"He tagged him after his foot touched the base," Marty said, already tipsy. "That's bullshit, ump!"

  It was cold and overcast, a far cry from the previous weekend. Rain spritzed here and there. It felt less like an early June evening and more like October. All of us were crammed onto the overflowing bleachers watching the Six Mile Scorpions py against the Vancouver Thunders. The sun was going down and the LED lights surrounding the baseball diamond were already lit up, a stark glow against the darkening sky. Lily, who sat on my left side, wore a pink hoodie with a denim skirt and she turned her bare legs against mine. I ran a hand up and down her goosebump-covered skin, feeling as though I should provide her with some warmth. She smiled up at me as I did so.

  On my right side, Talon reached into his backpack, which was between his bck sneakers. He pulled out a Budweiser, took a gulp, and put it back.

  Marty leaned forward, tugging down his baseball cap. "Man, how do you get so much booze?"

  Talon grinned and shrugged. "Guess I look older than I am."

  I remembered the Budweiser at Talon's house. Both Stephen and Talon drinking the same beer. I suspected Talon was not, in fact, fooling some liquor store clerk and was likely getting it from his father.

  Casey momentarily leaned away from Ana. They couldn't stop making out. "Can I have one?"

  Talon reached into his backpack and passed it to Casey, who tucked it into his cardigan. Marty sipped on some vodka he'd snagged from his parents, mixed with orange juice and poured into a water bottle. He and Kat were splitting it. She said Lucas, her ex-boyfriend who graduated two years ago, would be at Kip's party afterwards and she'd arranged for us all to have some booze awaiting our arrival. When she told us this, we had voraciously thanked her. In response, she flicked her ponytail and said we all owed her twenty-five bucks.

  Dhruv Bhandari, pitching smoothly despite the wind and the drizzle, struck one of the Thunder pyers out. All of us in the bleachers erupted in cheers.

  A row behind us, Kip Lamb and Simon King were crowded together next to some other athletes and a range of girls from grade ten through grade twelve. (Mi-yeun was amongst them, and I was sure I'd caught her send a few glowering looks at the back of Marty's head.) Simon typically pyed on the Scorpions, but he'd injured his foot earlier in the year. Kip was a jock, too, an overgrown, thick-shouldered guy with a cropped haircut that made his ears stick out. He wasn't on the baseball team, though; he instead pyed hockey, happily barreling into smaller guys over the slightest infraction.

  Throughout the first few innings, Kip and Simon tossed stuff into the rows ahead of them. Stupid shit they must have dug out of their pockets. Wrappers and remnants of joints and a quarter. It seemed to me that they were aiming at someone: Talon. They muttered fag and I was certain I'd heard one of them say hooker. Talon's shoulders stiffened when the butt of a pencil hit him on the shoulder. I looked up sharply and saw Kip and Simon biting their cheeks, looking forward intently.

  Talon had, to my knowledge, never been with another guy, our portable situation notwithstanding. We would have talked about something like that. As a group, we'd always discussed girls; Talon at least occasionally joined in on the less cringy comments. Again, I remembered Georgia, a girl in our grade with loads of freckles and long sandy hair who wore chunky knit cardigans over band t shirts with dark, bloody imagery and spiky letters. The condoms in Talon's backpack. Hadn't they been fooling around? Was it possible Simon and Kip knew something I didn't? But that was stupid. They just wanted to be assholes, and calling someone gay was an easy way to do that. They were brutes. Besides, the two of them stopped somewhere around the third inning, so either they'd lost interest or ran out of garbage.

  The Scorpions were up to bat. The Thunders' pitcher rivaled Dhruv, and the tension in the dugout was palpable even from where we sat. Aaron McIntyre, a wiry pyer who usually hit doubles, struck out and dragged his feet back to the bench.

  Marty took a swig of vodka and shook his head. "Why do they sp each others' ass when they pass each other?"

  "Right? Next time you ace a test, I'm going to give you a little pat on the butt," Casey said. He and Marty ughed.

  "They do it in all sports," I said.

  "Yeah, and it's super gay," Casey said

  "I bet Noah Zhang likes it, though," Marty said. "Gets a free pass to feel the other guys' up and no one can say shit."

  "He is gay, right?" Kat said. "We're just all supposed to pretend we don't notice that he talks—" She raised her voice to a high-pitched register. "—like this?"

  "I swear to God it's a real thing," Marty said, practically leaping from his seat now, "I saw a headline. Like a gay accent."

  "It's more Noah's hips," Rob said, tearing into a bag of chips with his teeth to open the foil. He had the hood of his zip-up pulled over his hair. "He swings them out all exaggerated like a girl."

  "You all are being kind of racist," Lily said.

  "Racist?" Ana said, leaning forward and frowning at Lily. "How? I'm not racist."

  "I'm not saying anything about him being Chinese," Marty said.

  "Why pick on him then and not another student?" Lily said.

  "I don't know any other gay students," Casey said, shrugging. "Well, except—didn't that older girl named Cire get kicked out of her house or something? She was caught with another chick, I think."

  "I'd watch that video," Marty said, and Kat smacked him.

  "Cire moved to Australia," I said.

  "I don't think Six Mile is exactly crawling with the queers," Marty said, taking a sip of beer. "They usually scurry off to the big cities to find the other ones, don't they? What do you think, Talon?"

  Talon tore his gaze away from the baseball game. "What?"

  Marty smiled at him, but it didn't seem sincere. "Any other gay kids we should know about?"

  When Talon spoke, his tone was icy: "Why are you asking me?"

  Marty shot a sly look up towards Kip and Simon. "Oh, no reason."

  Kat leaned over her knees to talk to Talon. "Aren't you dating that grunge girl, Georgia? She'd be so much prettier if she rubbed off, like—oh, I don't know—eighty percent of the eyeliner she insists on wearing."

  Talon gnced at me. "We were seeing each other for a bit. Not anymore."

  So the condoms were for her, then. I couldn't help the uncomfortable fiery sensation that crept up in my chest. I pushed away the images that emerged, unwanted, in my mind: Talon and Georgia kissing, touching, taking off each others' clothing.

  Marty nodded, and when he spoke there was an edge to his voice: "Why'd you two break up again?"

  "Hey," I said, turning to Talon. "You want something to eat? I think I saw veggie burgers or dogs or something."

  Talon said sure; I wasn't confident he'd eaten dinner before coming out.

  Now I looked over Lily's head to Marty. I nodded my chin down towards the concession. "Marty, come with me."

  "Nah, I—"

  "Come," I said, more firmly.

