Chapter 28.
28.
Collective Juror Misconduct (n., phrase)
a group of jurors, rather than an individual, engaging in behavior that goes against the court’s instructions or rules
jurors gone wild
D amon, Cam, and I make our way silently to the stairwell and begin to climb. Just as I’m thinking perhaps Cam has also swiped a key to the poorly secured presidential suite, he passes the second-floor door and keeps going, stopping at the only other option: the door to the roof.
This one’s got to be locked. It’s the roof. External access. But nope, Cam shifts the handle down, and sure enough, it’s also unlocked. I doubt these security measures are up to Judge Gillespy’s standards for this high-profile murder trial.
We step onto the roof, and I am immediately struck by the pungent odor of what I believe is a combination of desert rain and animal urine. The strip mall below is still lit up, providing ample light to the otherwise darkened evening sky. I immediately wrap my arms around myself as the moist breeze catches my hair.
“Oh, here,” Cam says. He bends around the corner of the door and hands me a gingham flannel blanket.
I wrap the blanket around my shoulders, wondering just how many times Cam has snuck up here.
Cam slides down against the stairwell wall, and Damon and I follow suit. We sit in a line—Cam, Damon, then me—looking on as two Jimmy John’s employees share a smoke break.
Cam positions the backpack in front of him and unzips it. “Either of you want to use the phone?” he asks, pulling one from the bag.
I contemplate, but making a call seems a step too far with all the rules we’re already breaking. I do briefly contemplate calling my mom, checking in on her and baby Gen, but I quickly think better of it. Besides, a call to the outside world would place a pin directly into the bubble we are in, and I don’t want that.
“I’m good,” I tell him.
Damon shakes his head, and Cam replaces the phone.
“How ’bout one of these?” Cam pulls out the prescription-sized bottle of blue gummies.
Damon and I exchange glances, and he raises his eyebrows in question.
“Might as well,” I say, leaning around Damon and swiping the bottle. We’re already fraternizing on the roof, having snuck out of our rooms post-curfew with Cam’s full bag of contraband. One bite of a gummy to ease the beehive in my gut can’t make any of this particularly worse should we get caught.
“You sure?” Damon says, watching as I spin the cap off the bottle.
I grab a light blue gummy and bite into it, collecting half into my mouth. I hold out the other half in offer to Damon. He wraps his hand around my wrist, raises my hand to his mouth, and then takes the gummy with his teeth from my fingers. My stomach free-falls as his bottom lip grazes along the pad of my thumb.
“Excellent,” Cam muses, taking a whole gummy for himself.
“I told you, Amazon gummy bear reviewer,” Damon whispers, bending close. His breath steams against my ear, in direct contrast to the biting evening air, and the rousing combination sends a shock up my spine.
Thirty minutes and an additional half gummy later, the three of us lie atop one of Cam’s blankets on the cement roof, me in the middle, staring up at the evening sky. It’s clear and smogless—an L.A. rarity, though the air is both wet and crisp with the faint clay smell of distant rain. Though I can’t seem to focus on much else besides the whole left side of my body pressed against Damon’s right. He’s like a warm, crackling fire, and I fight the urge to cuddle into his body heat.
As Cam’s voice grows groggier, slow and more placid with each minute that passes, I wonder why I don’t feel any different. “I’m not feeling much. Can I have another?” I ask without moving my eyes from the smattering of stars in the sky.
“Give it a few minutes,” Cam says. He pushes himself up to sit, the entirety of his face upturned. His expression is noticeably slack, more than usual.
“Cam, how many gummies did you have?” I ask.
“Two,” he says.
“When? We took one,” Damon says, his voice seemingly echoey and inside me all at once.
“I took one in my room before you guys showed up. Don’t worry, I have a high tolerance.” He’s still smiling.
Damon picks up the bottle and inspects it. “He’s had... a lot. And, from what I can tell so far, these are the extra trippy kind.”
Damon and I exchange a look, then observe Cam again.
“We should have invited Tamra,” Cam says, grabbing another brownie from his bag. “I bet she’d be fun high.”
It’s hard to worry about him with that dopey look on his face.
