming warm and humid on my tongue. As I sipped it into my lungs, Chet’s eyes fluttered open, gaze fastening to mine.

For one brief second, we held like that, lips so close I was certain even blinking might cause them to touch. And in that same brief second, I wanted them to. The desire poured through me, as potent and intense as the smoke that filled me, dizzying as it burned through my core.

“Leave me alone now.” Chet snapped his gaze away, and dropped his hand back to his side, a gravelly roughness to his voice when he added, “Please.”

I sat back on my hands, light-headed and reeling, my body still but everything inside me buzzing with the momentum of that almost kiss. Probably it was just me. The weary expression on his face seemed to imply as much.

After I got my bearings, I swayed to a stand. Chet resumed his former position and stared vacantly into the darkness, shoulders hunched like the night itself was pressing down on them.

I needed to go. Right now.