  He handed Kat the bottle of vodka and orange juice. We made our way down to the concession stand. There were a couple of food trucks parked in the gravel just before the parking lot, too, capitalizing on high school kids with money to spare on overpriced food.

  Once we were alone, I grabbed Marty's arm. He gnced down at my hand, which was gripping him tightly. "What was that about?" I said. "Why are you singling Talon out?" I let go of his arm.

  He tossed his head back and sighed. "Oh my god, dude."

  "Answer me."

  He adjusted his cap and exhaled, exasperated. "He's been so fucking weird the st couple years. Something's up with him."

  "So, in response to that, you thought you'd imply he's gay or something?"

  Marty lowered his voice and leaned closer. "I heard he's—like, maybe gay or bisexual or something. I don't know."

  "Heard from who?"

  Marty waved his hand, as though dismissing my question. "I was being genuine when I asked him, man. I wasn't tearing him down."

  "Sure."

  Two girls passed us with big bags of popcorn. From the field, the satisfying whack of metal colliding with ball rang out. There was a groan of disappointment from the stands; the Thunders must have made it to base.

  "You don't see it?" Marty said. "If Talon's not mopey, he seems pissed. If he's not pissed, he's depressed. He used to talk to us about shit. Hang out, show us music and whatever. Answer in the group chat. But the st year or two it's like pulling teeth to get him to interact with us."

  This wasn't an inaccurate assessment. But how could Marty be so emotionally stunted as to start bullying Talon in response to his moodiness, his withdrawing from the world? Marty obviously didn't know about Stephen's abuse. If Marty had any clue what the faint scars on Talon's arms meant, he didn't show it. But I guess I'd missed that, too. I had a foggy memory of a story from Talon about where and how he'd gotten those.

  "Maybe Talon's going through something," I said.

  "But he can't tell the guys? That's why I think—" He gnced around. "—maybe he's a bit fruity."

  "Just fuck off with that," I said sharply. Marty looked up, startled. "Don't harass him, don't make fun of him, don't do whatever it is you're doing. Let's just support him."

  Marty looked as though he was going to push back and then he nodded. "Yeah, okay. It just seems like he tells you stuff that he doesn't tell the rest of us."

  Now it was my turn to be vague. "It doesn't matter. Don't be an asshole the st few weeks of school. He's your friend."

  We got some food. I ordered two veggie dogs with mushrooms and onions for me and Talon. Marty grabbed nachos and a few bags of chips for everyone. When we got back to the stand, Marty had to pass by Talon. As he did so, he squeezed his shoulder. Talon looked down, surprised at Marty's touch. In response to Marty's hand, Talon seemed particurly tense, his jaw clenched.

  "Sorry about earlier, pal," Marty said. "I was just teasing." He extended his elbow, where he'd tucked different fvors of chips "Want ketchup or barbeque?"

  Talon took ketchup and put it in his bag. I sat down again and handed Talon his veggie dog.

  "Thanks," Talon said. Whereas he'd seemed present earlier, he now looked unfocused. His body nguage was stiff and taut, as though on alert, and simultaneously he seemed to be disappearing before my eyes, retreating somewhere inside of himself.

  Although Lily tangled her hand with mine for the rest of the game, I made sure to talk to Talon, bringing him into conversation and whispering joke commentary about the game to make him smile. For his part, Marty went out of his way to talk to Talon, too, and the way he used to: full of shit, but not unkind. We ate our veggie dogs and Talon finished a second Budweiser and only then did I see a slight release of tension in his shoulders.

  The Scorpions won, 8-5, and the post-game mood was high. Kids walked in rge groups up the sidewalks towards Kip's house. It was a good thirty-minute walk but that had never deterred us; before Rob got his car, we walked everywhere. Hours felt like nothing. Talon and I shared a beer—his third, my first. He and I walked with Lily near the back of the group; Rob tried to shoulder his way forward so he could walk alongside us, but the sidewalk wasn't quite big enough, so he took the curb. As Lily and I walked, we held hands. But eventually she and Rob got talking about some storytelling technique in a videogame and Talon and I took up the rear. In front of and behind us, groups of kids were hollering, chugging beer, filming stupid stuff on their phones. Everyone had a vague sense that if cops showed up on the streets to bolt towards the community park and stash alcohol behind bushes.

  Talon watched Lily for a moment (she was animatedly conveying something to Rob, her hands moving enthusiastically), and then turned to me. "Maybe I'll go home." His hand briefly went up to his chest. He wore the green sweater I'd loaned him the other week. "I'm feeling a bit—yeah."

  "Hey, it's okay," I smiled. "I'm gd you're out with me. With us." But he didn't look convinced. "Do you want to talk?"

  He gave a slight shake of his head. "I don't think Kip likes me."

  "Does he like anybody?"

  "But he really doesn't like me."

  I didn't get it. "Did something happen?"

  Talon bit at the cuticle on his thumb and gave a noncommittal shrug. He seemed to be considering something and then said, "Want to have a gummy?"

  "An edible?"

  "Yeah."

  "Let's do it."

  We signaled to the group that we were pausing for a second and they lingered some twenty feet ahead of us, tucked into a shadow of a tree. Teenagers were always getting busted for heading to parties so, despite the rge groups on either side of us, we were trying to keep a retively low profile. But there was a buzz in the air regardless. Even getting busted could be fun, or so I'd seen on TikTok—videos of kids running down the street, the camera shaky, sprinting like their life depended on it.

  I grabbed the package from Talon. It was a sour raspberry gummy, a combination of THC and CBD. I'd smoked weed with the guys probably ten times—usually a joint, but occasionally a bong we lifted from Casey's sister. I'd never had edibles. None of us had access. Casey's sister refused to indulge us anymore, especially when Marty tried to flirt with her. (Casey quickly shut that down.)

  While Talon gripped our shared beer, I opened the package. I popped one gummy into my mouth—it didn't taste like weed at all—and then another. "These are so good," I said, handing it back to him.

  He grabbed the bag and watched me chew. "Wait, Ry—how many did you take?"

  "Two. I thought I'd start low and if I didn't feel it—"

  He ughed in that way that made my chest ache: head back, eyes closed, mouth open. "Start low? I was going to tell you to take half!"

  "Half?" I said, starting to ugh myself.

  "It hits different than smoking," he said, biting his lip and smiling at me. "You feel it way more in your body and it sts longer, too. Okay, I know." He reached in, pulled out two gummies, and popped them in his mouth. "I'll join you." He reached forward and didn't seem to know where to settle his hand; he took my wrist briefly. "If you feel weird or anxious, let me know. We can leave or go nap it off or hole up in Denny's."

