Moe Rivas has spent her whole life waiting for the perfect storybook romance, but as she approaches her senior year of college -- single, and incredibly disappointed with the male species -- she decides she's sick of daydreaming. Turning her back on...
Two days after our phone call, Theo and I decided to meet at the train tracks. I'd asked him to buy me the same weed we'd smoked weeks prior—hoping to surprise Jay with a treat—and he'd agreed, claiming he had the rest of the day off anyway.
"You're 21, Moe," he said, zipping up my backpack pouch where he'd stashed the item of interest. "You know you can buy this stuff on your own, right?"
"I've never been to a dispensary before. They intimidate me." I handed him the cash. "Can't you just be my drug dealer?"
"Do I have a choice?"
It was sunny out today, and most of the ice had melted from the streets, leaving the world clean and crisp in its absence. Theo wore a thin black hoodie, his obligatory beanie, and skinny jeans, and with my pink headband and jet black winterwear, we looked like two matchsticks burning from the wrong end.
He stuffed his hands in his pockets and peered at me with an unreadable gaze. "I want to take you on a drive. You free?"
A drive?
"Yeah, I just wrapped up for the day." My eyes roamed his face, searching for clues, scrounging for ulterior motives. "Where are we going exactly?"
"You'll find out when we get there." He moved for his truck, but he only made it a few strides before he realized I hadn't budged. He tilted his head back at my rigid form. "What, you don't trust me?"
I frowned at the cryptic slant of his lips. "I don't...not trust you."
"Then don't not move your ass. I want to get there before dark." He kept on walking toward the parking lot, confident that my hurried, frustrated footsteps would follow.
And they did.
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"You're gonna murder me, aren't you?" I muttered as we drove higher and higher into the pine trees, kicking up mud, splitting overgrown branches.
"If I wanted to murder you, all I'd have to do is offer you coffee," Theo said. "You wouldn't taste any poison with all that fucking sugar."
He had a point, but it didn't ease my mounting suspicions any. We'd been driving uphill for close to an hour, and despite living in the Sierra foothills all my life, I'd never wandered up this canyon road before. If you could even call it that.
"Are trucks even allowed up here?" I asked, scrutinizing the rocky terrain that more closely resembled a creek bed than any mountain pass.
"My truck is allowed everywhere," he dismissed, as any true Nevadan would.
My eyes narrowed on the bird shit all over the windshield. "Everywhere except a car wash, maybe."
He snorted and took an abrupt left turn, sending my skull into the passenger window with a heavy thump. I gasped, leaning across the center console to swat at him, but violence did nothing to squash his snickers.
