“I’m not going,” I said.
She rolled her eyes. “You’re going. Can’t punk out on me now.”
“A street race?” Justin asked.
“Yeah,” Naomi said.
“Where is it?” he asked.
“Why—you wanna race?”
“No, I just didn’t think it was possible to drive more than twenty-five miles an hour in this town.”
Naomi rolled her eyes. “Oh, I know—people are, like, allergic to their gas pedals here.”
Justin exhaled a laugh. “Anyway, can’t go. I’m babysitting my niece.”
She scrunched up her nose. “Sounds riveting. You going to bake cookies for your grandma too?”
“Probably.”
The doorbell rang, and Naomi’s eyes widened. She tossed the phone at me. “Pizza’s here!”
“Um, hi,” I said.
“You want to take me off speakerphone now?”
I pressed the speaker off button. “Sorry if we bothered you. It… it really wasn’t my idea to call.”
“I know.”
I pictured him with that half smile. “So—”
“Hey, if you don’t want to go tonight, don’t go.”
I watched Naomi take the pizza into the kitchen. “I don’t want to be stuck in a car with her boyfriend,” I whispered. “He’s a creep.”
“Is he a bigger tool than Roger?”
“Yeah.”
“She needs better taste in guys.”
“No kidding. Maybe you can ask her out.”
He chuckled. “Does that mean I have your seal of approval?”
“I like you. I mean—better than Scott.” I rolled my eyes. Why was this so hard?
“Don’t worry. You had me at I like you.”
Naomi poked her head out of the kitchen. “Say bye to Prince Charming. Pizza is getting cold.”
“Sounds like you need to go again.”
“Yeah.”
Naomi ran a hand through her hair, tilting her head back. “Oh, Justin! Your voice is so sexy.”
I covered the mouthpiece, heat creeping up my neck.
“Is she on something again?” he asked.
“I don’t think so.”
Naomi continued to moan his name and roll her eyes up to the ceiling like she was having a seizure.
“That girl’s a trip,” he said. A child’s voice rang out in the background. “I gotta go, but, hey, if you decide to go and her boyfriend gets weird, call me, okay? I’ll pick you guys up.”
The nausea eased some. I really didn’t want to go, but I didn’t want to let Naomi down, either. “I will. Thank you.”
“Anything for my new bandmates. Talk to you later.”
“Bye.” I flipped the phone shut and glared at Naomi. “Do you really need me to go?”
She swallowed a large bite of her pizza. “What else are you going to do tonight?”
“I don’t know.” There was a curious part of me that wanted to be wild and crazy with Naomi. Live the life I’d overheard so many people talk about. The parties, the hookups, the “you just had to be there” moments, and even the hangovers. But so far I’d spent more time being uncomfortable. “Don’t you want to be alone with Scott?”
“He’ll be busy prepping his car. I’ll make him take us home as soon as it’s over.” She stuck out her lower lip at me. “Please? It would mean a lot to me.”
“Fine, I guess.”
She did a corny dance and thrust a slice of pizza in my face. It smelled like cardboard. “Eat.”
The pizza was cold and slightly chewy, but Naomi’s smile made it taste better.
Scott showed up just as Naomi stuck the last pin in her hair. She smelled like a fruity flower, and her lips were the color of red wine.
“What’s up?” Scott said after she let him in. He reeked of cigarettes and aftershave. Naomi threw her arms around him, and he stared at me over her shoulder.
I looked at the stained green carpet.
“How’s it going, Drea?”
“Fine,” I said. My lips were sticky with the brownish muck Naomi claimed looked good with my red hair.
“I brought you a present,” he said in her ear.
“I’ve got something for you too,” she whispered before glancing over her shoulder. “We’re gonna go upstairs for a couple minutes.”
I nodded and sat on the couch. Their footsteps thudded up the stairs, and Naomi let out a squeal after they closed the door. More laughter followed. A few thumps. And then silence. It wasn’t too late for me to get up and go home. Especially if she was going to be girly with Scott all night.
But I was still sitting on the couch when they came down a decade of minutes later. Like a good friend.
“Sorry, we got a little detoured,” Naomi said. The hair she’d spent hours curling and pinning up was a limp mess around her shoulders, and her lipstick had been smeared to one side. I didn’t get it. Why spend two hours getting ready just so some guy can obliterate it all in five minutes?
“Okay,” I said, looking down at my black sneakers.
Naomi plopped next to me with a compact mirror. She wiped the remnants of lip color off with the back of her hand and redrew a line around her lips.
Scott ruffled her hair. “We don’t have time for that.”
“Hang on,” she said. Her hands shook as she applied the lipstick. I wondered if he made her nervous.
Scott nudged her head forward so she missed her mouth by an inch.
“Hey, jerk.” She looked over at me and grinned. Her eyes looked like black saucers.
“Let’s go!” Scott headed for the front door and yanked it open.
Naomi jumped up, smoothing out her rumpled denim skirt. “Okay, cranky bear.”
Cranky bear didn’t even begin to cover Scott. I followed them out to the car, telling myself that it was good to be out on a Saturday instead of sitting at home online. Even so, I missed my computer, my pedals, and the berry candles I’d normally be burning.
Scott sped off with the same grace he had a couple weeks ago. The leather of the back seat gave me goose bumps. I should’ve brought a jacket.
We flew past the silhouettes of boats in Squalicum Harbor. They looked like rows of toothpicks under the full moon. Still and lifeless as if they’d been there forever. Railroad tracks ran parallel to us on the other side, disappearing into nothing but blackness.
At some point we merged onto the freeway, but we only drove a couple exits north before Scott got off and made a right. The streetlights evaporated, as did the stores and the gas stations. Scott floored the Mustang as soon as we hit a dark stretch of road, and the trees blurred into odd shapes and jagged edges.
“Is that all you’ve got?” Naomi asked him.
“Gotta save some energy.” He grinned at her, taking one hand off the wheel and resting it in her lap.
She tilted her head back and closed her eyes, laughing. “Come on, step on it.”
“You really want me to?”
We were already going so fast. Too fast. The white road bumps had become a solid line, curving into nothing ahead. “I think we should slow down,” I said.
But they didn’t hear me. Too much wind from the open windows. Too much drum and bass from Scott’s crappy speakers. I tapped Naomi on the shoulder.
“What?” Her eyes were sunken holes in her face, and the rest of her features were indistinguishable. She’d become nothing more than purple hair and pale skin.
“Make him slow down.”
“No way. Are you kidding?”
The tires skidded around a sharp curve. Trees swallowed the car, blocking out any remaining moonlight.
“Please,” I said. “I can’t see anything.”
“That’s because we’re in Hicksville. Only life around here is Farmer John and his harem of cows!” Naomi laughed again. It was too loud. Too out of control.
Warmth was building behind my eyes, and my chest felt tight with fast breaths. I rocked back and forth, telling myself that it was just another anxiety attack. Naomi and Scott weren’t monsters that were going to dump me in the woods somewhere. But it sure felt like it. The way he kept tugging at her arm. She’d try to bite his hand. And she kept talking so fast—like a tape stuck on fast-forward.