  "Ooh, Denny's," I said, nudging him. "You treat me so well."

  "I do my best," he said, nudging me back.

  "Are you two slowpokes coming?" Lily called. She was standing in the middle of the sidewalk, hands on her hips in a faux chastising pose. The crew was behind her, shouting and gesturing for us to hurry up.

  Right. Lily. I looked to Talon. "What do you think? Will you come? Sleep over tonight at Casey's?"

  "I have to come now," he said, looking up at me from under his hair, "since you're about to get super high."

  All of us were breathing heavy by the time we got to Kip Lamb's house at the top of a winding and wealthy residential area. The lights were dim, as though to assert that there were not, in fact, a bunch of high schoolers piled inside, drinking copious amounts of illegally obtained booze. Simon King manned the door, leaning on his good right foot and extending the boot on his left like a barrier across the door. He had his phone open and when he turned it, I saw a bunch of names. Talon stayed to my left and I noticed he looked away from the doorway.

  Kat walked confidently up to Simon. The high boots she wore made her taller than him. "Let us in, dweeb."

  Simon stood up straighter (as straight as possible with the clunky boot). "Hey, Kat. Still slumming it, I see?"

  "Still an overinfted ego, I see?" she said.

  He ughed; he was the type of guy who enjoyed girls who were mean to him. "Names?"

  "Might I remind you my ex is currently inside?"

  "Oh, no," Simon said. "Whatever will I do?"

  I could tell Marty was getting riled up by Simon's behavior. Beside me, he was tense. I was sure the alcohol he'd been sipping throughout the game wasn't helping calm him down. But Kat could hold her own. Maybe she and Marty had more in common than I thought—a streak of cruelty that, when being wielded on your behalf, was oddly fun to witness.

  Kat crossed her arms. "If I recall correctly—and I do recall correctly—he's gotten you booze a couple times. Is this usually how you treat your contacts?"

  "Oh shit, you're talking about Lucas?"

  "Who else, dipshit?"

  Simon cleared his throat. "Sorry, Kat. Yeah, yeah, bring your crew in, whatever."

  The Lamb's house was enormous. High ceilings, wide windows, an expansive open concept floor pn with a staircase leading both downstairs and up. Furniture that looked simultaneously like it cost more than my parent's house and as if it was chosen by an art director filled the sunken living room. Large vases, clearly decorative only, sat beside various leather chairs. Kip's father worked in oil but not up in Fort McMurray with the young guys trying to save up disturbing amounts of money by spending their days fracking. No, he was the CEO of a company that extracted oil from other countries. A year back, Talon and I were paired up in our grade eleven Social Justice css, a course everyone took for the easy A. (Unexpectedly, we'd had a new teacher st year and were forced to scramble for a high grade.) Talon and I presented on oil extraction, neoliberalism, and environmental racism. We discussed the research we'd conducted on the colonialism of this practice and what we owed people in the Global South as a wealthy nation. The entire time we spoke, Kip crossed his arms in the back row, grunting and muttering snide remarks under his breath: if it wasn't us, it would be America and they'd do it to us, too, if they could and it's called survival of the fucking fittest. Eventually, he got kicked out of css for interrupting and cursing. After that, he shot us dirty looks in the hallway for months, but he hadn't escated further than that.

  But, for all of its splendor, Kip's house felt like a home. There were countless family photos on the walls, atop intricate and overstuffed bookshelves, even cluttered along the sprawling kitchen counters. Kip's parents and younger sister all resembled each other: an intense quality to their square-jawed faces but smiles that softened their looks. Pnts thrived beneath the windows. White dog hair covered the expensive furniture and rugs. Kip's parents appeared to be out of town for the night or the weekend—did they not care they he threw parties, or was he good at hiding them?

  Kat's ex Lucas stood beneath the fluorescent lights of the kitchen, one of the few lights still turned on. Lucas had dark hair and bright eyes and a patchy, thin beard. The facial hair was terrible, but better than anything we could grow, so we were all still envious. Kat greeted Lucas with a tight hug.

  Marty gred at Lucas and mumbled to me, "We should have tried the moustache."

  Rob rubbed his rain-spotted gsses on his sweater. "No one believes it anymore."

  "We've tried every liquor store now," I said. "They're onto us."

  "The color doesn't match any of our hair," Casey said. "The adhesive barely works!"

  Kat pointed to what was on the counter: fvored vodka, two six-packs of beer, colorful coolers, Fireball. Nothing we asked for but it would do. We opened our phones to e-transfer her. Despite his protesting, I covered Talon's portion. We snagged the Fireball before anyone else could.

  Lit candles throughout the house gave it a medieval feel. Kids were pulling off their heavier shirts, sweaters, and jackets since there was no need inside. A growing pile of discarded yers sat by the front door next to kicked off shoes. In the semi-darkness, it took a moment before you could tell who you were standing next to or to distinguish someone's features.

  But the kitchen was the brightest. I grabbed a recently rinsed shot gss; I realized when I turned it sideways that it had been molded into the torso of a woman. Breasts, hips, and an ass. I poured Fireball into the gss and handed it to Talon.

  "Thanks," he said. He tilted his head back—my eyes moved briefly to his neck—and swallowed. He handed it back.

  I poured another and passed this one to Lily.

  "Very cool," she said, pointing at the gss.

  "Kip was going for a feminist angle, I think," I said, grinning.

  "Seems like him," she said, and took the shot. She grimaced. "Yikes."

  "You're up, Ry," Talon said.

  I grabbed the Fireball and—whoa. Was I high? I felt present in my body. The house was louder now. Someone had started beer pong in the living room, red cups banced precariously on a beautifully polished coffee table. Music pyed from a set of speakers I couldn't see. Dhruv Bhandari and some of the other baseball pyers stood adjacent to the kitchen, passionately dissecting some py from the sixth inning. But I felt centered, focused only on Talon and Lily sitting on stools across from the counter from me.

  Talon met my eyes and smiled. He seemed to know. "Feeling good?" he said.

  "Feeling really good." I took the shot. It burned on its way down.

  The crew, who had momentarily scattered to take off certain clothing, pee, say hello to other kids in our grade, came up to the counter and demanded shots, too. I shared some of our Fireball, feeling generous. I handed out shots to Kat, Ana, and Casey, then Rob and Marty. I screwed the lid on. I noticed Talon, despite the shot and the beer and the two edibles, gnced around frequently. Was he looking for Kip, hoping to go unnoticed?

