“I’m going to go home and stare at a horse,” I said.“Wanna trade?”
“Did you hear the part about silence?”
I grinned and gave him a thumbs-up.
We were starting uphill.Ahead of us, the occasional snatch of conversation drifted between hikers.The sound of the trees blended with the sound of the ocean.Then he looked over at me, and amusement crooked across his face again.
“What was that thing about a horse?”he said.
“I thought this was a silent hike.”
“Uh huh.”It was clear he hadn’t heard me.“So, you don’t have plans tonight?”
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 aFinal Fantasy IVT-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.
