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lets go of my hand to grab a big flashlight from his trunk and open the driver’s side door of his beat-up black sports car, dredging up an unexpected emptiness at the loss of contact. When he leans inside, the door groans like it might fall off its hinges.
    I’m all for Leslie getting busted—James can’t do what he can’t buy, but then I realize my brother’s here—probably high already—and might get hauled off to jail right along with her.
    I glance over my shoulder, hoping whatever comes out of my mouth will convince Alex this is a really bad idea, but he and his minions have already disappeared. Great. If the cops come, Sam will have to get all three of us out of here. There’s no way I’ll let James drive home if he’s on something, and there’s no way he’ll let me anywhere near his truck.
    Hopefully he’s not stupid enough to be hanging out with Leslie herself.
    Sam emerges from the backseat with two hooded sweatshirts. He hands me the thick black one I’ve seen him wear a thousand times. I manage to tug it over my head without falling over, which is a miracle because it smells so freaking good . Like fabric softener, pine trees, and Sam. He pulls on an older, navy blue hoodie with a huge, white “LA” scrawled across the front. I pretend to be fixing the hood of mine so he doesn’t catch me pressing my nose into the collar. “Do you think we should look for James?”
    Sam shakes his head. “He can take care of himself. If the cops show, he’ll just hide in the woods like he usually does.”
    “Usually? You guys come here that often?”
    “A couple times a month, maybe.” He gives me a funny look. As if he expected James frequently hiding from the cops to be the bigger surprise. Little does he know, James and I have spent our lives hiding. “Why?”
    “No reason.” The lie does nothing to tamp down the irritation that spreads across my skin like a rash. James and I swore never to keep secrets from each other, and yet, everything about tonight points to the biggest lie of all. “So, um, when was the first time?”
    “Leslie latched onto James back when we were still at Logan. He didn’t even have the truck yet, so two or three years ago, maybe?”
    I was a freshman when James bought his truck. If he’s been hiding Leslie and her drugs for that many years, I’m going to kill him. “Wow. Okay.”
    A frown tugs the light from Sam’s eyes. I take a deep breath, glad for the cover of darkness, and let all of my irritation flow out on the exhale. There’s no way I’m letting my stupid brother and his stupid drugs ruin my chance to spend an evening with the guy I’ve had a crush on forever. I make a mental note to talk to my brother when we get home, then change the subject.
    “So, the Dodgers, huh?” I ask, pointing at his sweatshirt. “I’m surprised my brother hangs out with you.”
    “When it comes to sports, your brother and I agree to disagree. Mainly because he doesn’t know a damn thing about anything except boxing. You want one?”
    I’d been so busy staring at his eyes—charcoal swirled with gray tonight—that I didn’t notice him pull out the tiny tin of cinnamon mints. Maybe this is his subtle way of saying my breath stinks? “Oh, um, sure. Thanks.”
    He waits until I take one, then dumps the last six or seven into his mouth and chews them up. Yikes. Maybe he’s more concerned about his breath.
    With the thick white beam of the flashlight, he points in the opposite direction of Claire and the two guys. Blackness shrouds the trees where he’s looking. “So…I was thinking we’d head this way.”
    “You’re not afraid we’ll get lost?”
    “No.” He gives me a please-don’t-think-I’m-a-loser smile. “My only function at these parties is to hang out in case James or Alex needs a ride home, so I walk around a lot.”
    As if I’m going to think a guy who wastes his evenings making sure his friends don’t wrap their trucks around a tree is a loser.