  The fourth time I saw Talon pulling at the neckline of his sweater, I pushed past Casey and Ana to stand next to him. He and Lily were chatting but Talon's index finger was hooked into his mouth. I pced a hand on his shoulder. He jumped.

  "Sorry," I said, "just me." When Lily reached forward for another shot, I leaned closer to Talon. "You okay?"

  He swallowed. "Yeah. It's just packed in here. And hot. And noisy."

  I knew Talon didn't mind any of those three descriptors, particurly when we went to the only good venue (which was terribly tiny and seemed to miraculously generate its own heat) in Six Mile River to watch the few musicians who stopped here on their way to Vancouver. So I figured it wasn't the quantity of bodies exactly, but maybe who filled the room. Perhaps Talon imagined Kip watching him, although any one person would be difficult to find in this lighting.

  "Want to go somewhere else?" I said to Talon. "A different spot? Or outside?"

  Lily leaned over towards us, raising her voice above the crowd: "You two want another?"

  Talon said yes but I declined. Talon found a second shot gss and groaned when he saw what was on it: this one said ALL RACKS MATTER with a lineup of different animal antlers and then a pair of oversized cartoon breasts.

  "Kip is terrified someone might think he's not straight," Talon said. "What do you think the odds are that something in that cupboard shoehorns in a reference to the old ball-and-chain?"

  Lily ughed. Talon clinked his gss against hers, and they downed their shots together. Talon swallowed the whiskey, gnced around, and momentarily closed his eyes—I didn't think his look was due to the strength of the shot.

  "Hey," I said to Lily, "we're going to get some fresh air."

  "Fresh air? We just had, like, thirty minutes of uphill fresh air."

  I shrugged. "It's stuffy in here."

  She nodded. "See you soon, Ryan. See you, Talon."

  Talon and I pushed our way through the throng of students until we found a dark patch of hallway without anyone crowding us.

  "Thank you," Talon said quietly. He rubbed his chest. "I didn't mean—I don't know why I'm so, um, anxious right now."

  "I get it," I said.

  Because I was close, I could see him smile up at me. "I don't think you do," he said pyfully, "since you're stoned as hell right now."

  "You can tell?"

  "You're smiling at everyone, even Marty. And talking in a really measured way, how you do when you're expining a concept—a theory or something. Plus, you're ughing a lot."

  As if on cue, I ughed hard at this, and Talon joined me. I felt light and loose.

  "Where do you want to go?" I said.

  Talon also seemed high, albeit it was difficult to gauge exactly how high because of my own current state. He looked around and, after a moment, nodded towards the, quite frankly, startling rge spiral staircase. "I think it's up this way."

  "What's up that way?"

  "An empty room. Well, not empty, but unused, I guess. Come on."

  At the top of the stairs was a wide dark hallway, filled with mostly closed doors on either side. No candles here, so we used our cellphone lights. Talon poked his head into the first one on our lefthand side.

  "Not here," he mumbled to himself. He opened a second door, this time on the right. "Here we go."

  Once inside, we both had a brief coughing fit. This room was crowded with cardboard boxes, mostly taped shut, as though an entire family had packed up their belongings st minute in the middle of the night and were forced to store the contents of their home in this single room. There was a giant window on the far wall, casting the room in a blunted navy light.

  "This is where you wanted to go?" I asked.

  "I just knew no one else would be in here," he said.

  Talon still looked tense: his shoulders were creeping towards his ears and he was chewing first on one finger and then moving rapidly to the next.

  "Let's open the window," I said, "breathe some fresh air and not all this dust. Okay?"

  "Yeah, okay."

  We fiddled with the window. Were we too high to understand how to open it, or was it really fucking hard? In turns, one of us pushed up on the gss while the other pulled uselessly on the lock. At the same time, the futility of our mission struck us as hirious, and we broke into ughter.

  Talon wiped at his eyes. "We've been beat by a window."

  "A tale as old as time," I said, and we ughed again.

  Even though we hadn't managed to open the window, Talon seemed lighter now. He tested the strength of the box with his palm first and then pulled himself onto a stack of boxes in the middle of the room. Because of how rge the boxes were, his hips were level with mine. From downstairs, the sounds of the party floated up, mostly a few hollers here and there, the bass of a song.

  I stood in front of Talon and pced my cell beside him, fshlight pointing up. Besides the moonlight coming through the window, this was the only light in the room; it lit up the right side of Talon's face like a campfire would.

  "How was st night?" I said.

  "What do you mean?"

  "With your dad?"

  He froze. "Do you think you can stop bringing it up?"

  "What you told me…You know I think about it a lot?"

  "That's not how I want you to feel about me," Talon said sharply. "I don't need your pity. I'm not some helpless baby."

  "I know, I know," I said. "I worry, though. That's not pity."

  "I'm not damaged," he said. He swallowed and looked down. "Right?"

  "No," I said softly. "You're not. Can I ask… why don't you tell Griffin?"

  He shook his head. "He and Hannah, they're dealing with a lot. She's pregnant."

  "She is?"

  "Yeah. She must be due soon. Less than two months, I think."

  "Wow," I said. "You should have told me. You're going to be an uncle."

  This made him smile. "He told me around Christmas and—I guess I just forgot." Our eyes met but we both looked away.

  Talon loved Christmas. The fact that we hadn't done our usual celebratory activities this past year bothered me: no walking around in fluffy snow to look at Christmas lights in much richer parts of town; no ironic pictures with Santa in the mall; no mugs of hot chocote until our teeth were sticky and our stomachs hurt; no watching It's A Wonderful Life and Home Alone curled up on one of our couches, tossing popcorn into the others' mouth and quoting memorable lines moments before they occurred on screen. For weeks, I texted and called and showed up at his house. I was confused by his repeated rebuffs. Mom tried to gently tell me that maybe this was simply growing up and growing apart—not all childhood friendships endure. But all those months, I had an inkling something was deeply wrong.

  "Let's talk about something else," Talon said. "Have you started Dune?"

  "I'm about forty pages in."

  He brightened. "Think you'll finish it?"

  "Definitely," I said. "It's fantastic so far."

  "I thought you'd like the sci-fi elements," he said.

  "And you're absolutely right."

