Chapter 38
Thirty-Eight
Griffin
I’m waiting for Piper outside the portable toilets for the sixth time today.
This is my life now. I’ve made peace with it.
The festival is in full swing around me. Bass from the main stage rattles the ground. The air smells like woodsmoke, food trucks, and whatever mysterious scent every festival eventually develops.
It’s warm, and the stars are doing their best above the light pollution.
I’m standing here with my hands in my pockets, feeling reasonably good about the evening, when Piper appears.
Something is wrong with her face. Her eyes are rimmed red. Has she been crying?
“Griffin,” she gasps.
“What happened?”
She puts both hands over her mouth. “I did something.”
That never means anything good.
“What did you do?”
Her lips press together like she’s trying to contain something.
Her eyes go wide. “I smoked some weed.”
I stare at her. “What?”
“There was a group,” she says. “Over there. They asked if I wanted some, and I—” She gestures vaguely at the general festival grounds. “I’m at a music festival. Hippies offered me weed. I felt included.”
“You took weed from strangers?”
“They seemed nice.”
“Piper, how do you even know it was weed?”
She considers this. “I don’t, I guess. But it smelled like weed. And they’re at a music festival. They had beads on.”
“Beads?”
“Yes.”
I rub my face.
“I only took two drags,” she adds quickly. “Maybe three. But I hiccupped, and now I’m like this.”
“You hiccuped?”
She nods and hiccups again.
I gawk at her.
She gawks back.
Something happens in her face three seconds before she bursts out laughing. She’s laughing so hard she’s bent over, both hands on her knees, her shoulders shaking.
“What?” I grind out.
“You’re funny,” she manages. “When you’re angry. Your face does—” She can’t finish the sentence.
“I’m not angry. I’m—”
“Your face, Griffin—” She dissolves into another wave of laughter.
“Where were they?” I ask. “The group?”
She points somewhere behind her and to the left. That could be anywhere from here to Oregon.
“Come on,” I say.
I start walking.
Ten steps later, I realize she isn’t behind me. I turn around and see her still doubled over, laughing at something that might or might not be happening in her own head.
“Piper?”
“Coming,” she gasps. “Coming, I’m—” She straightens up, gets control, and quickly loses it again.
“Jesus Christ.”
I walk back to her and crouch. Before she can protest, I haul her over my shoulder. She kicks her legs in the air and keeps laughing into my back.
I slap her ass once. “Quiet.”
That only makes it worse because she snorts.
The smell of weed leads me to a small circle of festival people sitting on blankets.
One of them is holding a blunt.
I stop in front of them. “What did you give her?”
Piper is still over my shoulder. In the last thirty seconds, she’s stopped laughing and started examining the back of my shirt with focused concentration.
From somewhere in the circle, a man with a beaded necklace says, “Oh, it’s violin girl.”
Jesus, how much could she have told them?
“Relax,” the guy with the blunt says. “It’s just a joint. She choked on half of it.” He offers it to me. “Want some?”
I glare at him. “No.”
A woman across the circle watches me with slow interest. “Join us,” she says.
Piper wiggles, so I put her down, but she stumbles two steps to the left before steadying.
She turns to face the circle with her arms out. “My friends,” she announces. “This is Griffin.”
“They’re not your friends,” I whisper. “This is a cult.”
She rolls her eyes. “You think everything here is a cult.” She pats my chest. “Live a little.”
I sit because if I don’t sit, she’s going to wander into the fire pit. I pull her down in front of me so she’s trapped between my legs.
Containment strategy.
The circle closes around us.
Someone lights another joint. Someone else pulls out a guitar, then hands Piper a glow stick. She immediately tries to wear it as a bracelet. It snaps, spraying green liquid everywhere.
She stares at it. “I trusted you,” she whispers to the glow stick.
A guy beside me asks what I do for work. Turns out he’s also an engineer, and I’ve never felt such relief speaking to another adult in my life. We spend fifteen minutes discussing bridge structures while Piper watches a girl braid her own hair like it’s the most fascinating thing ever invented.
Then the woman across from us leans forward. “I’m psychic.”
Of course she is.
She studies me like I’m a museum exhibit. “Your energy is loud tonight.”
Good God.
She closes her eyes. “I’m sensing a soulmate connection.” She points at herself when her eyes open. “That’s me.”
Piper, who has been in a conversation of her own with the person to her right about the acoustics of the folk stage, goes very still.
She turns her head and levels the psychic with a murderous look.
“You can’t have him,” Piper says. “He’s mine.”
The psychic tilts her head. “Are you sure about that?”
“Completely.” Then Piper turns to me, grabs my jaw, and licks my fucking face.
Full eye contact.
She turns back to the psychic. “I licked it,” she says calmly. “So it’s mine.”
It?
The psychic nods thoughtfully. “Fair.”
I pull Piper closer. “You’re a territorial little thing, aren’t you?”
She looks up at me with red-rimmed eyes and dark lashes. “Careful, I’ll start peeing on you.”
I can’t hold it back any longer. I burst out laughing.
As the night continues, the engineer gets excited about bridge tension cables, and the psychic keeps touching crystals and checking if my aura has shifted.
Someone tells Piper she has “festival spirit.” She cries because she thinks it’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to her.
Someone asks her to play violin, but she refuses.
At one point, she grabs my hand. “Hold this.”
“Why?”
“So I don’t float away.”
I hold it and watch the fire burn.
The guitar player switches songs three times without finishing one.
Piper leans back against my chest. “See,” she whispers. “Not a cult.”
I kiss the top of her head and wrap my arms around her shoulders. “Definitely a cult.”