“You get her. I’m tripping and need to sleep it off.”
She grabbed my arm. “You’re not tripping. This is really happening.”
“Sure,” I scoffed, pulling away.
She followed me into my room. “Our friends are dead.”
“No. They aren’t.” Ronnie was probably still passed out on the living room floor with Cami. Assuming I didn’t hallucinate them getting together. Actually, the more I thought about it, the more I was sure I only imagined them hooking up. No way would Cami slum it with Ronnie.
Lee shook her head, sending waves of her dark hair tumbling over her shoulders. “I don’t believe this.”
“That makes two of us.” I sat down a little too hard on my waterbed. “If I wasn’t tripping, I’d never tell you I’ve been in love with you for years.”
She took a step back. “Reed, I—”
“I know, I know. You love me like a brother. Even my hallucination has to beat me over the head with the truth.”
“This isn’t a hallucination, and it isn’t a joke. I thought it was a joke yesterday.”
I scrubbed my face with my hands. “You expect me to believe that you let me go down on you last night.” I did remember that part.
“Yes,” she said, flushing.
“There’s no way.”
“It happened.” She moved, so she was standing right in front of me. So close that I got a lungful of her sweet vanilla scent. “And you know what? I liked it. A lot. And part of me can’t wait for you to do it again.”
My dick turned into a rock while my mouth went dry.
“But there’s another part of me that’s terrified about what that means, because I can’t let myself care about you… about anyone that way.”
“Why?” I asked softly.
Her eyes shadowed with memories I could only guess at.
“Is it because of what happened with your parents?”
She nodded.
“I’d never hurt you. You know that.”
She rubbed her hand over her chest, drawing my gaze to the outline of her nipple pressed against the fabric.
Without thinking, I reached my hand out and cupped her breast. It sure as hell felt real.
She let out a breathy moan.
I brushed her nipple with my thumb, all the while waiting for her to knock my hand away.
She swayed toward me and then seemed to catch hold of herself. “We don’t have time for this. We have to bring Eden home before it gets too bad out there.”
“Mmm-hmm.” I loved how flushed she’d gotten and how her breathing was hitched. At that moment, I kind of wanted to stay on that trip for the rest of my life. I tried to yank her down on the bed with me, but she resisted.
“You don’t believe anything I’m saying, do you?”
I ran my hand up her thigh. “I want to. Jesus, how I want to.” It was just too unrealistic. Ironically, her letting me touch her was far less believable than zombies attacking us.
She clamped her legs together, trapping my hand between them. “How about this? You help me get Eden and when we get back, we’ll continue this.” She motioned between the two of us.
Holy shit. Hallucination or not, I couldn’t turn that down. “You’re on.” I jumped up and headed for the door.
“Wait, you’re not even going to put a shirt on?”
I shrugged. Why bother feeling self-conscious when none of this was real? Besides, Aubry said some chicks dug scars.
Or did I hallucinate Aubry too?
Unsure, I glanced over at the bats hanging in my closet. My favorite Louisville slugger was missing from the rack.
Because I just beat Ronnie’s brains out with it.
Panic clawed its way up my throat before I took a deep breath and reminded myself this was all one crazy hallucination.
Ronnie is fine. He’s probably laughing his ass off at me right now. Screw him.
Maybe there was some kind of Freudian shit happening here. It was kind of cathartic to confess my love for Lee and end a toxic friendship. Maybe when I sobered up, I’d take this all to heart and start living my truth.
Lee suddenly unbuttoned my shirt.
All higher-level thinking evaporated. Jesus. My dick nearly tore through my jeans. “Come here.” I tried to pull her over me.
“We don’t have time. Here, put your shirt back on.” She started to shrug off my flannel.
“You wear it,” I said, thoroughly enjoying the way it looked on her. “Just leave it open like that.”
She groaned. “Get your mind out of the gutter and get dressed. You can’t go inside the police station half naked.”
Ugh. Bossy Lee is back. I wanted sexy, surprisingly vulnerable Lee. “Can’t we skip to the part where we have sex?”
“No!” she said, striding out of my bedroom. “And grab another bat for the road. We might need it.”
16
Lee
Reed and I stepped outside to the sound of sirens. The banshee-like wails were quickly drowned out by the deafening sound of military helicopters tearing through the sky above.
Reed glanced up. “Cool.”
“No, it’s not cool.” There is some seriously bad juju going down.
Reed’s grin only widened. “This is one kick ass trip.”
I thought about talking some sense into him, but quickly decided against it. There were benefits to him thinking this was all a hallucination. First, it kept him from having a complete breakdown over what happened with Ronnie and Cami. Second, it postponed the inevitable emotional fallout from us spending the night together.
I ran my suddenly damp hands down the front of my jeans. God, I can’t believe I bribed him with sex. What am I thinking?
The answer, plain and simple, was that I wasn’t thinking. I was reacting emotionally and physically, which was only going to make everything more painful later.
But there wasn’t time to worry about it now. I grabbed Reed’s arm. “Come on. We’ll go in Cami’s car.” I held up the keys I’d slipped out of Cami’s purse before we left. How like Cami to have a sparkly lip-shaped keychain.
Cami…
A lump rose in my throat. I took a deep breath and forced the pain away. I can’t think about her right now.
Reed pointed the bat he was holding across the street. “We should take the love bus.”
I grimaced at Gran’s beat-up Volkswagen van moldering on the side of the street. Its flaking burnt-orange paint job was plastered over by hundreds of bumper stickers. “That thing hasn’t run in ten years.”
“I’ve been fixing her up.” Reed flashed me a panty melting smile that made me want to drag him back into the house and screw him senseless on his waterbed. “Come on, let’s take it for a spin.”
How about I take you for a spin? I took a deep breath, wrangling my hormones down. “Cami’s car is new.” I nodded in the direction of the fire-engine red sports car.
He pursed lips that were far too kissable. “The three of us won’t fit in that. Like Gran used to say, trust in the love bus.” He pulled his hand from mine and danced over to the decrepit vehicle. “I’ll drive. Even high I’m a better driver than you. Besides, she has a manual transmission and you can’t drive stick.”