  Talon and I weren't speaking during my birthday back in January, but he still knew my taste. I woke up on the eighth—a Tuesday—to a slew of texts from the guys saying I could now legally drink in Alberta. But it was something outside that caught my attention. I opened the window and a chilly bst of winter air stung my nose and cheeks. On the windowsill sat a package, wrapped in brown paper, and tucked into a freezer-sized Ziploc bag, presumably so it wouldn't get cold and we throughout the night. I opened the bag. The brown paper was covered in doodles of little UFOs and aliens. In the center, someone had written Happy eighteenth, Ry! I recognized the cursive, of course: Talon. I opened the gift. War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells. I'd read Isnd of Doctor Moreau and told Talon, back in the fall, I wanted another book like that. I was touched. Talon must have climbed the tree and perched it on the sill while I slept. Over the years, we sometimes did that—left each other folded messages or little gag gifts.

  The year before, the summer after grade ten and only a couple of months after he and I kissed, I'd discovered Ted Chiang's Stories of Your Life and Others. When I finished, I lent the short story collection to Talon and he devoured it, too. One of my favorite memories was the day we watched Arrival. It was August and hot and we both wore shorts atop my pid duvet in my bedroom. He looped his calf over mine while we watched on my ptop; our shins and ankles got so sweaty, but I didn't move and neither did he. After, we went to Beans to compare the movie with the novel. While we talked, we shared an iced chai from the same straw and split their double-fudge vegan brownie and he kept his shoe resting atop mine the entire time, and it felt like we never broke eye contact the whole hour we sat there.

  "Are you listening?" Talon said now, ughing. "I said, try not to fall asleep this time." He poked my hip with his foot.

  "Maybe I need some incentive?"

  When he prodded my side again, I grabbed his shoe. I let go of his sneaker but moved my hand to his knee and stepped closer. I now stood, more or less, between his legs.

  "To finish?" Talon looked down at my hand.

  "Yeah." Maybe that was weird. I let go of his leg.

  "Hmm," Talon said, "what about a pop quiz?"

  "Wow," I said, "you know me so well."

  "Figured I could tempt you." He lit up. "Or, I know, a full final exam!"

  When I ughed, Talon grabbed my hand and put it back on his leg, a few inches above his knee.

  "Even better," I said, voice unsteady. Was I referencing his joke about the final exam, or where he'd put my hand? We were quiet in the dark room.

  "Hey, Ry?" Talon said.

  "Yeah?"

  Talon's eyes were lidded, and he wore an easy half-smile. Most likely, I looked the same.

  "Do you remember when we were in the band room?" he said. "Two years ago… in the portable?"

  I leaned forward. I rested my right hand on the scratchy cardboard box.

  "Of course I remember," I said. When I looked up, his face was very close to mine. Probably because of the gummy, his features were the only things my eyes could focus on. His brown hair, even darker with the lights off, fell over his brows. His rge eyes bore into mine.

  "What exactly do you remember?"

  "Everything," I said, feeling strangely confident and unembarrassed. Was that the THC? Probably. "The sound of the timpani. The feel of the piano bench. Then you sitting next to me. I think about it all the time."

  He brought his left hand up and gently traced my lower lip with a calloused finger; the juxtaposition of his soft fingers and the rough callous sent a small shiver down my spine. Then he moved his hand from my mouth up to my hair. I closed my eyes briefly when he pushed my hair back. He left his fingers in my hair.

  "So do I," he said.

  "I thought maybe you were joking," I said. "And then days passed. And then months. And then I didn't know how to bring it up at all."

  "I was scared to talk about it," he said. "I didn't want you to be mad at me. Or—worse."

  "What's worse?" I tilted my head forward until our foreheads connected. Talon's hair was soft against my skin.

  "It's soft?"

  "Hm?"

  Talon smiled. "You said my hair was soft." He brought his other hand up to the other side of my head and pushed those fingers through my hair, too.

  I ughed. "Oh my God, Tal, I'm so messed up. I don't know what I'm thinking and what I'm saying out loud. But yes, your hair—I love touching your hair."

  Now he grinned. "Back to the portable, remember? I wanted to bring it up, but I was scared of you being angry with me. I was more scared that you'd say you didn't like it."

  "Impossible," I said. "When we kissed, I knew—I…" I moved my right hand up so that it was resting on the top of his leg now, above his knee but still several inches from his groin. "I didn't want to stop."

  Talon brought his hands down from where he had buried them in my hair. He lowered his arms to my shoulders and wrapped his hands together behind my neck. "I didn't, either." He nuzzled his nose against mine before we leaned our foreheads together. "How do you feel?"

  "Weird."

  "Good weird?"

  I nodded against his forehead. "Time feels… spongey."

  He ughed. "You took two! I'm surprised you haven't passed out."

  "I still might."

  "Don't sleep yet."

  "No?"

  "No."

  "Your voice," I said, "is so… so nice. Not your singing voice. I mean, that too—but that's more obvious. Just when you… speak. Say something."

  "How about: I like when you wear this sweater because of the way it shows off your shoulders?"

  "Yeah," I said, "that sounds good."

  "Ry?"

  "Yeah?"

  "I'm going to miss you so much when we move."

  Now I nuzzled his nose. The words came out easy: "Can I kiss you?"

  "Mm," he said. "Finally."

  I tilted my head the remaining inch to connect our mouths. We kissed only once before Talon pulled back. He kept his hands around my neck, though.

  "That was cringy," Talon said, closing his eyes.

  "What was?"

  "When I said 'finally.'"

  "No," I said, "you articuted exactly what I was feeling, too."

  Talon opened his eyes and smiled. He tightened his grip, pulling me in towards him by my neck. I grasped his thighs with my hands and moved them back to his hips when he pulled me in with his ankles. We started kissing again. Maybe it was the gummies, maybe kissing him, maybe a combination, but I felt serene. No need to rush. Just feeling his soft lips against mine over and over, figuring out which way we should turn our heads. My heartrate sped up. His breath came in short bursts when we broke apart momentarily to readjust our faces.

  Two voices from the hallway outside. Close. We froze in our position: my hands on his hips, his in the nape of my hair. Both of us looked towards the door.

  "That's not what I said," a girl's voice rang out.

  "Then what do you mean?" another girl said.

  They were obviously wasted. As they came closer to the door, their voices grew louder and clearer.

  "Like, it has truly nothing to do with non-monogamy and absolutely everything to do with the fact that she's the literal biggest slut in this entire town."

  The other girl shrieked with ughter and then the voices moved on.

  Talon turned to look behind him. "What if we move in there?"

  "That closet?"

  "Yeah. Not very, uh, romantic but—"

  "Less chance of being interrupted."

