might want more than sex. You just go for it, and if he doesn’t like it, he has to deal with it. It’s really great.”
It didn’t sound great to me. It sounded like I was kind of a bitch, like the guy had called me the morning my dad...
I gulped at my drink. I wished I had someone to talk to about my dad’s passing. But I couldn’t tell anyone that it had happened. It would open up too many questions. Was I going to his funeral? Where was it? And I couldn’t afford to draw attention, because I wasn’t even here under my real last name. If people went looking for a Mr. Dunn, they wouldn’t find him, because he didn’t exist.
And it made it worse to know that there wouldn’t be a funeral, that I wouldn’t ever see his body and get to properly say goodbye. I felt like I might start crying. I didn’t want to do that in front of Clint. “I wish we had some blow.”
“Your bodyguard is an ass,” said Clint. “That was premium stuff he got rid of.”
“You don’t have anything?” I said.
“Completely out,” he said.
I set my drink down. “I have money. Let’s drive to Morgantown and get some.”
“That’s like a three-hour round trip,” he said. “I’ve got a better idea. I know where my roommate hides his stash.”
“No,” I said. “That’s a bad idea.”
“We won’t do all of it,” said Clint. “Just a little. He won’t notice.”
I chewed on my lip. What Clint was proposing here was an impossibility. There was no doing a little coke. Once anyone started, she’d keep going until it was all gone. It was a law of nature or something. “I really don’t think...”
He was already getting up from the couch. “Don’t worry, Leigh. It’s cool.”
* * *
I couldn’t stop laughing. “You’re an idiot!”
“I am not,” said Clint. “I’m a fucking superhero. Everyone knows it, so just shut the hell up.”
“With like a cape?” I said. “A red cape?”
“A big, flowy red cape.”
“I want to be a superhero too,” I said. I looked around. “Is there any more blow?”
“Yes,” said Clint. “He has a crap load. I’ll be right back.” He got up.
“Oh my God,” I called after him. “We’re going to do too much of it. I knew this would happen. Because once you start snorting cocaine, you can’t stop. It calls to you. It says, ‘Leigh, if you want to be a superhero, snort me.’”
He laughed. “Getting amped is the way to be a superhero. You are so right.”
“When I’m a superhero,” I said, lying back on Clint’s couch, “I’m not going to have a cape. I’m going to have super great boots though. Red boots.”
“What’s up with you and red?”
“It’s a great color, that’s what.”
“Shit.”
I sat up on the couch. “Shit? What’s wrong? We did all the coke, didn’t we?”
“Not all of it,” he said, coming back into the room, holding up the bag. “But way more than half. There’s no way he won’t notice.”
“Shit,” I said. “But I want more.”
“I know. Me too.”
“He’s already going to be pissed, right?”
“Yeah,” said Clint.
“Well, let’s just do the rest of it, and I’ll pay him back.”
“I don’t know,” said Clint. “He’s going to be really mad.”
The door opened. “Mad about what?”
I jumped to my feet. “Rough Hands?”
Rough Hands looked at me. “Leigh? What are you doing here?”
“What did you call him?” said Clint.
“This is that bitch I was telling you about,” said Rough Hands, pointing at me. “She kicked me out at the ass crack of dawn.”
“Whatever,” I said. “It was like 9:30.”
“He’s my roommate,” said Clint. “His name’s Rusty. But I guess you guys already met, huh?”
Rusty seemed to register what Clint was holding for the first time. “Dude. Is that my stash?”
Clint set it down on the coffee table in front of the couch. “Look, Rusty, I’m really sorry and—”
“It is, isn’t it?” Rusty balled his hands into fists.
I got between