I turn my attention back to the sky, unable to form anything resembling concern. Lying on a rooftop next to the guy I like, I feel like a teenager in the best possible way. Tonight encapsulates everything I know I missed after he left—friendships, thrills, bad decisions. I focused instead back then on being the perfect daughter to avoid adding to any tension between my parents while simultaneously building my plan toward independence.
“Do you have a high tolerance?” Damon asks, clearly attempting to dissect my statement about not feeling much of anything. It’s clear he and Cam do. The more time passes, though, the more his voice sounds like it’s originating from behind my face.
Mel and I take gummies fairly regularly, though ours tend to be more “sleepy” than “trippy.” “I don’t like losing control,” I say, a side-step for no apparent reason.
“I remember,” Damon says so quietly I almost miss it.
Distinct shapes begin to form in the sky. I find the Big Dipper directly overhead. A slight stretch down and to the left, the Little Dipper. Extending to over Cam, Ursa Major and Minor. Above Damon, Orion with his belt and sword. And after some searching, I find the North Star, shining just a bit brighter than the others. It’s so beautiful, I think, believing I could visually dissect this sky forever—even if the experience is being facilitated by a cold cement roof likely covered in stray cat pee.
A lightweight sensation takes me over, as if I am floating toward Orion himself. I picture Kara up there, holding a giant sheet of black construction paper, small holes poked into it, shining a flashlight through to create the scene we are transfixed by. I rather like this notion. I don’t look over at Damon, but I feel him staring intensely at the sky just the same. I wonder if he is seeing what I’m seeing.
Cam’s voice interjects. “Why do we have eyebrows?” he asks, seemingly transfixed by his own inquisition. Silence follows as we collectively ponder.
Apparently losing interest in finding an answer, Cam eventually wanders to the far side of the roof, leaving Damon and me staring up at the ebony sky.
“He’s really high,” I say. A distant part of me suggests perhaps we should keep an eye on Cam, but then another part of me—a much more insistent one—asserts that I should just let go.
I watch the sky, awestruck, as Orion swats his sword toward the Little Dipper, slicing it in two.
“Are you?” Damon asks, turning to face me, gathering the loose strings of my attention. It’s a unique angle to take him in from. I’ve never seen adult him lying down. For a moment, I believe we are in a bed.
I look back to the sky to see stars falling like confetti. I feel like I’m in a snow globe. “I believe I now am.” I turn my body to face him again, all parts of him more lucid than ever before. I resist the urge to sweep my finger along the crease under his eye. Each time he blinks, it’s as though I can feel the skin of his eyelids as they slide against the wetness of his eyeballs.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asks.
“Like what?”
“Like you want to eat me or something.”
“It’s your eyes... the way your eyelids move...” I can’t find the words, so I just keep watching the slipperiness of his blink.
Damon’s jaw muscle twitches and expands, and he opens his mouth, his perfect teeth wet like his eyeballs. “You’re definitely high,” he says, turning himself back toward the starry sky.
I look up just as Orion takes a seat inside the Big Dipper, his arms and legs dangling out in all directions. I laugh—at Damon’s eyelids, at Orion’s antics, at the fact that I am, in fact, very high. He huffs back, amused, and it’s a simple, knowing exchange at the absurdity.
“You should date more,” I say after a while, the unfiltered thought crashing out of my mouth like a crested wave. “It seems to me you belong out in the world, sparkling.”
“Did you just call me ‘sparkling’?”
I face him again. “Yes. You sparkle. It’s an objective observation. You know you do.”
His eyes crinkle as the tightness of his face further recedes. “I’ve never thought of myself as sparkly, Syd. That’s a new one.”
“You are indeed sparkly. People notice you. You have a presence that makes people take note. Kind of like Margot.” I look back to the sky but feel his eyes on me still.
He props his head up with his hand, elbow pressed to the blanketed cement. “You don’t see yourself .”
I consciously swallow, attempting to coat my dry throat. “Sure I do.”
He shakes his head. “No. You don’t.” He states his response so factually I have to question whether I’m indeed wrong.
“Then what am I?” I say, my voice a dare.