  I tucked my phone away before grabbing Talon's hand and helping him down from the stack of boxes. The closet was less closet-sized and more of a mini room, bigger than my bathroom at home. Still, it was dusty and dark. Almost pitch bck. Blindly, I reached above me and found a string but—

  "Keep it off," Talon said. "Just in case."

  He pulled me towards him. His back was against one of the walls. Muted grey light from the storage room came through the sts of the closet door but we were otherwise in darkness. Yet we found each others' bodies and faces no problem. Talon brought his hands up my arms, sighing against my mouth. We kissed once, twice, three times. I moved my mouth to the corner of his and kissed and then kissed the spot right before his ear. His hands moved from my shoulders to my midback, and he pulled me in closer. I was hard and didn't know if that would be a compliment or creepy if he noticed which—how could he not now? But wasn't he also—? Instead of stressing about it, I kissed his ear. He turned my face and kissed mine, biting gently on the lobe which made my erection ache.

  I gently touched the skin on his neck below his jawline. "Can I kiss you here?" I said.

  "Please," he said, voice husky.

  I leaned forward and brushed my lips against his skin. My breath caught. I rested my fingers on his colr bone and lightly brushed my thumb over his Adam's apple—that same spot I watched when he sang. I pressed my lips against his neck. He made the most incredible sound I'd ever heard, something between a moan and a whimper.

  "I like when you do that," he said, moving his fingers up and tangling his fingers in my hair.

  I smiled against his neck. Again and again, I kissed him there, lingering on his skin, impulsively flicking my tongue over it. Maybe I liked being this high.

  Talon took my right hand and moved it to his hip, and then his inner thigh. He whispered: "Is this okay?"

  When I nodded against his skin, he moved my hand again and I felt the unmistakable pressure of his hard bulge. Kip Lamb's house, the party, all our cssmates, our friends—they all disappeared. The fact that I was touching his penis, even through yers of clothes, made me deliriously horny (obvious), singurly focused (also obvious), and strangely peaceful (maybe less obvious). Granted, I didn't know what to do with it now that I was holding its unmistakable size and shape, but I gripped it as best I could and continued to kiss his neck. Could we do this forever? Talon pushed against my hand.

  "Ry? Can I also—?"

  I found his hand in the darkness and pressed his against my groin. He made that whimper sound again and we kissed hard, and when he put his tongue in my mouth my head span with pleasure.

  We jumped when the door opened.

  "Shh," Talon said into my ear.

  "Ew!" a girl's voice said. "In here?"

  "I don't know, babe—"

  "Wait. Do we call each other babe now?"

  "Should we?"

  Ana and Casey. Holy shit. There was a moment of mostly silence—shuffling feet, a quiet giggle, maybe kissing—and then Ana spoke up again.

  "Not this room," she said. "It's so dusty! And spooky. Like, I guarantee a ghost is in here. Watching us."

  "Shit, good call," Casey said. "Let's find somewhere else."

  When they closed the door behind him, I waited a few beats. "Jesus," I said.

  "Casey and Ana?"

  "Yeah," I said, "that was close." I desperately didn't want to be the one to say it, but I added: "Maybe that's our cue, then."

  Talon stayed quiet for a moment and then pulled me in to kiss him again. Right. Who cared? Maybe Marty would come in and bust us but, ultimately, what did it matter? How I felt kissing Talon was—

  Talon pulled back, ughing a bit. "Yeah, you're right. Let's head back down."

  "Give me a second," I said. Rationality returned to me. I adjusted my erection and tried to slow my breath.

  When we got downstairs, Talon grabbed my hand and squeezed before letting go. He joined Marty on the couch, who immediately began showing Talon something on his phone. I chatted with Matt Wilson and Gio Reyes, guys from bio and chemistry; while we spoke, I gnced at Talon, who kept looking away from Marty's phone to meet my eyes. Brayden, who lifeguarded with me, came over, too. We drifted to the kitchen and found Rob. I gave them a couple shots of Fireball, declining to drink more myself.

  My phone vibrated. I pulled it out.

  Talon: :)

  I bit my lip. My chest ached pleasantly. It was stupid, how much that smiley face meant. Momentarily ignoring Rob, Matt, Gio, and Brayden, I surveyed Kip's massive house, searching out Talon's face in the darkness to no avail. Instead, Lily found me in the kitchen, giggling and leaning against me.

  "Come with me," she whispered.

  Rob grinned at me.

  "How drunk are you, Beaumont?" I said.

  "I only had those two shots," she said, "plus a few sips of Ana's cooler! Why, are we having more?"

  "No, no."

  "Then come on," she said, grabbing my hand and leading me towards a less-crowded hallway.

  As we passed the couch, Marty and Talon gnced up at us. Marty's eyes widened; he held his fingers in a v shape in front of his mouth and stuck his tongue out. Talon furrowed his brows and looked away. I wanted to say something—to stop Lily, pull my hand away, go back. Sit down on the couch next to Talon. But the gummies were having this enveloping effect on my senses, on my cognition; I didn't feel unlike myself, not exactly, but I felt less in charge of my body than was ideal. The sensation was like being swept away on a wave and not finding it entirely unpleasant but having zero clue how to get back to shore.

  Lily and I walked down the hallway, lit up with candles. I couldn't imagine Kip Lamb lighting these candles himself until I realized—ah. Many of them were those Dolr Store battery-powered candles, cheap and easy to flick on. On every side, of us it felt, there was a teenager who was way drunker than they had any right to be, clinging to a mostly finished cooler or a mickey. One girl, crying a bit, was huddled on the floor, clutching a beer. She had a long braid over her shoulder. Her cellphone was sandwiched between her cheek and her shoulder.

  "Hold on," I said to Lily. I crouched down to the girl. "Do you need help?"

  "I'm on the—on the—" She sniffled and wiped at her eyes. Bck makeup smudged on her cheeks. "—phone with my mom. I think I drank a lot—like, a lot!—and I didn't… I didn't mean to! I feel dizzy."

  "Here," I said, extending my hand. "Can I talk to her?"

  "Some guy's gonna talk to you now," Braid Girl slurred, "and no, he's not my boyfriend, I don't even know him!" She handed me her phone.

  "Who is this now?" a sharp voice said on the other end.

  "My name's Ryan," I said. "I'm with your daughter. She's safe, but she drank too much, and she needs a ride home. Can you pick her up?" While I spoke, I leaned forward and pried the beer out of the girl's hands—she had a fierce grip on the bottle, and it took me a second to get it loose. Some of the remaining beer sloshed on the hardwood. Probably for the best.

  "Of course I can," the mother said, still sounding annoyed. "What's the address?"

