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.”
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?”
