Chapter 4
The party had been a mistake.
I could admit that now, as I struggled to stay afloat in the sea of bodies.
And, when a pretty white lady who was mostly heels and hair stumbled into me, I could admit, too, that when it came to Deputy Bobby, I apparently had a hard time saying no.
I helped the lady regain her footing. The crowd parted for a moment, and I darted toward an open spot against the wall.
I was sheltered on one side by a table-and-lamp combination.
On my other side, a young couple was making out vigorously. I tried to focus on the party.
As far as parties went, it was clearly a successful one.
Deputy Bobby and West had picked me up from Hemlock House, and we’d driven south along the coast. The house was massive, with shake siding and lots of windows with turquoise trim.
Inside, it mixed chrome and glass with driftwood and knotty pine, all stone and exposed timbers and leather.
It was full of music and a mix of perfumes and the heat of bodies.
Lots of people. Lots of stylish, trendy, hip people.
There were guys with purple leopard-print shirts.
There were ladies with bra tops and wide-legged trousers.
There was one guy who was so cool he was wearing an earring and totally pulling it off.
I’d worn a Final Fantasy IV T-shirt with my favorite hoodie.
I zipped the hoodie up to cover the T-shirt.
“There you are!” West appeared out of nowhere.
His cheeks were flushed. His flaxen hair was disheveled.
His shirt was unbuttoned to the navel, exposing his flat, golden body, and his legs looked a mile long in those tiny shorts.
He was so pretty it hurt to look at him. “You disappeared again. Come on.”
Before I could ask what he meant, he pulled me into the throng, and all I could do was stumble after him and try not to fall.
West moved like he was in his element, swimming between clusters of partygoers, sliding around a grizzled guy carrying drinks.
I managed to step on the grizzled guy’s foot, hip-check a woman, and stub my toe on a coffee table.
I felt like a shipping container being towed by a dolphin.
In the kitchen, Deputy Bobby was talking to a guy who barely looked older than Keme.
He had his dark hair in an expensive-looking crop, and he had just the right amount of scruff, and he wrinkled his nose when he laughed at whatever Deputy Bobby was saying.
He was something like an eleven on the Richter scale, and in a truly impressive turn of events, I forgot how to breathe.
Deputy Bobby saw me and West first, and for a moment, his expression closed off. On anybody else, I would have called it anger, only this was Deputy Bobby, and Deputy Bobby was always earnestly, bluntly kind. Then West was pushing me toward the other guy, and I had to look away.
“Pike, this is Dash. Dash, this is Pike. Isn’t he the cutest?”
I wasn’t sure who the question was for, but Pike looked me up and down and gave me a big, tight-lipped smile. It made his nose wrinkle again.
“You guys have so much in common,” West said. “And Dash owns Hemlock House!”
“Well—” I tried.
“Oh my God, for real?” Pike’s excitement made him sound even younger. “That is so fire!”
“It’s kind of complicated—”
“Is it true it’s haunted?” Pike moved closer.
His hip brushed mine, and he reached under his shirt to pull out a necklace.
“I’m, like, so spiritual because I think it’s just so important, and, like, I just think that’s been so important for my personal journey, you know?
And, like, it’s so hard for me to think about who I used to be—”
“In high school,” Deputy Bobby muttered, barely audible over the hub of the party. “Two years ago.”
West shot him a look.
“—because I feel like I’ve evolved so much. Are you spiritual?”
I managed a very solid, “Umm.”
“I know everybody says that they had a spiritual experience when they did ayahuasca, but when I did it, I really did, and that’s why I got this talisman, to anchor me to that transformation.
Hold on, I’ve got to show you this. Oh my God, don’t look at this picture. I looked so gross when I was a kid.”
The haircut was different, and he was missing his scruff, but it was hard to tell much of a difference otherwise. I wondered if all cradle-robbers found the experience so disorienting. Maybe it was just because I was new to it.
Pike proceeded to show me a video. And then another.
They were probably funny. I mean, Pike certainly laughed a lot.
Or sometimes they were serious. Like one, with a pretty white girl talking about the time she’d done mushrooms, got Pike all choked up.
I tried to keep up—emotionally, at least—as best I could.
At some point, I realized Deputy Bobby and West had disappeared.
Pike was still talking—now he was telling me about his dream of owning a sex-positive coffee shop, but not like the one he’d been to in Portland.
Maybe, I thought, there’d be a gas leak.
Maybe a sinkhole would open. Maybe I could throw myself into the sea.
When Pike needed another drink, I made my escape.
I found a door and slipped outside. The evening was already starting to cool, and it smelled like dune grass and washed-up kelp and freshly split shakes.
Waves rolled in and slapped the shore, swallowing the sounds of the party.
The sense of openness, of room to stretch and move, let me breathe again.
I’d been drawn tight like a rubber band, and now the strain was gone.
I sat on the rail of the deck, looking out at the ember of the sun and the arc of red water.
“You okay?” Deputy Bobby asked as he sat on the rail next to me.
“What? Oh. Yeah. Parties aren’t really my thing. Well, crowds aren’t really my thing. People in general, I guess.” I smiled out at the sinking sun. “The joys of social anxiety.”
Deputy Bobby was silent for a while. “You didn’t have to come.”
“What? Oh God, no. I’m sorry. Thank you for inviting me. I didn’t mean to sound like—I didn’t mean it that way.”
More of the silence, and the ocean breathing between us. “So,” Deputy Bobby finally said. “Why did you come?”
Maybe I was too off-balance from my recent age-gap encounter. Maybe I was too wrung out from the party. Maybe I was just dumb. Whatever the reason, I said, “Because you invited me.”
Deputy Bobby shifted on the rail. He was close enough that I could feel the heat of his body against the night’s chill pressing in. He smelled a little like laundry detergent. His hands were clutching the rail tightly.
“I’m sorry about Pike.” And then, “I told West not to do that.”
I laughed. “It’s okay. He seems really sweet, but he’s not my type.”
“The ayahuasca?”
That made me laugh again. “The age. Besides, I’m a mess.
I have terrible judgment when it comes to men.
When it comes to pretty much everything, actually, but men in particular.
I’m not going to inflict that on anybody, much less on a twenty-year-old who got weepy when he told me he’d discovered the goddess inside him while he was tripping. ”
The waves coming in. The shadows coming in. A pelican caught the last of the light, glowed golden, and then fell like a meteor.
“For the record,” Deputy Bobby said as he eased himself down from the rail, “I think Pike would be lucky to have you.” The rich, earthy bronze of his eyes caught me. He held out a hand to help me down. “Any guy would.”