An Extra Pump of Sugar

Chapter 11

My backpack felt way too heavy for the second week of classes, and I attributed the excess weight to printing out all the slides for my human memory course. The professor flew through the presentation like he had somewhere else to be, and taking meaningful, hand-written notes was practically impossible. On the bright side, home wasn't too far of a walk. The mile-long trek could be a pain during the winter—and amid the blistering heat of late August and September—but I'd take a hailstorm over trying to find parking on campus.

Baker, who lived over in midtown, nearly missed her finals every year because of the limited parking. Her commute was one of the reasons we didn't live together. That, and the fact that she rented out the basement of some 60-year-old man's house, despite the psychopathic tendencies he'd presented during her tenant interview.

I was frugal, but not that frugal.

I'd almost reached the train crossing when I spotted Theo sitting on a hill above the tracks, smoking a joint. He wore his classic red beanie and a black sweatshirt that couldn't possibly have kept the masochist warm.

We locked gazes just as I was about to hop the railway, and although I couldn't make out his expression from here, I knew he recognized me under my hood because he held my gaze like he was trying to convince himself he didn't know me.

As the seconds passed by, neither of us waved, and neither of us severed eye contact.

Dammit. You can't ignore him now, Moe.

I sucked in a breath and wandered over to his hillslope covered in sagebrush, disregarding Carl's suggestion to make a run for it. Theo watched me with curious eyes, but he didn't say anything, even as I sat down next to him on the ground.

"On your break?" I asked casually, my gaze roaming over the train tracks below us and the snowy neighborhood beyond. The clouds were crisp and clumpy this afternoon, as if the atmosphere was so cold, the water vapor molecules were forced to huddle together for warmth.

"Just got off work."

I curled my fingers into the frozen soil, unsure how to puncture the tension. The last time we'd been alone together, he'd had his hand...in me. What was the appropriate step forward after something like that? Where did we go from here?

He offered me his joint, and I hesitated, my eyes darting to his stupid, pretty face and back to the item in his hand. "How heady is it?"

"There's hardly any THC," he said. "Barely a high."

I accepted and brought the burning cylinder to my lips. I had to be careful with weed. My anxiety couldn't take much more than a few puffs, and the wrong strain would have me clutching my head and trying not to swallow my own tongue. But this joint had a nice woodsy, fruity taste, and it didn't seem to pack a punch. Not a strong one, anyhow.

I needed to buy some of this for Jay. It was a better alternative to smoking cigarettes—something he'd picked up again after quitting treatment—and it would probably take some of his pain away, too. Mom would throw a fit if she ever caught a whiff of marijuana on him, but it wasn't her disease, and she didn't get to tell him how to cope with it.

"Sorry about my sister the other day," Theo said, pausing to release a stream of smoke from his lips. "I swear I didn't give her any details. She's just too fucking intuitive. I had to tell her I was hooking up with someone to get her off my back."

I grinned at the memory of him reacting to Charlie's teasing, the way his face pinkened with embarrassment. "You don't need to apologize. She was hilarious." I shot him a wry smile. "Guess she got all the funny genes."

His amused huff was quiet. "She's nosy. It's going to bite her in the ass one day." He finally turned to look at me, and the compassion on his face was disarming. "Also...I'm sorry about your uncle's recurrence. Sounds like you two are close."