V, I love you like a sister
But if you don’t stop partying
I’m telling Norma
Velvet Larsen:
Um?
Jane Marlow:
I’m talking about all the coke w/ Erika Jones
BTW Eddie is in jail for possession
Sober up before you end up there too
Velvet Larsen:
Shit
Track [23] “I Hear a Symphony”/The Supremes
Jane
Zabel Kasabian’s driveway sloped upwardinto dense trees that opened up to a cleared piece of land with several buildings. A log-cabin style house sat to the left. A big red barn stood in the distance, farther up a grassy hill. And closest to the driveway was a long dog kennel.
A chain-link fence wrapped around the property as far as I could see, and there were extra divisions between it in some places. Fences within fences—dog runs. I didn’t see any dogs in them at the moment. Then again, it was almost completely dark, and the only reason I could see anything at all was thanks to several large utility lights posted on tall power-company poles around the yard that cast large pools of bright light.
One of which shone down on Fen’s Jeep. He was still parked in front of the dog kennel, so I pulled up next to him and claimed a spot.
But I remembered his mentioning a barn in a text. Hmm… “Kennel, barn, or house?” I asked Frida. Anything posed as a question was good to her; she was already scrabbling to get out. Or maybe it was the sound of a lone barker who had now noticed we’ddriven up. She answered the call with her own yip. “Keep it down,” I told her. “Sheesh.”
I was feeling weird about the late hour and not knowing his aunt—would she pull out a shotgun on someone ringing the doorbell after dark? But a flash of movement caught my eye up the hill, where a door opened at the barn.
There, in the doorway, a dark silhouette stood in front of a golden rectangle of light.
My pulse pounded. “Okay, then,” I told Frida, pulling her away from the mystery dogs inside the kennel. We found a gate to get into the barn and then walked a long path up the dark hill, where Fen stood in his chino shorts in the open door of the red barn.
Barefooted.
Shirtless.
It was a shockingly nice view. The torso matched the arms I’d already seen. And I’d felt it plenty, but it was another thing to see it all gloriously out in the open. I tried not to stare as I slowed my pace toward the barn, but why do boys get to walk around half naked? I’ll never understand it, and yet I was not complaining. Well. Maybe aweecomplaint about that dead-girl Ophelia tattoo that was so blatant on his shoulder right now.
I just had to keep my eyes other places.
He looked exhausted. His dark curls were a windblown jumble, and his face was a gaunt collection of intersecting planes and shadows, a cubist portrait come to life. But there was a sweet relief behind his eyes when our gazes met, and any worry I hadthat I was doing the wrong thing was completely erased from my mind.
I pretended as if today hadn’t been completely horrible for him and looked around at things that weren’t his naked torso. The two-story building had a covered concrete porch and a tin roof, and was less a rural cow barn than a simple utility barn. Next to Fen’s open door was what could only be described as a porch couch: like something that you’d see on the side of the road that was put out for trash collection until drunk fraternity pledges hauled it off for their frat house.
“What is this?” I asked, gesturing to the couch, which may or may not have been attacked by a band of wild racoons and was leaning ominously to one side. “Are you taking decorating advice from Moonbeam? Dammit, Frida!” The leash pulled out of my hand as she happily lunged for Fen, tongue lolling.
“Whoa! Hey, goofball,” he said, bending down to scoop her up against his chest and let her lick his face. “It’s my thinking couch. My aunt was going to toss it.”
“You don’t say.”
“Don’t be a snob. What’s happening here? Is this a visit? You’re visiting me?”