He doesn’t hesitate. “You’re smart. I like the way you think. Like how you resisted turning on the TV the other night in the presidential suite. If I were a fan, I don’t know if I could have shown such restraint.”
I roll my eyes when he brings up my fandom again. “Yes, clearly I am restrained,” I say, gesturing at the air in reference to our current half-baked situation.
“You constantly surprise me,” he says in response. He pushes the sleeves of his sweatshirt up to just under his elbows, and I take in the ink on his arms again. I think I now know them all on these two plots of land. I feel a bit of pride in that—that I’ve spent enough time in his vicinity to know every forearm tattoo and how each adjusts with his movements.
“You’re thoughtful. Like how you grabbed me a box of cereal that morning I accidentally slept in.”
“I’d do that for anyone,” I say, which is solidly a lie.
He keeps going, more words escaping him than I’d thought possible in one sitting. Who knew all I had to do was get him high and the compliments would spill out of him. “You’re beautiful. There’s that. Even more beautiful than I remember. I didn’t think that was possible.”
I force myself to hold his gaze rather than look down at the cement. I’ve been called beautiful only by two other men in my life, both right before casual sex.
Damon, though, has called me beautiful before. The first was ahead of the homecoming dance freshman year, when he arrived to pick me up, though we were going as singles in a group rather than as couples. It was my She’s All That moment, complete with a trip on the bottom step. When I regained my balance, his eyes flicked down and then back up over my lavender floor-length sweetheart dress. “You’re beautiful,” he said, with a wistfulness in his voice that made me want to question him.
The other time was right before our first kiss.
Damon dips his head to catch my eyeline. “I was gonna say you’re fucking hot , but...” He seems to search for the appropriate end to his sentence, but when he doesn’t find it, he instead lets the unfinished bit hover between us.
My stomach flips. Beautiful, sure. Fine. But never “fucking hot.” His eyes sear me from the insides of my throat to the pit of my stomach.
We both watch my hand rise from the blanket, fingertips landing on his exposed forearm. We follow the trace of my index finger as it examines the tattoos of his forearm one at a time, each having grown in meaning and appeal the more I get to know him again. My fingers flutter over the angel wings to the intricate mandala just above. We watch as the tips of my nails brush the hairs of his arm as they move, like legs sweeping through a field of wildflowers.
“Is that on the list you’ve been keeping about me?” I ask, my voice unreasonably husky as our eyes stay trained on my hand and its movement.
I see him nod in my peripheral. “It’s a hell of a lot longer than just that, but yes.”
I stop to look up at him, fingertips still against his skin. Damon’s face takes on a familiar stoniness. His eyelids having ceased in their blinking. I look to the sky for comfort, only to find Orion has picked up the North Star and is spinning it atop his outstretched index finger like a basketball.
I turn back to Damon to share this news with him only to find him staring at me with what I’m certain is desire. His eyes are soft, filled with that cool that never seems to leave them. But also, I see now, rimmed with longing. It’s been there all along tonight, I realize—a set-in, unwashable stain. A wave of emotion washes from my abdomen to my chest and back down.
I take a quick look to where Cam disappeared to. He’s lying on the ground on the opposite end of the roof, still but peaceful, as if he’s fallen asleep.
Damon cups my chin, drawing my attention back to him. He positions his thumb squarely below my bottom lip, brushing it slowly back and forth. I watch him as he stares at my mouth, the focus of his observation so intense that I reflexively rake my tongue over my bottom lip. He swallows roughly in response. His eyes flick up to mine, and I demand his gaze. Our faces hover so painfully close that, even in the near dark, I can see the finespun lines of his skin and the thick navy-gray rims of his irises.
I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what I want. My heart is crackling like cellophane, tearing at the preemptive thought of this man breaking my heart again but, equally, fracturing at the idea of not leaning in anyway.
Before I can ruminate further, he leans in and kisses me. It’s tender, delicate even. So silky and gentle I wouldn’t think the softness of it possible from someone built like him. I press into him, attempting to indicate with my movement that I don’t want him to be gentle. He responds, driving his tongue against mine, moving my mouth open more fully.