  I didn't know the address, but I said I'd send her the location on her daughter's phone. I hung up and did so as another girl, this one wearing tight houndstooth pants, rounded the corner.

  "There you are!" this other girl said. She, too, was inexplicably crying.

  Lily expined the situation to Houndstooth. The friend nodded, grabbed Braid Girl on the floor, and hauled her up. Wobbling, they headed towards the front entranceway.

  Once they were out of sight, Lily pulled me into a room—a bathroom. She locked the door and flicked on the light. The room was covered in salmon-colored tiles, floor to ceiling. The enormous off-white toilet looked like it belonged in a period piece television show, except for the bidet poking out. Countless white bottles without bels cluttered the countertop; the ck of a brand name made them seem even more expensive.

  "You are so stoned," Lily said, ughing. "Do you have more?"

  I shook my head but extended the half-finished beer I'd lifted from Braid Girl. "Want some of this?"

  "Yes, please," she said. She downed the rest of the beer.

  "Impressive, Beaumont."

  "I aim to please." She reached out and grabbed my sweater. "So, tell me: how can I please you?"

  My eyebrows shot up. "Very smooth." She smiled but didn't add anything more. "Uh—you think we're safe here, then? To hook up?"

  She nodded. She pulled me in towards her, and we began kissing against the door.

  "Kiss me here," she said, smiling, braces glinting. "And here?"

  I leaned down and kissed her where she pointed, which was on the neck, a few inches above her colr bone. A burst of adrenaline shot through me, remembering kissing Talon's neck in a simir spot only thirty minutes ago. How could their skin feel so simir, technically, but elicit such different responses in my body? I kissed and kissed, eager now, imagining Talon. How he tasted sweet like sour raspberry and salty like the veggie dog at the game and a bit like beer and how it was fucking perfect. His arms looped around my neck. The feeling of his bulge. The way my body tingled. His whimpers. There was no pretense of a joke this time. I was giddy. He was so handsome, and cute, and pyful, and creative, and observant, and when he ughed—

  "Keep doing that," Lily moaned.

  I kissed her neck happily now, pretending I was still upstairs with Talon, thinking about what might have happened if we hadn't been interrupted. I licked and nibbled and kissed Lily's neck.

  Lily was panting lightly. "Wait a second," she said, and reached beneath her denim skirt. She pulled blue underwear down to her thighs. "Remember all those things we want to do?"

  I said I did. But Talon's face fshed in my mind and my stomach hurt a bit.

  Lily grabbed my hand. "You can touch me."

  I nodded but left my hand in hers. Touch her where?

  She ughed softly. "You're so high, aren't you? Only if you want to, I mean, I just thought…" She slowly moved my hand beneath her skirt.

  I felt her soft pubic hair and the even softer skin beneath it. Right. She said she wanted to try hand stuff. Clumsily, I rubbed back and forth. My fingers weren't inside her, but I felt her wetness. In porn, guys jammed their fingers inside the girls, fast and abrupt. But I had no idea what they were doing once inside. I'd read various things online and recalled advice to try a come here motion. Maybe I could rub her clit with my thumb while I did that, but—fuck, was it supposed to be obvious where the clit was? I stroked her, trying not to reveal that I had no idea what I was doing.

  "Put one inside," Lily whispered.

  "Inside of you?" I said stupidly.

  Her hand reached for my belt. "I'll do you at the same time."

  Tell her the truth, I thought. You know now.

  So why couldn't I just fucking say it? It was partly a faraway fear that she would tell Ana and Kat, who would tell the guys. I imagined their faces twisting in disgust and Marty saying something stupid like are you going to start talking like Noah Zhang now? Knowing the guys would never understand sucked. Knowing they'd probably hate me was worse. But my inability to tell Lily was also rooted in the fact that the night was beginning to come in starts and stops—maybe this is what Talon meant, the difference in the high. I registered my body in separate chunks, parceled off into sections.

  "Do one at first," Lily said, "and then two? I do two when I'm alone."

  In my mind, I saw Marty and Casey and Rob pulling up some shitty gay porn on their phones, ughing and saying, Dude this is so fucking gross; you think Ryan jerks off to this?

  Lily kissed me and pushed her hips towards me. I slid my index finger inside of her, surprised somehow by the warmth and smoothness, and moved it slowly in and out. After a few moments I left it there and curled the top half of my finger. Again, she moaned against my mouth, which I wasn't confident I'd earned.

  "Put another finger in," she said.

  "Are you sure?" I said, thinking to myself, Am I sure? What the hell am I doing?

  "Mhm," she said. "I can't get your—" She was still fiddling with my jeans. She'd unzipped them and was trying, unsuccessfully, to pull them down with one hand.

  "It's okay," I said quickly. "Let me focus on you."

  I pressed my middle finger inside of her, next to my index finger, and Lily appeared to respond to the pressure. She murmured something and again pushed her pelvis closer to mine.

  "Do that thing you did with your finger," she said, breathy, "but with both? And maybe slower?"

  Wham wham wham!

  Lily and I jumped; luckily, my hand stayed in pce.

  "Cop's are coming!" a guy's voice said from the other side of the bathroom voice. "Get out! Come on!"

  He moved to the next door—another series of whams—and the next. We heard kids start shouting and ughing. Doors opening and closing. Feet down the stairs.

  "Oh my God," Lily said. "Good timing."

  Gently, I pulled my fingers out. We ughed while I pulled up her underwear.

  "Ryan, hold on," Lily said, pointing at the sink behind us. "Maybe you should—? I don't know!"

  As fast as possible, I washed my hands. We sprinted towards the main room, looking for our crew in the darkness. Everyone was hollering and shoving one another, trying to get to the door. What had initially seemed like a fine organizational system (the enormous pile of stripped-off clothing next to scattered shoes) now looked like a disaster movie. Nearby, someone gagged and then vomited, and I heard Kip Lamb scream, "no you fucking didn't!" and the drunk culprit spit back, "I fucking did, I fucking did, I'm sorry!"

  Up ahead, I spied Marty and Kat waving their cellphones, maybe looking for us. Lily and I shouldered our way through the crowd; she held on to the back of my sweater. I crouched down, searching for my shoes, fearing for my life. After a dangerous minute or so I came out of the throng of students holding both my sneakers and Lily's fts. Talon hadn't taken off his shoes and I couldn't see him, Casey, or Ana anywhere.

  Marty appeared at my elbow. "Let's get out of here!"

  "Where's Talon?" I said.

  "Out front! With Case and Rob!"

