He pops a cigarette into his mouth and lights up, sucking in a long inhale as he turns the ignition on. The stereo clicks on and “Red Light Pledge” by Silverstein flows from the speakers. You seem like a very interesting girl. He grazes his thumb along the end of the cigarette and little pieces of ash dance through the air.
“Interesting?” I rest my arms on the back of the seat as he sits back and leans against the steering wheel to look at me. “That’s a nice way of saying I’m a weirdo. But that’s okay. I’ve been called worse.”
And better a weirdo than ordinary, right?
“Exactly.” I tilt my head to the side and assess him over. He seems like the kind of guy I could potentially hook up with and in the past with as drunk and bored as I am, I might give it a go. It might be easier than screwing around with Luke, which is going to happen if I have it my way, but even through the vodka and jager, the emotions I’ve been attempting not to acknowledge the entire night, I can feel this pull toward Luke. And it’s terrifying, thinking about what that could possibly mean.
“Mind if I have one?” I nod at the cigarette in his hand.
His eyebrow crooks. You smoke? He questions probably because I’ve been around smokers the entire night and haven’t smoked a single one.
And normally I don’t, but tonight I’m going to be someone different. “Yep.” Hello world, meet drunken, smoker, Violet.
He shrugs, then takes the pack out of his pocket and gives me a cigarette and his lighter. I light up, not choking on the smoke because I have smoked in the past, under very strange circumstances when someone who took care of me for a while would have me light up for her when she was doing things like cooking and didn’t have free hands.
“How well do you know Luke?” I wonder curiously as I take a drag and smoke fills my lungs.
Ryler ashes his cigarette, sending ashes across the gravel just outside. Not very well. I met him once when he stayed with my dad a couple of summers ago, but that’s about it. Honestly, I’ve barely seen my dad though up until a couple of years ago. He puts the cigarette to his lips and breathes deeply, trying to cover up his uneasiness with the subject. What about you? He mouths, smoke laces from his lips.
“How well do I know Luke?” I ask and he nods. I waver, uncertain how to respond because it seems like I know Luke well, but at the same time I don’t know him at all. “I’m still trying to figure that out,” I say truthfully.
“What about you?”
“What about me what?” Hasn’t he already asked that question? Or am I losing track of time again.
I hardly know you. His attitude is veering toward flirty which would be fine if it wasn’t for Luke. Jesus, why can’t guys and girls just be friends?
“I’m a fairly boring person,” I tell him, then lean forward over the seat with a sarcastic dark look on my face. “And if I told you anything about me, then I’d have to kill you.”
He gives me a blank stare, trying not to laugh. Like I said, interesting.
I sit back and take a puff off my cigarette. “And I was just going to say the same thing about you, until you started flirting with me.”
Hey, you can’t blame a guy for trying. He presses his hand to his heart and sits up straight in the seat. Besides, if you would have just said you were with Luke, then I’d leave you alone.
Oh, I get it now. He’s trying to get me to confess. I’m about to say it to—it’s on the tip of my tongue even though I’m not sure if it’s the truth, but then Luke and Cole show up and interrupt me before I can. But the revelation itself makes panic soar in my chest and the need to do something crazy press up in my lungs and crush the air out of me.
Saved by the questionable boyfriend. Ryler winks at me then gets out of the driver’s seat and rounds the front of the car to the passenger side, while Cole flips the seat forward and Luke climbs in the back beside me
As soon as he gets settled, he takes one look at the cigarette in my hand and his brows dip together. “What the hell are you doing?”
I bat my eyelashes innocently at him and extend the cigarette toward him. “I lit it just for you.”
He looks at me skeptically. “Yeah, right. And smoked half of it.” He reaches for it to test me, but I move my hand to the side.
“No way.” I put the end into my mouth and allow the smoke to smother my lungs. “It’s mine now. You’re going to have to fight me to get it,” I say as Cole starts the car and then drives forward out of the parking lot.
Luke flicks a glance to Cole, then Ryler, then shakes his head, restraining a laugh. “How much did you have to drink?” he asks me in a low voice.
I shrug, watching the blurs of colors zip by the window as we drive onto the road and toward the freeway that will take us back toward the city. “Five, eight, eleven.” I hold up my fingers, trying to show him the amount, but eleven proves to be a problem. “Hey, I was just doing my job. It wasn’t my fault that Catterson guy kept offering me drinks.”
“You did a fine job,” Cole comments, making a turn onto the freeway. “But we’re going to have to find a new job for you tomorrow, so the bosses won’t catch onto you.”
“Okay, at first I was joking about the mobster thing before, but now I have to wonder.” I slant forward to stick my hand out the window and ash the cigarette.
“No mobsters, just hardcore gamblers who don’t take shit from anyone,” Cole says, putting a cigarette between his lips and cupping his hand around the end of it to light up.
After that remark, Ryler and him start having a conversation about the game, Ryler signing the entire time and seeming really annoyed at his father about something. It leaves me distracted enough to focus all of my attention on Luke as a darkness in my chest starts to stir, drunken Violet getting restless. Always looking for trouble, one of my foster mother’s used to say. Uncontrollable. She might not have been so right at the time, but now she would be. Guess I turned out exactly like she thought—like all of them thought. But that’s not what I want to focus on. Something good. I want to focus on something good that’s sitting right beside me.
Luke is staring straight ahead, arms folded, his muscles taut, his thinking face on, as if he’s pondering some complicated theory on human nature and how we turn out the way that we do, what molds us into the people we are.