I find myself uninhibited, particularly with Cam just feet away—even if he is seemingly fast asleep. Perhaps it’s the rooftop setting under the stars. Perhaps it’s this night and its echoes of the teenage and college recklessness I never had. Perhaps it’s the gummies. But somewhere in the recesses of myself, I know it’s because of him. Damon does something to me, something I’ve never quite experienced since being with him before.
Before I can think it through, I’m climbing into his lap. Damon responds, sitting up against the stairwell wall and straightening his legs in front of him to allow me in. My knees press into the solid wall behind him as I lean in. He bends his knees, dragging his legs closer, cradling me.
Our eyes race, both contemplating what happens next. The tug-of-war between “should” and “want” wrenches through us both.
Impulsively, I grab each of his cheeks with a thumb and forefinger and pull the skin upward, taut.
“What are you doing?” he asks, though it comes out muffled because of my control of his mouth.
“I just want to see if it’s possible.” I pull the skin of his cheeks higher, and he presses his eyebrows together in question. “If you can smile. If your face works,” I say.
He holds still, allows me to treat him like a puppet. Finally, I drop his face, satisfied that it can, in fact, move the way of a smile. That the gesture is available to him, if and when he was to choose it.
When I release his face, he cups the back of my neck with his hand. I instantly flood with want, my senses pushed to an alertness I haven’t felt all night. I examine his eyes, nose, mouth, and skin, and my vision goes blurry as it fuses my two versions of him—past and present—together. His hand holds firm to the back of my neck.
We stare at each other, and the sadness that never seems to leave him is momentarily replaced with desire. Still, I know it’s there. A flicker of a sentiment has been swirling in me all night, and, staring into his eyes now, I am finally able to define it. I would do just about anything to work that imprint of pain from his eyes and body and heart. This idea is scary and impulsive. It feels like a free fall—uncontrolled and thrilling and terrifying at once, knowing I might die at the bottom when I finally land. Even so, what a ride.
I lean in and kiss him, not at all softly.
Everything feels... more. My skin more sensitive to his touch, my tongue more tactile, my whole body tingling with excitement. Somewhere in the depths of my mind, I thank the gummies. As our kiss grows deeper, I scoot into him where there’s no room to be had, my hips rocking toward his stomach. He presses into me, our bodies connecting at several points. His hand snakes around to the front of my neck. When he squeezes, I feel the pulse of it between my legs. When I shift more firmly in his lap, I feel his erection rising against me, so closely aligned to its intended place it makes me moan into his mouth.
“I want you so bad,” he murmurs into my ear. His voice is like fingertips grasping the edge of a crumbling cliff, and it makes me writhe against him. He exhales, leans his head against the wall, closes his eyes. I feel powerful, sitting on top of him, causing his arousal. I’ve never felt more capable. Damon is the thrill I’ve never fully had but now, exposed, need to continue to feel.
His hand releases from my neck, moves down to my waist, then back up underneath my sweater. His hands are ice cold from the evening chill. Their touch causes an immediate eruption of goose bumps across my entire body. He releases his breath, seemingly enjoying being the cause of my skin’s reaction. His fingertips press into the small of my back, and I practically whimper. We stare at each other a moment, the strand of connective tissue between us thick, throbbing. He looks at me like I’m the most intriguing thing he’s ever seen. Like I’ve stopped him in his tracks. Like I have a presence akin to Margot Kitsch. I get it, I think, as I stare back at him. I get how valuable this power is. How addictive. I lean back in and kiss him more deeply than before, my hand making its way down to his erection just below his jeans. I envision the solid mass below and believe I may come completely undone right here on this rooftop. Right here in his lap.
“I knew it!” Cam’s voice infiltrates, and Damon and I freeze. He’s still lying several feet away, though he’s lifted his head in our direction, clearly observing our intimate moment. Damon reacts by covering me with the discarded blanket beside us as if I am naked, though we are both fully clothed.
As quickly as he burst in, Cam lays his head back down and closes his eyes again as if he were a corpse experiencing a phantom muscle spasm. Damon and I look from him back to each other, me still atop his lap, his hands still clasping the bare skin under my sweater at my sides. Our laughter is immediate.