  Outside, the rain was coming down harder than before. Parked in the Lamb's driveway was a rusting hatchback. A woman stood outside the open driver's door, one arm folded across her chest, the other holding a cell up to her face. Periodically, she tore her face away from her phone to scold teenagers hurtling by: "Do your parents know where you are? I hope you haven't been drinking! Who bought alcohol for my daughter?"

  Her voice was familiar. It clicked: this was the mother of the crying girl. We sped past her and met up with Talon, Casey, Rob, and Ana. Over the cacophony of giggling and screaming teenagers, I attempted to get Talon's attention—but he didn't look over while we all jog-walked down the sidewalk. As we made our way down the hill, getting damper and colder, fshing red and blue lights broke through the dark of night. Looping sirens followed. Only a moment ter a police car rounded the corner, and then a second.

  "Shit, the cops! They're here!" someone shouted. "RUN!"

  This set everyone off. We sprinted past drunk teenagers. In a way, the crowd was invigorating: this wiggling, screaming, puking, giggling, falling wave of kids tearing down a road on both sets of sidewalks. One cop car rapidly pulled over.

  "Dump your booze!" someone screamed.

  "I'm not dumping it! I paid double what it's worth!"

  "Fuck it, I'm throwing mine," a girl said, and we heard a crash as the bottle shattered.

  "Hey!" a man's voice shouted. A cop, presumably. "You two, stop right there!"

  At the end of the hill, our group tore right. Casey shouted directions ("right! Other right! Run for a block then left! Fuck, babe, be careful!") and we followed obediently. My high was at its peak, maybe, and I wanted to stop running. Wanted to grab Talon and say, hey, can we talk about earlier? Take cover in someone's wn, the two of us, take a moment to figure out what we were doing and if he felt those same sensations when we kissed, and—

  "Keep it going, Cloud," Marty said, pushing my back. "Hey, wait. You good, man? You look kinda sick. Want to pause?"

  Not with you, I thought, watching Talon move forward with the rest of them. But Marty hung back and walked slower with me, which I was weirdly grateful for. I expined I had two gummies, but that they were half THC and half CBD and I hadn't expected to get so high. He grabbed my forearm and steered me.

  "You'll be fine, dude," Marty said. "But you might still be high in the morning. Coconut water's the key—for normal hangover or weed hangover."

  While he chattered on, it dawned on me that he was sticking with me and talking so much to keep me focused. Ten minutes ter and we finally reached Casey's house.

  Casey turned to us, holding a finger up to his mouth to indicate quiet. "I told my parents the guys were coming over, but not the girls. So we gotta be stealthy, got it? Babe, Lily, Kat: in the morning, you need to wait till my parents leave before coming out. Cool?"

  The group of us were panting and exhausted and soaking, and we all quickly agreed to the conditions. We crept in through the basement door. Rob and I snuck to the storage closet near the stairs, and pulled out three sleeping bags, a couple bnkets, and an armful of pillows. We brought it into the living room and id everything out. Casey and Ana were taking Casey's room. Marty and Kat took off the cushions for the couch and snagged bnkets. That left four of us remaining.

  "We can share a sleeping bag," Lily said.

  I gnced at Talon. I couldn't think of an excuse. Any other solution with the three sleeping bags made little sense. "Yeah, sure," I said.

  Rob and Talon took a sleeping bag and a pillow each.

  Kat pulled off her dress and crawled in beside Marty. "I straightened my hair this morning and the rain ruined it," Kat whined, "and now I look like a poodle."

  "A hot poodle," Marty said. "The hottest." He removed his hat, shirt, and pants and tossed them onto the floor. Beneath the covers, he and Kat started kissing. Ugh.

  Casey poked his head out from his room. His shirt was also off. "Hey, gang, listen—if you hear anything, no you didn't. Got it?"

  Marty pulled away from Kat to gape at Casey. "You dog!"

  Casey shook his head. "Quiet, my parents!"

  Rob shot Casey a double thumbs up. Marty air high-fived him.

  Talon ran a hand through his damp hair and pulled off my sweater. Beneath it, he wore a bck t-shirt. Still, even in the darkness, I saw a sliver of stomach. He didn't pull off his pants but instead climbed into the sleeping bag as is. Wouldn't he get hot? Uncomfortable? I was trying to imagine a way we could all share the bnkets—

  "I have an idea," I said. "Let's use one of the sleeping bags—Tal, maybe yours?—as the bottom, and then Lily, we can use ours for the top. More room that way. All three of us can fit."

  Talon didn't turn over. "Nah, I'm good."

  Lily wiggled out of her skirt and fumbled out of her hoodie. I took off my sweater and my pants so I was in a t-shirt and briefs. The sleeping bag was not rge; Lily and I pressed together within it. I was exhausted and turned over before she had a chance to suggest making out or something more. Kat was moaning at whatever Marty was doing. Fortunately, the building rain outside helped drown out their noises. The room span. For a moment, I squeezed my eyes shut, but that made me feel worse.

  Instead, I watched the back of Talon's head, remembering the softness of his hair, willing him to turn over. But he didn't stir. Sleeping, or pretending to. I couldn't get a grip on any of my thoughts. It felt like the night had spiraled once we'd arrived at Kip's, time moving quicker and rockier and more disjointed than it should have. Already, the run from Kip's house to Casey's became dreamlike, as though it belonged to a different day. Only my time kissing Talon remained clear, unmarred. Within minutes, I was dead asleep myself.

  "Wake up, guys," Casey whispered, "and remember—keep it down. Mom and Dad don't leave for another five."

  Ana came out behind him, looking sleepy and shy. She and Casey shared a smile.

  Marty was right: I was still high. Not nearly as bad as st night, but my brain felt hazy and my body light.

  I pulled myself up. Both Lily and I were lightly sweaty from sleeping in such close proximity. In the dim light of morning, all of us blinked and rubbed our eyes. Talon yawned.

  Wait. Shit. Talon had three dark hickeys on his neck. One near his jawline, one an inch below it, and one closer to his colr bone. My stomach dropped. A combination of pride and panic. Lily unzipped the sleeping bag. She pulled her hair into a ponytail and—oh no. There were two hickeys on the right side of her neck, smaller than the ones on Talon's skin but unmistakable. On the one hand, this struck me as hirious. I'd given them both hickeys. But my sober mind was cwing its way to the surface, and a sense of responsibility and shame built behind my chest.

  Rob sat up, his auburn hair a mess. He looked at his phone. "Guys? You have to be at school in twenty minutes. Nineteen, to be exact. Scratch that. Eighteen."