A miserable sigh escapes me.
He still feels like mine.
I watch as he sips from a tall plastic gas station cup with faded cartoon characters printed around the outside. It calls to mind images from my childhood. We had a collection of those cups growing up, and I remember always wanting to match my orange juice cup with the Saturday morning shows I was watching. The juxtaposition of the fond memory with my filthy surroundings is at once depressing and unsettling.
Riley still hasn’t noticed me, where I linger near the doorway, so I chance another glance around the apartment. A couple is arguing in the off-white kitchen to my right, the countertop next to them strewn with baggies of colorful pills, drug paraphernalia, and a variety of alcohol bottles. Torn chip and snack bags spill their contents across the cracked plastic countertop, and I shudder at the thought of touching anything in this place, let alone eating off of a surface here.
The men standing next to Riley drop down into the pair of duct-taped wing chairs across from him and his pal and proceed to portion out their own lines of white powder. Just then, a woman stumbles out of a hallway in the back, yelling something to the dark-haired man beside Riley. She flings herself across the man’s lap, and his eyes fly open. He raises his head and shoves her roughly off with a sneer, then laughs cruelly as she tumbles to the floor, nearly hitting her head on the table. The other two menjoin in laughing, but I only have eyes for Riley, who frowns, then leans over and offers the woman a hand. She climbs clumsily to her feet with his assistance, then shouts something again at the man who’s returned to his reclined position with his eyes closed. He waves her off with a middle finger in her direction, and Riley offers her a rueful smile. I’m oddly comforted by the entire interaction because it only serves to prove to me that my Riley is still in there. Despite the disturbing company he’s so clearly been keeping, he hasn’t lost his capacity for kindness and empathy. He hasn’t been corrupted by these people. At least not completely.
But … what the ever-loving fuck is he doing here? In a place like this?
Withpeoplelike this?
And just how tainted by their association has he become?
One of the men leans across the table and holds out what looks like a straw. It’s not the rolled-up dollar bill you see in the movies, but its purpose is pretty clear. The breath freezes in my lungs, my stomach roils, and I narrow my eyes on Riley’s face as I wait to see what he’s going to do.
Will he accept?
Is he going to partake?
But he shakes his head, and yet another wave of relief courses through me.
It’s at this moment, unexpectedly, that Riley finally looks in my direction.
And stiffens.
The room literally vibrates with the noise from the speakers, but I can no longer hear it over the blood suddenly thrumming in my ears. Everything around me fades as he meets my gaze and I watch those silver-grey eyes widen in recognition.
The thick, smoky air somehow manages to feel even heavier than before as we stare at each other. Then I blink, and he’s on his feet. He’s momentarily obscured from my vision by a group of people moving into the room, but when the crowd thins again … he’s there. Standing before me.
All the air leaves my lungs in a whoosh.
He reaches out for my hand, and electricity sparks in my veins at his touch.
His touch.
How I’ve missed it. Longed for it.
There’s little time to relish in the feeling, though. He’s dragging me determinedly from the apartment before I even realize we’re moving. He shoves open an adjacent exit door, and we spill out into the humid night. Darkness has fallen in the time since I’ve been inside. The air is thick, and the cloud cover is heavy. No stars, I note, as he moves me quickly around the corner of the building. At the rear, there’s a creepy cement staircase leading down to an underground level. Graffiti covers the walls, and I get a noxious whiff of garbage from the nearby dumpster as he pulls me down the steps, pushing open another door at the bottom and dragging me into a darkened room. The heavy steel door slams shut behind us, and I jump. Riley drops my hand, movingaway from me, and despite my heated skin, a shiver runs through me at the loss of his touch.
He moves over to a wooden crate that’s been upturned next to a mattress on the floor and switches on a shadeless lamp before turning back to face me with his hands on his hips.
The room we’re in appears to have once been used for storage, with a small collection of forgotten and water-stained cardboard boxes stacked against the far wall and a mostly empty metal shelving unit next to them. An open sleeping bag is strewn across the otherwise bare mattress.
“What the hell are you doing here, Steph?” he demands, and I mirror his pose, putting my own hands on my hips.
“What the hell areyoudoing here, Riley?” I shoot back.
He grits his teeth and takes a step closer, glaring, but says nothing more. The exposed bulb casts shadows across his face, and I lament that I’m unable to make out the lovely silver of his eyes in this lighting. Eyes that look glassy and I had appeared red-rimmed upstairs.
“A-are you high?” I gasp.
Maybe he didn’t partake just now because he already had earlier.
“What?” he sputters, looking away from me and massaging a hand at the nape of his neck. “No. Jesus Christ, Steph, I just had a few beers, alright? It’s a party. I’m allowed to let loose at a party.”
I stare at him skeptically. He still won’t meet my eyes, but there could be a lot of reasons for that. “I saw what was going on in thatapartment,” I say quietly. “The baggies of pills on the counter. The guy beside you on the couch doing lines. I saw.”
